If there's one thing I love more than anything, it's writing 5,000 words on a topic that could have been summarized in 50 (I'm a "no stones unturned" sort of person), and what better topic for me to waste your time with than fantasy? Whenever I do something that threatens to deconstruct fantasy, I always get off on bringing up all the tropes. My favorite tropes follow the most generic-ass Hero's Journey fantasy possible, basically taking Eragon and wiping off the names. Which is to say: Farmboy (usually with a typical Anglo-Saxon or Pseudo-Saxon name) is living a normal, boring life out in the Shire; playful life with his family, maybe he knows some mysterious old guy, maybe he doesn't. He knows many tales of larger-than-life heroes going on epic adventures but thinks that's a world far beyond him. Maybe he makes a simple mistake (like disrespecting his parents) or maybe he goes out on a mini fetch quest and leaves the home for a short while. He may or may not stumble some otherworldly force but turns away from it, thinking it's just an aberration. When he comes back, the Forces of Darkness descend upon his idyllic life, and he is forever thrust away from what he's known. He has to run, because he's not presently equipped to handle the challenge. He can either keep running or tackle the problem head-on, but usually he keeps running and laments the end of his old lifestyle. While running away, he comes across that mysterious old guy who turns out to be a wizard or old warrior, but we can just call Mentor. The Mentor offers to teach him, but he doesn't quickly catch on. He has to be sent into danger headlong if he wants to truly understand what is expected of him. And so on and so on. Usually, this humble hero turns out to be the Chosen One or the lost son of a King, or both. On his journey forward, he meets a motley crew of characters, usually consisting of an elven archer, dwarven berserker, a mysterious creature known as a "female", a thief/rogue, and maybe a token unique creature or dragon. The Mentor almost always dies. The enemies are usually goblins or orcs, unless this is a story that has a focus on a particular race— in which case, the enemy will be the opposing race (i.e. if it's a pro-dwarves story, the mooks will be elves; if it's a pro-elves story, the enemies will likely be dwarves; almost always, orcs will be a reliable third-party fodder anyway). If our orcs are different, they'll be an oppressed race cast as stupid brutes by the superior elves and men, never actually a ruling race in their own right. The protagonist, as mentioned, is going to be a generic Anglo-Saxon dude, usually young, and always a Human. If you're not following the generic Tolkienesque formula, then first of all Second of all, fret not! We still have a lot of cliches for you to follow. If you're not the wide-eyed innocent Skywalker-wannabe cast into adventure, you're probably gonna be a grizzled middle-aged soldier or battlemage, usually out for revenge or a mercenarial nomad who don't need no 'land, with a face more rugged than the Grand Canyon. If you're not gonna follow any of those prissy humans or elves, then why not have a goblin protagonist? Be as ugly as you want to be and get away with it. If you're feeling progressive and wanna not live in the medieval land of Eporue, why not change the skin color or sexual orientation of your protagonist and have absolutely no one in this otherwise completely unenlightened medieval world comment on it. If you're into Asian culture thanks to anime (and nothing else) and think you're being 100% original by mixing samurai, Shaolin monks, and ninjas with generic medieval-era fantasy with dragons, dark lords, and princesses, have I got some bad news for you! (No, seriously, this really happened. Somebody I once knew thought that taking Tolkienesque fantasy but adding generic East Asian tropes is something that has literally never been done before and he was the first to ever think of doing it somehow and was disheartened to learn Wuxia is a thing and has been for thousands of years) Speaking of which, always remember to set high fantasy in Medieval Europe! Particularly northern Medieval Europe! Particularly England and maybe Germany! All other places are uncommon and used more to drive home the "adventure" feel of an epic adventure— you can have your generic Greco-Roman empire, the exotic Indo-Arabian merchant city, the mystical far eastern land hidden in mist, and the relatively primitive but proud desert lands to the south and west, but the center of the world lies in North Eporue. Always make sure to have your elves be snooty, better-than-thou, tree-hugging Mary Sues or else they're not elves but just overgrown pixies. 80% of them should be archers. The other 20% are also archers, but make sure at least 80% of them are always archers. They live in the trees, usually by killing trees, and are always right no matter what. The elven princess that your protagonist inevitably hitches with should always be a bit more flexible than her fellows' steadfast conservatism so that she sees no problem with marrying a human, or proudly wearing skintight warrior clothes that shows off every bit of cleavage and ass fold despite the fact that noble women wearing anything less than clothing that covers 127% of their bodies before the 20th century would have had them be beaten and chastised as whores by the moral guardians of the day. Always make sure your dwarves are ultra-proletarian stone-lumberjacks with Scottish accents, Viking helmets, and massive battle axes. Make sure that they are either used for brutal fighting or comic relief (or both) so you don't have to go too deep into detail about their characters outside the one berserker on your team, because since they're so different and not beholden to human beauty standards, you don't need to give them any real attention besides stereotypes of them being barbarians! Make sure both races hate each other for an arbitrary reason but keep enough room there so that the two races will arbitrarily get along at the end of the story. Speaking of the end of the story, when the Dark Lord has been defeated, make sure that the power vacuum does not instantly fill in with some other wannabe totalitarian ruler and, instead, peace and democracy fills the land. But if you're a monarchy, then just replace democracy with "freedom"— never in human history has "freedom" meant anything other than "rule by hereditary-chosen rulers from a single bloodline"! Never have anyone question why there are righteous rulers and not popularly chosen rulers, because that's too modern and certainly not something people before the 1700s ever once thought of but had too little power to enact in their homelands due to circumstances ranging from overwhelming power of the state all the way to necessity of maintaining order! But in that weird case someone does raise the prospect, always portray freedom and democracy as being the only good way of life because clearly this world of multiple sapient races, each with their own innate behaviors, intelligences, attitudes, and physiological capabilities, is perfectly compatible with an egalitarian system of government! And I hope you certainly still aren't stuck on the question of how any complex economy or social system is still functioning following the collapse of an all-powerful government by a single hero and his ragtag band of friends, because that's finished now! Revolutions are just insurgencies between freedom fighters and tyrants that end the moment the single lone tyrant and his tyrannical aristocrats have been overthrown— never in human history has there ever been a follow-up period of geopolitical chaos, bloody purgings of the old order and their families, backstabbing by the victorious rebels, economic depressions, or counterrevolutions following the removal of a leader! Or, for that matter, why magickal spells of conjuration and alteration aren't used to create a pseudo-industrial society filled with plenty if not a mage-run totalitarian society where only they are allowed to run the economy thanks to their divine powers. All that matters is the Chosen One has overcome the Forces of Darkness and has grown as a person by the end, has gotten the girl (guy if you're progressive!), and is now free to go on more adventurers or rule the land as the righteous king! If you're going primeval instead of medieval, great! You can stay right where you are, but take away all the castles and timber-framed buildings and replace them with huts and caves! And since it's fantasy, you can even add dinosaurs and sabre-tooth tigers! So with that prologue said, let's get started with discussing generic pseudo-medieval high fantasy!
You are so old fashioned. The new troupe is NEET guy that does nothing but play video games and collect anime items. Has zero social skills or skills for that matter. Follows a little white rabbit down the hole to an MMO where seasoned players and pro e-sport champions reside. Gets godlike powers for no reason. Beats them all at their own game somehow. Is now articulate and a chick magnate (Harem has to include one elf and one animal earied girl for legal reasons) And he is now tasked with saving the world. TADA! Usually with the hero's journey tale this is when things go down hill but our MC is awesome so it's only up from there because chosen one. ... oh and lets through in a mustache twirling villian in there about mid way. because you know, we need one. It's tradition. One thing we'll change is the clothes. In ALL fantasy MMOs females have their pick of fan servicy clothes while males are stuck with samey armour that barely have a colour palate change. In this one however our hero will get all the armour and clothes he needs in spades. I mean lets be real, if he goes for the ones that actually have the highest stats this is what we'll end up with
I unironically love elves! Particularly the cliche kind. "But Yuli," one might interject, "they're just Aryans with pointy ears!" Well I am a Neo-Nazi anarcho-primitivist environmentalist, so it really makes sense! Typically, elves come in four main flavors, each of ever-increasing power: Wood Elves, Dark Elves, High Elves, and Christmas Elves. My personal High/Wood-Elf OC, Rahal, got kidnapped by the most powerful elf in the universe a few years back and was forced into slavery: Spoiler I've been trying to purchase her freedom for many months but the point is that elves are not to be trifled with. Typically, you're gonna want to make sure that elves can commune with the trees. Why? Because they speak for the trees. Typically, you need to make sure you have a Type 1 or 2 civilization before you embark on rewilding a planet, but elves want to skip that and bring us back to primeval times when it is least advantageous for our evolution to do so. They're archers, first and foremost. If they lived in modern times, they'd be snipers. They'd be eco-Taliban hippies with Dragonuvs and knife-shaped ears. That, as well as Neo-Nazis. Why are elves archers, though? Probably because archery is a very precise sort of weapon style. You can't just spray-and-pray, nor can you hack and slash. That fits perfectly with our view of elves as graceful and perfect superhumans. But because they're archers, that also means they can hold their own in close-quarter combat because you need high upper body strength to use a bow and arrow. Much higher than any prissy swordsman or wielder of axes! But sometimes you do get an elven swordsman. Which is fine, because swords are an elegant weapon for a more civilized age and always cut cleanly causing no major suffering from imperfect attacks! You know, before I got into fantasy, I could've sworn that elves were small little creatures that lived in woodlands singing hymns to the trees all day. Now I know they're actually tall creatures that lived in woodlands singing hymns to trees all day. But apparently my view of elves came from both Christmas elves and the original fae-style elves, the ones that weren't so perfectly superhuman but instead looked a tad goblin-ish themselves. If you want to write the most generic fantasy possible, be sure to make sure elven girls are girls and elven boys are women and that this is an all-female Neo-Nazi society from Ultima Thule (except some females have dicks). If you try subverting expectations too much, readers will ask "why don't you just create an entirely new race?" Like if you try creating a race of elves that are brutish low-culture warriors who love fighting with their fists and heavy weapons, the first thing people will say isn't "Oh wow, what badass elves!", it's "So basically orcs, but called elves?" There are a few other kinds of elves out there, such as: Night Elves, Blood Elves, Moon Elves, Snow Elves, Aquatic Elves, Grey Elves, House Elves, Presley Elves, Elvira, E.L.V.E.S., and my favorite, the most magical (or at least the only ones that actually require some form of magic to conjure) and probably the only elves worth talking about in this household, Machine Elves.
I'm playing an old Rune Factory game at the moment where they tried that. One NPC says he's a dwarf but looks just like the humans if not a bit elvish. When asked he'll just explode in your face asking why you're so old fashioned and stereotyping him. Most dwarfs are of normal height and don't care for facial hair. He's of the silver eyes clan *flutters eye lashes at you* So what makes him a dwarf? Duh, he just told you he was one. Weren't you listening?
You might enjoy Diana Wynne Jones's "The Tough Guide to Fantasyland" - in the guise of a traveler's guide, she covers all the basic tired fantasy tropes, and then she went on to write two fiction books based on it, "The Dark Lord of Derkholm" (about a fantasy-style world whose "overlord" is bascially an ordinary businessman with a portal, who forces the inhabitants to go on trope-y fantasy adventures with tourists from our world) and a sequel, "Year of the Griffin" (less directly related to the Tough Guide, it's about the other book's main wizard's daughter, who happens to be a griffin, at her freshman year at magic university).
