Вот пример из Dungeon Crawl, как из надоевших эльфов можно изготовить оригинальные чуть менее, чем полностью расы:

Deep Elves:
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The deep elves are an elven race who long ago fled the overworld to
live in darkness underground. There they developed their mental
powers, evolving a natural gift for all forms of magic (including
necromancy and earth magic), and adapted physically to their new
environment, becoming shorter and weaker than other elves and losing
all colouration. They are poor at hand-to-hand combat but excellent
at fighting from a distance. They advance at the pace of grey elves.

Sludge Elves:
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Sludge elves are a somewhat degenerate race of elves. They are mirror
images of normal elves in some respects: they have no special
proficiency with bows or swords (long or short), nor do they have any
aptitude in the traditional areas of high elven magic (enchantments,
conjurations and divinations). On the other hand, they are
superlative transmuters, and are comfortable dabbling in necromantic,
poison and elemental magic. As fighters they are often more dangerous
unarmed than armed. They advance in level slightly slower than humans.

Вот верный расовый подход...