In my idea thread I had a short discussion with Steerpike on what "alien minds"/"non-human thought processes" meant. That brings back one of the issues I've always asked about the assigning of racial/species personalities: why humans either aren't assigned one or are assigned the "adaptable/variable" label.
I tend to see humans as a combination of the "stubbornly holding on to old ways" and the "destructively chaotic barbarians" labels. The differences between different human cultures is a lot smaller than it looks and doesn't outshine what other fictional races/species get assigned. The truly "adaptable" individuals are no more prevalent.
What do others of you think? What label do you assign humans and why? (Assuming that you have sentient races other than humans, even if they aren't PC races, and that you assign personalities based on race/species.)
I went the traditional 'adaptable' route, but also gave them 'capitalist bastards.'
I think that the prevalence of the adaptable personality type is the unspoken acknowledgment that people are diverse. Hypocritically, they don't afford the other races the same assumption despite them being rubber forehead aliens, and instead make them a monolithic, homogenous culture.
Quote from: SilvercatMoonpawIn my idea thread I had a short discussion with Steerpike on what "alien minds"/"non-human thought processes" meant. That brings back one of the issues I've always asked about the assigning of racial/species personalities: why humans either aren't assigned one or are assigned the "adaptable/variable" label.
Because your audience is presumably human, they shouldn't need any label. The adaptable label is kind of a cop-out from designers feeling like the need to define something that shouldn't need defining (or can't be).
If you audience is human, they form the base point. Any descriptive label functions via comparison. A label applied to all of humanity can naturally be objected to, unless you have some other base point for comparison, or the label is broad as to be descriptively meaningless.
QuoteWhat label do you assign humans and why? (Assuming that you have sentient races other than humans, even if they aren't PC races, and that you assign personalities based on race/species.)
No label to the species in general. Cultures get description though.
My games are mostly human-centric, so the notion of having to characterize them doesn't arise often.
But not ALL my games are like that, and when they do involve multiple species, I tend to go with a semi sci-fi approach to humans as the sly, gregarious, conniving political schemers/alliance builders.
I can hear my players objecting now: "But EVERYONE in your game is a sly, conniving political schemer...."
Which is unfair. The Dwarv... uh, the Elv... well, the Orcs are kind of.... hmmm. Halflings. Never had a scheming Half... well, trolls.
Trolls aren't scheming in my worlds.
Usually.
But there's different TYPES of scheming. The humans are more diplomatic and subtle about things.
Quote from: PhoenixIf you audience is human, they form the base point. Any descriptive label functions via comparison. A label applied to all of humanity can naturally be objected to, unless you have some other base point for comparison, or the label is broad as to be descriptively meaningless.
I don't see how this applies specially to humans; I would say a label applied across any race could be objected to, unless it's so broad as to be meaningless. I agree there's some sense in taking humans as the default because that's what we all are, but there is a lot of variation in human personalities and dispositions to the point that it's difficult to assume anything is standard. I'd assume the same would apply to other sentient species.
I tend to, when I even have other races (Crystalstar doesn't, really), to not try to assign any specific personality traits to them. Instead, the differences will be based largely on different physical appearances, abilities, and so on. I think personality differences could instead arise coming from different cultures-- which may inspire beliefs and personality differences more readily than one's race.
Quote from: Stargate525I think that the prevalence of the adaptable personality type is the unspoken acknowledgment that people are diverse. Hypocritically, they don't afford the other races the same assumption despite them being rubber forehead aliens, and instead make them a monolithic, homogenous culture.
Quote from: sparkletwist'¦'¦I would say a label applied across any race could be objected to, unless it's so broad as to be meaningless. I agree there's some sense in taking humans as the default because that's what we all are, but there is a lot of variation in human personalities and dispositions to the point that it's difficult to assume anything is standard. I'd assume the same would apply to other sentient species.
I agree with these two points immensely. I rather assume that anything that's gotten to a level comparable to humans has their same adaptability, anything else just wouldn't be able to compete in evolutionary terms. Possibly some variability between races/species based on inherent traits, but I would still assume that the result would vary enough between individuals that I'd be very careful or just not assign anything.
(I could see a rare race that survived in an isolated, unchanging region might not need the same flexibility, but those kinds of creatures are generally from the "monsters/plot-device" section and not the "protagonist" section. Same situation with a race that has been created whole-cloth recently or was programmed.)
Quote from: sparkletwistQuote from: PhoenixIf you audience is human, they form the base point. Any descriptive label functions via comparison. A label applied to all of humanity can naturally be objected to, unless you have some other base point for comparison, or the label is broad as to be descriptively meaningless.
I don't see how this applies specially to humans; I would say a label applied across any race could be objected to, unless it's so broad as to be meaningless. I agree there's some sense in taking humans as the default because that's what we all are, but there is a lot of variation in human personalities and dispositions to the point that it's difficult to assume anything is standard. I'd assume the same would apply to other sentient species.
I tend to, when I even have other races (Crystalstar doesn't, really), to not try to assign any specific personality traits to them. Instead, the differences will be based largely on different physical appearances, abilities, and so on. I think personality differences could instead arise coming from different cultures-- which may inspire beliefs and personality differences more readily than one's race.
I don't disagree (and that's what I meant by culture). But I think, if the PHB says are intensely loyal to friends, we (as human readers) assume that means most elves are as loyal as the more loyal people we've seen.
Any other use of the term becomes difficult to fathom. If I were to say humans are loyal, you would almost inherently have to think of something as a basis for comparison. Dogs perhaps? Are humans more or less loyal than dogs, in general?
By assuming a baseline of humanity, we can at least consider a discussion about the general nature of a race. But I think it important to mention that in most early cases where the trend of racial personality traits evolved, exotic races like elves only had one culture, because they had only one or a few lands. A dominant species with different cultures would not likely have any monolithic personality, except those which might be chocked up to evolution.
I was thinking abuot this too, and imagining very non-human races. To a hive-mind/collectivist race where all "individuals" are part of a super-organism, human "traits" would include things like a discernable sense of self and individuality. To a race of asexual beings who reproduce by fission, human traits would include an apparent obsession with sexual reproduction and mate selection. To a race of shapeshifting, amorphous plasm-folk, human traits would include a peculiar singularity/fixity of form. To a race of telepaths and natural psychics, human traits would include a startling inability to control one's surroundings through mental projections. To a race of super-intelligent cetaceans, human traits would include a bizarre reliance on tools. And living above water (weird!). To a race of sentient machines, human traits would include descendence through the imperfect process of evolution, rather than design.
Those actually sound like good races for a sci-fi campaign... *starts scribbling*
Maybe I should merge the psychics and the super-intelilgent dolphins... hmn...
That's it. The main villain of my next campaign is going to be an irredeemably evil psychic dolphin.
You're a genius.
Quote from: SteerpikeTo a hive-mind/collectivist race where all "individuals" are part of a super-organism, human "traits" would include things like a discernable sense of self and individuality. To a race of asexual beings who reproduce by fission, human traits would include an apparent obsession with sexual reproduction and mate selection.
Why are these traits exclusive to the humans?
The hive-mind would have "a discernable sense of self and individuality" on its own scale. It wouldn't see humans as having more of that, it would see them as a more limited form of its own type of organism. Humans wouldn't be "other", just "disabled". Odd-seeming, possibly, but not necessarily completely different.
The fissionists wouldn't understand what sexual reproduction and mate selection are unless explained, as if you don't know what you're looking for it just looks like humans pair up with a dimorphic partner (I'm assuming we're talking about the viable pairing here). Really, then, how much odder would it be to them than having a friend you
really like to spend time with?
I just wanted to point those two out as examples where human perception may color a supposedly objective analysis with a bias towards the human view. The rest of your examples were fine as the alien species would have the basic frame of reference in which to know that the human behavior
is different.
None of the traits would be 100% essential to humans. The approach I'm suggesting is to make the other races sufficiently different from humans in very fundamental ways in order to better differentiate the species, rather than resorting to the "varied" approach.
[blockquote=Silvercat Moonpaw]The fissionists wouldn't understand what sexual reproduction and mate selection are unless explained, as if you don't know what you're looking for it just looks like humans pair up with a dimorphic partner (I'm assuming we're talking about the viable pairing here). Really, then, how much odder would it be to them than having a friend you really like to spend time with?[/blockquote]I disagree. I think that sexual tensions, the entire romantic human culture, and gender relations are so embedded into human beings that the fissionists, while quite capable of understanding human sexual reproduction on an academic level, would have a totally different experience. Even totally platonic human friendships, or friendships between two heterosexual individuals of the same sex, often have erotic undertones (or overtones), acknowledged or not. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that no human/human relationship is wholly bereft of a sexual dimension, even if that dimension is simply a sexual aversion/taboo. The fissionists would have no way of subjectively experiencing human sexual desire on anything but the most intellectual level. This would make humans pretty distinct to the fissionists; it might not be an ability unique to humans, obviously, but every species is going to tend to lump other species together under the general category of "aliens/not us."
The group-mind one is perhaps more debatable. I still think that the psyche of a group mind would be pretty radically different than that of an individual mind; what I'm envisioning isn't necessarily one intelligence controlling a lot of different bodies, so much as a series of interlinked "individuals" connected through a sort of hyper-intimate mind-meld such that the individual and the group are much, much less distinguished than in human societies. Difficult to articulate exactly how that would work - I'm thinking of a George RR Martin story for the inspiration, where the "afterlife" of a certain race is to join this sort of vast collective consciousness, not a singular consciousness but a group one, that somehow avoids fragmentation and fracture by way of the intense intimacy of connection.
Other examples of what I think Steerpike is talking about with respect to the group-mind would be something like the Ghost Brigades from the Scalzi universe... or those creepy septuplets, the Series 7 warriors from the Dark Angel TV series. Maybe the Havenite intelligences from the Reality Dysfunction series by Peter Hamilton, too.
Well part of my ignorance is that I've never seen a hive-mind portrayed well enough that I'd notice the distinction. It still seems slightly illogical to me, though, that a creature that completely lacks a trait would understand enough to know it's odd when encountered.
Quote from: PhoenixI think it important to mention that in most early cases where the trend of racial personality traits evolved, exotic races like elves only had one culture, because they had only one or a few lands. A dominant species with different cultures would not likely have any monolithic personality, except those which might be chocked up to evolution.
Yes, I agree, and I've made this observation in the past, too; however, something like this is very setting-specific. If you have a setting where humans are the exotic/rare race, the same thing could be said about humans.
One thing I think, though, is that some of this racial stuff can help give a setting some depth by giving a basis for some of the stereotypes that the people who actually live there would hold. Of course, not every member of a race would match the stereotype, but stereotypes generally have at least some basis in truth. ;)
[blockquote=Silvercat Moonpaw]It still seems slightly illogical to me, though, that a creature that completely lacks a trait would understand enough to know it's odd when encountered.[/blockquote]I don't think I understand this sentence properly.
As for an effective hive-mind, how about the borg, as originally presented (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Cifez_UY_M&feature=related), without all that queen/leader stuff? Back when they were genuinely a collective, without any hierarchized command structure, where they functioned totally holistically, not as one organism but simultaneously as a collective?
To reiterate my basic point (which may have been lost), I think that one of the best approaches to labelling or differentiating humans from the other races is to make the other races so different than the humans that you avoid the usual cliches. The dwarven, elven, gnomish, halfling etc cultures of standard Tolkienian/Gygaxian fantasy are, at the end of the day, little different than mildly caricatured human cultures; as such the humans, who inevitably are portrayed as culturally diverse, seem to lack a niche.
My approach would be to make the humans the "sexually reproducing individual species without psychic powers who were designed by evolution," as opposed to a whole series of other races who explicitly lack some of those descriptors (substituting their own). I don't think it's fair to label humans as stubborn traditionialists or chaotic barbarians because I think that lots of humans transgress these labels so regularly as to make them inadequate: lots of humans despise traditions, and I'd like to think that a lot of us can transcend barbarism (as usually defined) in lieu of a more civilized state.
Basically my point is that to make humans unique, make the differences between races BIGGER. Otherwise, the differences are so small that the creator is forced to apply labels to humanity that don't really adequately encompass or describe it.
Honestly I feel like Steerpike's point is the most viable one I've heard thus far. Writing my races, I can't differentiate my other races very well. I worked hard to make all of my races with only slight mental differences from humans; thus, writing the human personality traits is impossible.
Something I considered (similar to Phoenix, but less extreme) was writing my entire setting from the standpoint of "this is a gnomish roleplaying game found on our world about theirs." Thus, the gnomes are the adaptable, standard race, and all of the other races have unique traits (including the human's unnatural height, unique range of eye colors, and frighteningly strong bodies. Ironically, even from a gnome's point of view, humans are still kind of boring.
Maybe if I picked a really out there race... illithids! There we go, illithids are writing the book. Suddenly humans are the tentacle-less, hairless monkeys with tasty brains. Such traits include "tasty brains," "somewhat stupid (-8 intellect)," "afraid of the dark," and "annoyingly heroic." Yes, I think this will be how I present humans in the future.
[blockquote=Jharviss]Maybe if I picked a really out there race... illithids! There we go, illithids are writing the book. Suddenly humans are the tentacle-less, hairless monkeys with tasty brains. Such traits include "tasty brains," "somewhat stupid (-8 intellect)," "afraid of the dark," and "annoyingly heroic." Yes, I think this will be how I present humans in the future.[/blockquote]This reminds me of a bit from China Mieville's Perdido Street Station, where a character notes that to a khepri - a crimson-skinned race of humanoid females with scarab beetles for heads (the males are just beetles) - humans are khepri with the heads of hairless baboons.
Well it seems like from Steerpike's perspective that if a bunch of species are significantly different from one another to have different mindsets there's probably little point in giving them separate entries.
I actually did that once: rather than have all my humanoid forms be different species I lumped them together into one by saying their ancestral shapeshifter DNA mutated developing embryos to come out with new features or even in completely different forms from the parent.
Most of the best stuff has already been said here. I do cringe a little at some of the more negative portrayals that people have mentioned - it seems sometimes like fantasy authors/world-builders have a tendency to define us by our worst aspects. As funny as self-deprecating ethnic humor can be, sometimes it just comes off as strangely bitter and out of place.
A bit has been said about the importance of relative differences between species that come out in mutual perceptions. There is, however, an "authoritative voice" that the world-builder also possesses; it's one thing to say that a race is hated by all the other races, and another to also convey that they are, objectively, evil. Even if you want to try and remain "neutral" and define races by each other rather than by the author's fiat, you may be stymied simply by the fact that this is a game, with rules and mechanics, and eventually you'll have to objectively define those mechanics and concretely define each race (in terms of physical abilities and so on). It's not possible to eliminate your own voice entirely, and probably equally impossible to make yourself an entirely neutral observer. Surely you have opinions on your own work?
I think that we should be mindful of how those two voices go together. I've read campaigns where a species is defined one way by its peers, but it becomes clear that the author has their own opinions of them. This is not necessarily a bad thing - it allows you to create a race that is secretive or simply misunderstood. The author can let the reader in on facts that in-game members of other races would have no way of knowing. Still, it's possible to sabotage yourself with conflicting voices, or at least make things confusing to the readers/players. If you tell them it's evil, they'll likely see it as evil, and any efforts you made to have in-game NPCs inject some nuance into the situation may be for naught. They are, after all, just characters, and you're the goddamn author!
Just to throw out one idea that halfway worked for my endeavor -
When we created humans, we were looking specifically at what other races typically have that humans don't. In common fantasy, just about the only common trait is that humans are short-lived. That bites. Something else to realize is that most fantasy races have at least partially pointed ears. Dwarves and humans are the "round ears" in my fantasy setting, and all the other races are normal.
What I've done with Tephra is define them using a trait that does not change humans as they are but utilizes something that only exists in my setting - magic. Because magic does not exist, we as humans do not know how well we'd handle magic. In my setting we work under the assumption that humans are the most magically talented. This assumption doesn't change humans but gives humans definition other than being the "center" race.
It's a bend on the normal "adaptable" concept, but it's still works.
Find something in your setting that doesn't exist in the real world and say that humans do really well with it in your setting. OR find something that most of your other races share in common and define humans off of that (though avoid negatives - I don't want my character defined by the fact that he's shorter than lived everyone else). Maybe your humans are better at magic, but perhaps they're one of the strongest races, have the best hand-eye coordination, respond best in stressful situations, have a wider view of good and evil than other races (I like this one), are better at innovative buildings, enjoy the sunlight more (easy to do in fantasy settings where most races seem to live underground or under canopies), are the only race not affected by mutations, weather diseases better, or any list of a hundred things that you can give exclusively to humans.
You may surprise yourself.
Quote from: SteerpikeBasically my point is that to make humans unique, make the differences between races BIGGER.
I've wrestled with trying to make "truly alien" creatures, because to make something that doesn't think like a human, you have to think a little bit not-like-a-human yourself, which is difficult-- being a human, and all. ;)
Quote from: SteerpikeBasically my point is that to make humans unique, make the differences between races BIGGER.
This. However I say this applies to every non-human race, not just "truly alien" creatures. Why I prefer to avoid non-humans.
Quote from: LlumHowever I say this applies to every non-human race, not just "truly alien" creatures.
Unless you assume they're only non-human on the outside.
Quote from: LlumHowever I say this applies to every non-human race, not just "truly alien" creatures.
Then they aren't really that "non-human" are they? :P A fudge factor can let people get away with humanoid races (see, Elves/Orcs/etc...), we nearly all use it.
However if you have some sentient gelatinous cube race, GL convincing me they're only "non-human" on the outside, I've said it before, the way we think is directly tied to our physiology, so if you get too far away from a "humanoid" body-plan I don't think you could realistically have something that thinks like a human. This also applies to Hive Minds.
[blockquote=Llum]However if you have some sentient gelatinous cube race, GL convincing me they're only "non-human" on the outside, I've said it before, the way we think is directly tied to our physiology, so if you get too far away from a "humanoid" body-plan I don't think you could realistically have something that thinks like a human. This also applies to Hive Minds.[/blockquote]Llum, thank you! This is exactly what I wanted to express, in a much less convoluted way than I've been doing so.
Quote from: SilvercatMoonpawQuote from: LlumHowever I say this applies to every non-human race, not just "truly alien" creatures.
Unless you assume they're only non-human on the outside.
This works fine for characters that are just humans with pointy ears or green skin or whatever, and there's no real need to assign then any sort of a "racial personality"-- because they're just humans that look different. Their physiology is close enough to human that one would assume their way of thinking would also be very close, but:
Quote from: Llumif you get too far away from a "humanoid" body-plan I don't think you could realistically have something that thinks like a human.
Well one thing that's especially loathsome about the "adaptable/varied" label is when it's used in some kind of "humans are teh super-special-awesome" tale. Happens a bit too much in sci-fi, in my experience.
Generally, I assign cultural tendencies, traits and mindsets based on the historical experiences of that cultural group first. Most Omwo~ cultures are shaped by their lost status' or purposeful repudiation of same, Clan Kalil Humans are generally proud warriors and place a high value on organization due to their history of nation building to the south.
I don't purposely try to avoid the normal tropes, but I try to provide a sound historical background for everything. Biology does come into it as well, such as the female dwarven heightened sex urge being driven by their racial fertility issues.
My Bugbears (Gartier) are still my favorites, driven by history into a sour, hyper-intelligent sarcasm.
This should define my feelings on this in a nutshell.
[ic=Gartier, an example of history driving a cultural trait template]
The Gartier question is a very complicated one. Of all the Ogrillite families, the Gartier are the most difficult to grasp and the most tortured. When created in the beginning of the Age of Heroes by Anthraxus, they were bred to lead. For thousands of years, almost every humanoid tribal band has been either led by a bugbear or bugbears, or they were the brains behind it. When asked about their near worship of irony and sarcasm, they often reply with a variation of, "You spend hundreds of generations trying to tell every bloody goblin and gnoll which hand is for eating and which is for ass-wiping, and unsuccessfully mind you, you'd be a little jaded too." Strong, smart, and hardy, they were the perfect captains and generals for the other ogrillites... except they were too smart, and too clever, and for generations they looked in at the civilized world, and hated it for not being able to be part of it. Every Gartier for thousands of years has, internally and mainly subconsiously, despised themselves for being a barbarian and being outside civilization. The Gartier hatred of culture and civilization was not the Orcash or Ograk mindless hatred whipped by priests and zealots, it was the deeper mirror of hating what they could not have but knew they were worthy of.
So, to understand the civilized Gartier, on the surface all self-reliant and sarcastic, you have to take into account what has been passed on from parent to child for years. They have a mantra about how soft and unworthy the civilization of towns and cities is and also which they have preached to their near-idiot followers. Given that lengthy history and a scant 75 years, just over one lifetime, of being allowed to partake in this civilization, and stir in the very-prevalent racism and prejudice of beings generally weaker and stupider than yourselves and you can start to see their situation. Then add in all the tribal (uncivilized) Gartier sneering at you for 'going soft' and 'being a Hobyt-lover'...now maybe you can understand a tiny bit of the Gartier mentality. On a good day, they hate the rest of the world more than they hate themselves.
[/ic]
Quote from: SilvercatMoonpawWell part of my ignorance is that I've never seen a hive-mind portrayed well enough that I'd notice the distinction.
Have you read Ender's Game? The Buggers are, for me, a very well portrayed hive mind; they don't even realize humans are
sentient because we lack an overmind.
:offtopic:
Quote from: LlumI've said it before, the way we think is directly tied to our physiology, so if you get too far away from a "humanoid" body-plan I don't think you could realistically have something that thinks like a human.
The way we think is tied to our physiology? Great.
I guess I need to get in shape.
Quote from: JharvissThe way we think is tied to our physiology? Great.
I guess I need to get in shape.
Actually I had a psychiatrist tell me that by loosing weight I can improve how my brain uses insulin and thus it's overall function, at least in relation to my mood.
Without hijacking the thread with too much stuff from my setting, this has actually been something I have encountered while working on the physiology of my races. Way back in the original concepts of my setting, most of the races were just magically altered humans. Sometime between then (like 10 years ago) and now, I've changed that so now only 2 other races are related to humans, and they're only related to humans in that they are reflections of each other. But even those races will have different world views than humans.
One element of my setting mechanically is that I will have a distinction of race and culture. A human raised by humans is going to end up quite different than a human raised by dwarfs. But this will only change cultural traits, as some of our personality and outlook is going to be devised by our physiology. There have been some very good points made here, so I'll try to make some new ones.
Firstly, we humans are very visually oriented. Vision is our primary sense, so we put a lot of time and thought into our appearance. We make judgments based on appearances as well. In my setting, dwarfs have very poor vision and tend to use their sense of smell to identify individuals over vision. I haven't figured it all out yet, but I am sure that will change some aspects of their personalities (they won't have makeup and all that stuff, for one).
Compared to other animals, we have a rather long period of childhood and adolescence. We are sexually mature long before we are physically mature. Now, this is mostly a modern thing, but I think our outlook and personalities are somehow shaped by this 6-8 years of not entirely being an adult. That and the whole being entirely dependent on our parents for years thing when other animals are good to leave much earlier.
Humans are comparatively weak compared to other animals. I do not mean in physical strength, I mean our general lack of a dangerous lethal weapon as part of our bodies. This leads us to using weapons to fight, which drives much of our technological advancement. A race with claws or fire breath or what-have-you might have not come to this so quickly.
There is a study referred to as the "monkey sphere" (http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html), where they compared primate brain size to
the size of their packs/tribes/groups. Our number is 150; we are physiologically capable of perceiving about 150 other individuals as human beings with thoughts and feelings and lives, beyond that we begin to care less. Think about it: most people would feel bad stealing 5 bucks from their mom, but many would not feel half as bad taking an extra 20 bucks from a cashier who gave you incorrect change. So a vastly more intelligent and larger brained race might end up being far more egalitarian and socially minded than humans, because it would come naturally to them and not require the constant work that it takes for us humans to get along with each other.
Humans need to wear clothing to protect ourselves from the elements. In warm areas, this is less of a problem because humans tend to have darker skin and thus burn less readily in the sun and do not need much clothing except where modesty and displays count. In colder climates, though, clothing is a necessity. Combined with being visually oriented, this has an effect on our outlook. A race, or culture, that does not need clothing will likely prize tattoos and other types of markings.
Lastly, human females have a one month fertility cycle. This leads to us being very focused on sex, finding partners for sex, and protecting our partners from others. In my setting, my Tritons are a race of hominid amphibians; they do not have intercourse, but they do get a powerful urge to release their seed/eggs into water. Villages have communal pools where nurses work. There is no real concept of 'mother' and 'father' (those would would translate to purely scientific terms; there is no emotional or loyal bonds between parents and children). When a Triton grows up, they are taken as an apprentice by a master; their trainer is their parental figure in the human sense. Tritons have friends, but they have no reason to be possessive over them as humans do over their mates/spouses.
So ... yeah. Change up those things and you can create a still humanoid but different race. If you change them up enough, you could end up with something that has a very hard time relating to humans (a race of hive mind psychics would have a hard time viewing anything not of their hive mind as worth anything; they'd just be animals to them since they cannot hear them think).
Just thought it might interest those following this thread: I just added a race of creatures to Xell called the orchidfolk (link (http://www.thecbg.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?66961.0#post_68468)), who I flatter myself are a very different, inhuman race, though still a somewhat comprehensible one.