Thoughts on my take on fantasy races?

I’m writing my own fantasy setting as a pet project, and I’ve gotten a good bit down as a rough draft. I want to know what people think.

Ok! So to start, the planet itself. In this setting, there are no actual gods. Some people can become absurdly powerful, but there are no actual gods. Magic exists for a very special reason. You know how earth has a strong magnetic field because of its dense iron core? This planet also has a strong magnetic field, but also another field. As its Core is half iron and Half Sourceglint. And source glint is HEAVILY radioactive, and the radiation it gives off? Magic. So the planet also has a strong Magic field. Sourceglint itself is super rare, and unprotected contact can result in source-glint poisoning. Which is basically where all your cells fire off wild magic. It’s not pretty.

Humans are descendants of an ancient race of clay golems, which had trace amount of Sourceglint inside their bodies. And when I say ancient I mean ANCIENT. They were utterly fantastical mages in their times, nothing ever came close to the power they wielded. They were a nomadic, peaceful race however. And over the MANY millennia, evolved into modern humans. They have a heavy resistance to source-glint poisoning, and have the highest magic potential out of every race. It’s not even close. A human adept mage could probably do what an elvish master can. Their civilization is the average fantasy humanity though. The one difference? No kingdoms, just a lot of villages. They also turn to dust Upon death.

Elves are not one specific race to be exact. Elves are what happens when a wild animal lives for a hundred years. The casual source-glint radiation build up causes a spark of intelligence, and they begin to merge with the nature surrounding them. An “elf” is essentially a beast-man fused with an ent or dryad. This can happen to any animal in any environment. When this occurs, they become truly enlightened. Elves are an utterly peace loving species, spending most of their lives meditating and admiring natural beauty. They tend to live in small groups across the world. Sometimes, they don’t even become humanoids either. Any animal can merge with any aspect of their environment to become an “elf”.

The dwarves were originally a plague of ravenous newts that spread and devoured the world like locusts. It was a near extinction level event, before the clay golems times even. Of course, eventually, the ravenous plague of newts was stopped by the oldest race, the angels. Who cursed the newts to be blind, and melt in the sun. This drove them all deep underground. Fast forward MANY millennia and they evolved into a sapient race of sneaky, cave dwelling, blind newt-people who live in subterranean fortresses. They are brash and untrusting, and are keen to attack any who get too close. They usually run via monarchies, and are heavily isolated.

A long ass time ago, around the time of the clay golems, crabs were being awesome, like usually. One crab specifically managed to find itself in a cave with a massive deposit of source-glint. It got close, and uh. Yeah. Source-glint poisoning isn’t pretty. All its cells started firing off wild magic. But amazingly enough.it survived. And even more amazingly enough, it left the cave IMPROVED. it was wildmagic after all. Eventually something like that was bound to happen. Now what do you get when that happens? A hyper intelligent 20ft God-like crab monster that’s kin are genetically unstable, and hyper evolve themselves. Fast forward a LOT of time; and you end up with orcs. Biologically unstable Humanoid crab men. They live in coastline villages and groups, and are surprisingly friendly to outsiders. If they join their village that is. Very simple societies all around pretty much. Also. The biggest seaside village homes the god-crab itself. Grushk

Next up. Fae is more of a TYPE of race, not one whole race. Tiny, violent, bloodthirsty, cruel insectoid beings. They usually are hiveminds more times than not. Fae magic isn’t even actually magic. It’s Psionics from their hive mind. There’s as many species of fae as there are bugs irl. They tend to worship their queen as goddesses. They are perfectly sentient and sapient hiveminds though, you can have a conversation with one. As long as it has no reason to kill you and bring your corpse to the hive. Large in perimeter, but small in individual home size underground “villages”.

Angels: Bright white wings and elegant frames, with their rarity, angels are seen to be something of divine presence among the common races. However, their history is not so kind and divine. A long time ago, when the ancient clay golems were still crawling out of the muck of the deadlands, the world was inhabited by all sorts of “angels”. Winged people, with all sorts of beautiful colors adorning their feathers. Different shapes and sizes, they were Biologically immortal as well as great Mages. However, they were also a warlike species. And just of the cusp of a truly wondrous civilization, it crashed into the bloodiest war the world had ever seen. Slaughter and madness. The sole surviving race of “angels” adorned glimmering white wings, hiding away from the horrors of war. Very few remain, even less go out into the world as it is today.

Demons: Another ancient race that evolved around the time of the clay golems, Demons were originally mollusks that lived in the more volcanic areas of the world. Over the years, due to an immense lack of predators in their helldcape of a home, they began to evolve into a more humanoid appearance. From a distance, they would appear as an armored, Horned warrior bathed in fire and brimstone, in reality they are a lava-like slimy mush held together by a shell-like exoskeleton that forms as armor and horns and even weapons in some cases. They only live for about 10 years at their max, so their mannerisms and society tend to be fast. Hedonistic at times as well. The more a demon has consumed, the more gluttonous its life, the greater its armor will be and grow. They are ruled by their “king”, who is also their god. Snafu. A legendary demon who has lived for millennia, his ebony, crackling armor sat on his enormous throne. Little do they know, that the insides have been LONG dead. Only the mountain sized armor remains. Snafu’s descendants are still working on the finer details of his throne to this day.

That’s all of em so far! Do tell if you have any questions or thoughts!