Interesting thought experiment. My instincts would be to go "can't I just use only humans and focus on the culture briefs that no one will ever read?", but I'm trying to better my ways. I would guess that if you're picking something different, that's pretty much the point of the exercise, so let's do that.
One setting I've been toying a bit would actually fit this bill:
- Goblins
- Hobgoblins/Humans
- Bugbears
as the core society. Yes, I'm getting tamely edgy by positioning that "human" is just a malapropism of "hobgoblin". These goblins would look like a cross between 1E MM goblins and australopithecus. Hobgoblins and goblins co-existed for a long time, two branches of the same evolutionary tree. Bugbears' origin is a bit shrouded in history, probably with some faery realm/shadowfell influence, but I could also use this for a cheap setting reveal. "Orc", by the way, is a job description here, similar to "Viking".
Then you get the opposing forces of the world, the scaled races:
- kobolds
- lizardmen / dragonborn (same ancestry/race, just different phenotypes and culture)
- snakemen
Starting out with a Warcraft-esque two-party conflict, with the goblinoids being newcomers. There's also the old dragons gallivanting about, not caring too much for either party (much to the chagrin of the scaled ones).
I didn't think too much about the rest yet, but let's fill it out to arrive at 9:
- Tabaxi (people like cats) - an old culture that has the merits of being geographically distant, and thus neutral to both main parties. Role of traders.
- Cyclopeans (something weird) - actually not cyclopses, but beholder-kin that animate a mixture of insects, plants and stone as bodies. Krang meets forest-elf cliches. Sometimes the melding goes wrong and this is how trolls are created.
- The Created - In this setting, the dragons were created (that's why they're color-coded), and they in turn wanted to have something of their own. Thus they took from both the goblins and the scaled ones. That was considered anathema by both sides, and thus they're a bit of an outsider faction. Basically tieflings.
