#primafolk

[flavoracle]

🎂 How "alien" are your non-human species in your fantasy world? I get bored by how many fantasy races are just humans with one thing different or humans but with a stereotype broadly applied.

The first thing I should point out is that humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, and goblins are all the same species on Reulla (and that species is called “Primafolk.”) There physical and cultural differences between the variants of primafolk, but they’re actually a lot more similar than many of them are willing to admit.

Primafolk who isolate themselves to socialize with only their own variant tend to have much more narrow views of the world. Primafolk children who have a more than one variant in their family tree tend to have fewer physical weaknesses than children of only a single variant.

Beyond the primafolk, there are LOTS of other species of people. Way more than I could list here. There are minotaurs, harpies, naiads, dryads, djinn, ogres, satyrs, merfolk, treefolk, imps, giants, sphinxes, centaurs, ifrit, and more. And all of them are totally different species from the primafolk.

[flavoracle]

Primafolk

In the fantasy world where my @enemiesofcreed series takes place, humans, goblins, elves, orcs, and dwarves are all variants of the same species. This means that even though they present different physical traits from each other, they’re all capable of interbreeding and producing viable offspring that would also be able to reproduce.

And that’s definitely the way I wanted it, but it also left me with a bit of a challenge: What do I call the species?

When I asked other people for ideas on this, the most common suggestion was to call them “humanoid.” But here’s the thing, aside from the word “humanoid” sounding so science-fictiony, I REALLY didn’t like the idea of humans being considered the “default” or “normal” ones, and the others were all “exotic” or “minorities.” (Especially since I feel like that just reinforces the way that us white people are taught to view ourselves as the default of what “people” look like.)

The solution I eventually came to was referring to the species as “Primafolk.” This term is mostly used by people in that world who aren’t primafolk (like satyrs, centaurs, merfolk, minotaurs, fairies, etc.) Primafolk themselves don’t often use the term to refer to themselves, choosing instead to specify whichever variant they’re talking about, rarely referring to all of them as a species.

The word “primafolk” was inspired by the modern fantasy names of mythical people like “merfolk” or “treefolk” (popularized by creature types in the game Magic: the Gathering.) Primafolk generally believe the term refers to the idea that they were the first people (or “prime folk”) of that world. Most non-primafolk people typically assume that it’s just a reference to them being an intelligent species of primates (or “primate folk.”)

I’m quite happy with this solution to the challenge, but I would also be very interested to know what the rest of you think about it. How does the term make you feel? Do you think it’s unnecessary? Would you suggest something else?

(All art featured in this post was created by @giant-bean and commissioned by @flavoracle. Please do not use without permission and/or attribution.)