Races, Species, Creatures, Cultures

Like I have mentioned in other posts, one of the ideas I want to explore in my stories is how humans would react to other sentient species or races. I want to use familiar concepts for fantasy, so right now I don't have anything really new, but I don't know if they've all been together before. The working structure I have set up for the races are as follows.
Humans (Humans, dwarfs, centaurs, etcs) Norsh and Greek influence
Faery (Elves, fairies, nymphs, etc) Irish and Greek influence
Orcs (Orcs, goblins, ogres) European influence
Demons (Demons, devils, imps, etc) Christian influence
Undead (Skeletons, vampires, zombies, etc) European influence
Feral Creatures (Minotaurs, djinn, hydras, etc) Middle Eastern, Greek, and other influences
Looking over this, a lot does seem to come from Europe and especially Greek myth, partly because, as far as creating interesting creatures goes, they are some the richest, but other creatures from myths all over the world are welcome, and I am researching them. I just want to avoid creatures that are just big animals, like giant spiders, and too many half human half animal combinations, like centaurs, satyrs, dryads, etc. If there is something obvious that I am missing, please let me know in the comments.
As far as cultures go, I want to be much more diverse, taking from cultures all over the world and through history. For example, I would like to make some of the elven cultures mirroring principles of honor held in Japan, especially the before their integration into the modern world.
So many people think that their culture is the best and only one worth having, even though it is always changing through time and geography. Many conflicts in history have been with cultural clashes, everyone thinking their way of life was better. But if one journeys through different cultures, opening oneself up, they realize their way of life is but one in a buffett of many others. There are good and bad things in each culture, as well as good and bad people. We just have to get along, respecting differences.

Reblogged from http://sageeyesblog.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/races-species-creatures-cultures/

Fantasy Races

One of the themes in my books is racism, and so I wanted to have different races to explore that. How would humans act if confronted with another race or species that was as smart as they were. Science fiction sometimes deals with that, finding alien races, but fantasy does as well. There are the normal ones, like dwarves, elves, orcs, etc. Some authors, like Tolkien, have used these familiar races (or in his case, practically invented them), while others create their own races, often similar but with different names (trollocs as orcs from The Wheel of Time). Others just stay with humans and maybe some creatures (Song of Fire and Ice). I am writing thinking of using the familiar races and creatures, because they are familiar. I will add my own take on them, but right now, the names are the same. I felt that just changing the names wouldn't do much since people will think of them that way anyway. Anyone have any ideas on this? Comments? Should I have made some completely different races that don't look like humans at all? Would people be able to identify with them if I didn't? I feel like taking the Harry Potter approach, and using the familiar, although in a different way. But maybe someone can convince me to be completely original with this. Who knows?

Reblogged from http://sageeyesblog.wordpress.com/2012/12/30/fantasy-races/