I am working on a fantasy story, and setting it in my own world, taking the time to create a whole new landscape, and I also wanted to avoid the stereotypical races such as elves, and dwarves. Since the story of them that are commonly used (by JRR Tolkien) are based off of Norse Mythology, I wanted to look into some mythology of my own. I've been leaning towards Irish, Welsh, Scottish and other British Isles Mythology.
So far I have the Sidhe:
Like traditional elves, but they also take on a more fairy role. In traditional mythology, they live under the mounds and they were given offerings. (Also called the fair folk).
This one I like, but I don't know where to go with psychical appearance to make them look different from humans without doing the pointed ears and making them too much like elves. And I don't want to play up the faery part and give them wings.
The other races:
I can't find anything really in the mythology that I want to use. A lot of little people, but while I may use that, I don't want that to be a main race.
I DO, however, want to make a race that are akin to
Tieflings of 3.5 ed D&D (horns and a tail, but not like
4ed Tieflings. So, I want them to look more like elves, but with horns and a tail.
I've no idea what to call them, and I can't really find anything similar in mythology. I may just make a new name entirely and not base it off of an actual mythological race.
So, I'm wondering, with the names like Sidhe and the other Odd sounding names (The welsh name for Sidhe is Tylwyth Teg), are they too odd sounding?
Also, how different do I want to make these new races from their "traditional" fantasy mythology? Should I completely ignore those races, or maybe add one?
Any other advice for creating fantasy races?
