*walks in panting and sweating* Well, it has been a tiring process, but at last I have finished my system for fractalling races. It involved much blood sweat and tears, but now it is finished! Now if you don't know what fractalling is, then check out Jay's post explaining it. The goal of this to help you take a deep look at your fantasy races beyond their looks and special gimmicksspecial powers, abilities, etc.. I borrowed the format for this system from the 3Literati's DCFS, so thanks to them for that!For those who don't know, the 3Literati are what Sir Emeth Mimetes, Tsharaf Chahsid Mimetes, and Lady Rwebhu Kidh call themselves. Anywho, I don't claim that this will be as nearly mind-blowingly awesome as their system for Characters, but I think it could be useful. What I like most about this system is that it's versatile enough to be used for creating new races as well as for developing races that you've had for awhile. I will here add the disclaimer that much of what is covered here will never and probably should never make it into your writing, it's simply to help you gain a deeper understanding of the races in your world, and thus hopefully to gain a deeper understanding of your characters.

• "Why" Stage
  This is where you look at why God (by whatever name your world knows him) created your race. Have fun and explore what His designs and purposes for your race were prior to their Fall. My inspiration for this step came largely from Genesis chapters 1 and 2, where we get a brief but meaningful glimpse at what our Race was made to be.
  For instance, from there we get God's design of Man in His own likeness:
  Gen. 1:27 wrote:
  So God created man in his own image,
      in the image of God he created him;
      male and female he created them.
  
  We also see the mission he Gave mankind when he created us:
  
  Gen. 1:28 wrote:
  God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
  
  We also see God equipping mankind with what we would need:
  
  Gen. 1:29-30 wrote:
  Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food. ” And it was so.
  So with that inspiration, I want you to look at your Race and their created design and reason for being in your world.
  
  • What specific attributes of God was your Race designed to uniquely reflect and how? This doesn't refer to their physical design, we'll get to that step later. I understand that this can be a tricky question to play with. I mean, while there are a few easily agreed upon points as to what it means for mankind to be created in the Image of God, I doubt we'll ever fully understand it before Christ returns. But what is it about God that your race reflects differently from any other race (including our own)?
  • What was God's original purpose for this race? What role were they meant to play in the world? As we saw in the verses quoted above, our own human race was originally meant to rule over the earth and all living things in it, under the supreme reign of God. So what was it your race was made to do?
  • What was God's original plan for your race's relationships with the other races in your world? Now unfortunately, Genesis doesn't give us an example for this one, so you get to play it by ear and have fun. Now there obviously are some basic biblical principles that will help provide guidance; for instance, I'm pretty sure God would not create an unfallen race with the plan of them mistreating or enslaving another race. This step is one of those will-never-make-it-into-your-books parts, so don't sweat too much about getting it down flawlessly. But it can be helpful for future steps to envision what your races' interactions would be like in a perfect world.
  • What special traits (physical or cobhaic) did God give your race to aid it in fulfilling His plans for it? Here I have to caveat and point out how the ingenious design of animals hint that God equipped them before the Fall with traits that he knew would help them survive after the Fall that He already knew would happen. So, while I don't think we should take that as a free-pass to say, "Oh, God gave my race this impressive power to fight evil with because He knew that evil was coming when He made them," I think you do have some creative license here. But rather than focusing too much on that, try and think about the purposes you've developed above and find traits that flow from those purposes. And this still isn't where you go into all out physical description yet.
• "What" Stage
  Having looked closely at what God made your race for, we now come to the depressing part, where we see what your race became after the Fall. Now a quick point of clarification, this is coming from the premise that in your world, each race had a specific Fall in which it intentionally deviated from God's plans. I mean, man sinned and it had consequences for Man, so no surprise that my inspiration for this step is coming largely from Genesis 3. However, if like in L. B. Graham's Binding of the Blade series, you have one race that Falls and in so doing ushers evil into the world, this stage will go great for the race that fell, but will need to be adjusted slightly for the other races. The reason I say this is this: in Gen. 3 we see God both punishing Adam and Eve for their sin, as well as announcing the consequences of their sins. If one race single-handedly brings sin into the world, then it would follow that they would receive punishment while the other races receive consequences. Of course, that depends on the circumstances, some. I have to say, that depending on your personality, this might be a stage that you want to skip or pray heavily through, because a look at how the Fall affected your race, by its very nature will likely cause you to reflect on all the grievous symptoms of our own Fallen race and that can be downright depressing if you're not careful. But anyway, the main question of this step is, "How is your race in its Fallen state different from its originally created state?". To help explore that question, I have more questions!
  
  • What circumstances/actions led to the Fall of your race? Did the First Couple of the race directly violate a command from God like Adam and Eve? Or did a member of prior race usher sin into the world for all the world? Or did the race as a whole violate God's commands? Those are just some possible options, and you don't have to be too specific with this if you don't want to. But the nature of the Fall has a direct impact on its results.
  • If applicable, what was God's punishment for this race's initial disobedience? Obviously, if the Fall was not ushered in by members of your race, it's unlikely that God would punish the race directly. Not to say they wouldn't be impacted by the Fall, but the impact would be consequences instead of the direct actions of God.
  • What physical effects did the Fall have on your race? I mean, death and decay are the obvious ones for mankind and most races, but were there any unique effects on your race's bodies?
  • What effects did the Fall have on interpersonal relationships within your race? For instance, in Genesis 3 we see where God announces, that as a consequence of their sin, Adam and Eve's (and by extension all men and women's) relationship would be corrupted and distorted from it's originally planned state. So are there any unique effects that the Fall had on how the members of your race relate to one another?
  • What emotional/"psychological" effects did the Fall have on your race? For those with psychological leanings, who like to analyze what makes people tick, this may be a fun area for exploration, but it's not a crucial step to go into a lot of details about.
  • Aside from the obvious separation from God and spiritual deadness and so on, are there any spiritual effects of the Fall unique to your race? In a related manner, how did the Fall impact the "likeness of God" that your race was made in.
  • What cobhaic effects did the Fall have on your race? If your race had any special abilities unique to them apart from the other races (or simply unique from our race), how were these impacted by the Fall? Or from another angle, were there any effect of the Fall on your race (or your world for that matter) that would be physically/scientifically impossible in our world?
  • How did the Fall affect the way your race relates to the other races of your world? Again, not much imagination required from this one, but if you look back to the first stage and how God originally intended for the races to get along, how did the Fall interrupt those plans?
  • How did the Fall affect your race's relationship with the rest of creation? In Genesis 3 we see God curse the ground so that Adam (and all mankind) would now have to work for their food. But in Genesis 9 when God gives man permission to eat meat, we see a further rend in mankind's relationship with creation as God places a fear of man in the hearts of the animals. So were there any specific/unique effects of the Fall on the way your race lives with the created world? This step may overlap some with the cobhaic effects.
• "Who" Stage
  This stage looks at who your race is to itself. Confused? I'll reword, this stage looks at the communal identity of your race. I strongly suggest you augment this stage by adapting the questions from the "who," "why," and "if" stages of the DCFS. It will make this a much longer process than it already is, but it will also add a lot of depth to your race. In fact, I can comfortably suggest that if nothing else, you scrap my system or simply apply this stage my system and those three stages of the DCFS to your race. That in itself will give you a pretty well-developed race. The basic question for this phase is: Who do the members of your Race say they are? If your race is a spread out one (like Caucasians) with a large diversity of cultures and several independent societies/civilizations, then you will probably want to account for that when going through this stage, because it will probably differ per culture. In fact, that pretty much goes for the next couple of stages as well. If however, in typical fantasy manner, your races are all single societies, then you've got nothing to worry about.
  
  • Who does your race trace its lineage back to? If there was one original couple created, does your race remember them or does it have a mythological lineage in place? Who does your race trace the lineage of the other races back to?
  • Who are the heroes of your race's history and legends? Who are the villains?
  • Who fill the upper strata of your race? Who is looked up to/admired? Who is revered and honored? Who is envied? Who do members of your race aspire to be like? Are there other races that members of your race esteem very highly?
  • Who fill the lower strata of your race? Who is devalued and looked down upon? Who is hated and despised? Who is feared and mistrusted? Who is overlooked and ignored? Are there any other races that members of your races disdain or reject?
  • Who does your race look to for protection? For provision (aka food, clothing, shelter)?
• "When" Stage
  This is the part of the show where Larry comes out and sings a silly song. Er…I mean, this is where you start outlining a very basic life-chronology for your race. Originally this was going to be where you drafted the history of your race, but I decided that this would be more helpful. Because rites-of-passage and milestones in life vary per culture, I tried to keep this focused on the biological chronology that would be the same for members of this race, regardless of culture.
  
  • How long do pregnancies typically last for your race?
  • When do members of your race reach physical maturity (i.e. - adult size, strength, and fertility)? Is this accompanied by a period of rapidly increased physical development similar to our puberty? Do males and females of your race physically mature at different rates in any areas?
  • When do members of your race reach intellectual/cognitive maturity? When do they mature emotionally? Does this rate differ between males and females of your race?
  • At what age are members of your race generally viewed as adults by the rest of the community? What rites-of-passage mark this transition? This one will vary some per cultural group, so keep that in mind for diverse/wide-spread races.
  • When are the common childbearing years for the men and women of your race? What I mean is this, if a woman had a child at age eighty-three, would that shock people or is that common place?
  • When do members of your race typically start showing signs of aging? What age is considered "old" by your race?
  • What is the average lifespan for your race?
• "Where" Stage
  Now we're going to look at where your race fits in the big picture of your world. I know a lot of us when we make a race paint a little section on our maps for the race to inhabit, but in this step we're going to go out beyond its geographical location (though that will certainly be taken into account) and look at the puzzle of your world and how this race fits in it. The most efficient way to do that seemed to be to subdivide this step into three perspectives: the Geographical perspective and the Social perspective and the Narrative perspective.
  
  • Geographical Perspective
    
    • Where was your race created? Did God place the first members of your race in a specific place after creating them like he did with Adam and Eve? Was there a purpose behind where he made/placed them?
    • Over the course of your world's history, how far did your race spread out in your world? What were the contributing forces that facilitated (or hindered) your race's spreading out? Nomad migration? Captivity and slave trade? Military expansion? Fleeing war/political unrest/natural disaster/hardships?
    • Where does your race have the strongest presence in your world? Think mainly population on this one, we'll get to political/economic presence in the next phase. Where does your race have most of its people? Where has your race thrived?
    • What climate/region has most impacted your race? We'll expand on this in the "How" stage. This is just to get you started thinking about it.
    • What natural forces/geographical features have had the most impact on your race staying or moving?
    • How many geographically separate cultural identities are there within your race? For instance, in our world Black is a race, but there are a plethora of distinct cultural groups within that race that identify themselves as separate from other groups within the same race and physically live apart. And then there are tribal cultures which share cultural identity but have separate tribes that live apart from one another. So how many distinct societies are there within your race and how many geographically separate societies are there? Are there any at all?
    • What impact has your race had on the environment in all the places that it is found? What naturally occurring plants have been domesticated by your race? What animals have been tamed and bred by your race? Remember if your race is spread out or scattered in several places, different societies would have had different effects on their different environments.
    • Where does your race have little or no presence? Are there any regions or parts of your world where your race has never been to? Where has your race not thrived or maybe even died out or been wiped out?
  • Social Perspective
    
    • Which races has your race had the most interaction with historically?
    • Which races does your race have the most interaction with currently?
    • What role has your race played in the history of the world?
    • How is your race viewed/treated by the other races in your world? How is this influenced by history?
    • How does your race view the other races around it?
  • Narrative Perspective
    
    • What role does your race play in the overall scheme of the world during the course of your story?
    • What is the status of your race at the time that your story begins?
• "How" Stage
  At long last we now come to the part that most people like to start with. This stage looks at how your race looks. Originally this stage was going to also look at how your race acts/lives, but that falls under the umbrella of culture, which is a horse of a different color entirely. One of these days, I hope to get around to making a system for fractalling cultures/societies, but until then yall are on your own. Now these questions are formulated with humanoid-ish races in mind, but they can easily be applied to non-humanoid races.
  
  • Remember the first stage we went through. Keeping in mind what God made your race for, what kind of body did He give it?
  • What is the typical skeletal shape of your race? Tall or short? Broad-framed or narrow-framed? How many limbs does your race have?
  • What is the typical muscular make-up of your race? Wiry or bulging muscles? More upper-body strength than lower body strength or vice versa? Which muscles are made for strength and which are made for endurance?
  • What is the typical cardio-vascular condition of your race? Is your race made for endurance or for shorter bursts of intense force?
  • What senses does your race rely primarily on? Do they have any senses that other races (including ours) do not? Are there any of their senses which surpass the same senses of other races (i.e. keener vision, better sense of smell, etc.)? Which parts of your race's body is the anchor-point for which sense (i.e. eyes for sight, ears for hearing, etc.)? How do the facial features of your race reflect their sensory mix?
  • What are your race's distinguishing facial features? Jaw line? Cheek-bones? Eye color/shape/number? Size/shape of noses? Teeth? Ear size/shape?
  • What is your race's typical skin color range? How oily/dry is your race's skin generally? How rough/smooth?
  • What about body hair? How much body hair does your race typically have? What color is it usually? What texture is it? Where is it more densely concentrated? How does this differ between males and females?
  • Does your race have fur covering their bodies? If so, what color? Does it shed a lot? Is it thick or thin? Coarse or soft? Flat or shiny?
  • How does your race's hair behave? Does it grow quickly or slowly? Is it naturally coarse or smooth? Thick or thin? Straight? Curly? Wavy? Kinky/nappy? What color (s)? Does the men's hair of your race behave differently than the women's hair? When you start working with culture, then you'll ask about actual hairstyles.
  • How does your race physically express emotions?
  • Do the other races of your world typically see your race as fair or foul?

So there you have it, Seer's monstrosity of a Race Fractalling System. The sad part is that I could've actually gone into further detail if I'd had the patience; but I've been working on this for about a week now, and I am honestly just kinda sick of it. I may come back to it and add to it someday, but nowhere in the near future. Now I know that there are many of you who have probably wanted to run and hide from this big old scary thing, and many probably have. However, fear not, for I will very soon be posting the condensed version As for those who've made it to this far to the end: congrats! Feel free to use as much or little of this system as is helpful to you. I have just developed this and so as of yet have not run any race all the way through this. So I don't even know if it's possible Hope it's helpful!

If any of yall with editing powers find typos in this, please feel free to fix them. I'm honestly too burned out on it to give it my usual read over

I just made your quotes work. I've read the first part and I'm so excited, Seer! I'm going to use this on my world building, it's going to be so helpful! I'm going to read the rest in a minute. It's going to be so useful, thank you so much for writing it all up; it must have taken you a good while to format and write up all that!

This...I feel like I've been waiting for this...I have 5 races I need to develop, and I hope to make one or two up. *rubs hands together* This is going to really help with that.

I didn't have time to read through it all yet, but I hope to put my fantasy races through this as soon as I can (it'll likely offset my to-do lists some)...and even a few factions within races (I'm thinking especially of the Ranger and Lycanite factions).
Thank you very much, Seer, for taking the time, effort, blood, sweat and tears to make this! *applauds*

Well, I just skimmed it for now, but that looks epic, Seer. It should definitely be helpful for people who are working on their races.

**grins evilly** Now I can finally develop my races more!

That looks amazing!

**bookmarks**

This is beyond awesome, Seer.

I am so using this next chance I get.

I do not think it was a monstrosity at all.

I just took my Vadrite Human race through this, and I must say it has helped me a lot(even though I did a poor job of answering most of the questions. Imagine how much better it'd be if I answered them better!). I really appreciate you taking the time to put this together!
I also was able to help edit a bit as I went through and had to read each part carefully.
Anyway, I wanted to let thank you and let you know that this is indeed a helpful thing, and not a monstrosity at all.

God bless.

This is exactly what I have been needing. Thank you, Seer!

Yes, after reading all three of your race posts, Jem, I am determined to have you write a blog series on this topic, relying heavily on what you have already written.

::Bookmarking this page to read at a better place and time:: Looks extremely useful and interesting!

^Agreed. I'll definitely need to use this.

So, I actually started trying to use this on some of my own races and discovered some flaws in the system that I'll need to go back and fix eventually.

1. The system assumes that the author/worldbuilder has developed the Creation & Fall of the world. One problem, not all Christian fantasy writers (let alone fantasy writers in general) develop those parts of their world's history. And though some around here might disagree with me, I don't think you necessarily have to specifically develop them as long as you understand that your world was created and is Fallen. This got a lot of thoughts going in my head about the Fall, but I'll save that for another thread.
2. The system assumes that all Races were created before the Fall. I actually have a couple of races that come into one of my worlds long after Sin has entered the picture. So, that makes the first two stages a little tricky to work with.
3. Assumes that each Race has a designed purpose that is fundamentally unique from that of the other races. That need not be the case. It could just as easily be that God created all your races and told them all the whole "be fruitful and multiply and rule over all the earth" speech that he gave Adam and Eve. Now of course, the fact that he created different races would indicate that he had unique design for how each race carried out that common mandate, but it kinda shoots the main premise of the first stage in the foot.
4. And this is the biggest one, the system as a whole places more emphasis on the theoretical aspects of your races than it does on the practical development. Eventually, I want to go back and rework it from a more practical angle, but I'll have to finish some other things first.

Okay. I can wait.

Do you think it could be translated into use for sci-fi races?

You might be waiting a month or more....not sure...
It could easily be applied to Sci-fi races. Once I rework it, I'll post it over on HWSF too

Excellent.

All right. I can wait too, since it's helping me as it is...I'll just do it again/redo the parts that are changed when it's finished.

Indeed. I have several sci-fi races that need work, including one I've not mentioned anywhere else until this post.

I went back and added a question to the beginning of the "What" Stage.