Mongrelfolk -- is there a better word?

[Metastachydium]

a hippocampus

The hunched posture and pincer gave me Chuul vibes, honestly.

[LibraryOgre]

I've been reading the Taltos series recently, where elves are called 'Humans' and humans are called Easterners, at least in elven lands.

I kinda like the idea that the dominant species calls itself 'humans', especially when they're arrogant and think they're superior.

I've been reading Taltos, too; I'm up to Phoenix, in a release order.

I'll note that Easterners ALSO call themselves humans, and Dragaerans are "elves" to humans from the Old Country.

But, ad res, I think going with "humans" is a good option, and draw from Gamma World for "Pure Strain Humans" or the like... a term for humans without the wide ancestry.

[Prime32]

I've been reading Taltos, too; I'm up to Phoenix, in a release order.

I'll note that Easterners ALSO call themselves humans, and Dragaerans are "elves" to humans from the Old Country.

But, ad res, I think going with "humans" is a good option, and draw from Gamma World for "Pure Strain Humans" or the like... a term for humans without the wide ancestry.

Dungeon Meshi does something similar, where "human" is a category including a bunch of fantasy races, and the people who resemble Earthlings are called "tallmen". Then some travellers from not-Japan mention that back home they only have "humans" and "oni", and got confused when they first met not-Europeans calling them "tallmen" and "ogres" and lumping both under human. It's not that they look down on oni per se, more that they can't figure out where the line between human and demihuman is (no one calls orcs and kobolds human, even though kobolds live in human cities).

No one's really able to give a good explanation for the distinction when asked, though it's implied later on that the real reason is because humans were originally a single species and only diverged into the modern races relatively recently (and that not-Japan first encountered ogres as immigrants rather than them evolving locally).

Also there's a scene where a tallman finds out that the "trolls" from half-foot stories are just a racist caricature of tallmen, and gets disappointed (not because of the racism, he just really wanted to meet a troll).

[Millstone85]

Also there's a scene where a tallman finds out that the "trolls" from half-foot stories are just a racist caricature of tallmen, and gets disappointed (not because of the racism, he just really wanted to meet a troll).

Okay, that's very good.

[Malimar]

I like "mixies" (aside from sounding like "pixies"); and going on somebody's suggestions about rocks I tried to figure out what's the most "mix some rocks together to make another rock" rock, so: "conglomeratefolk"; and then I was like "what's stuff mixed together, like, in, general" so I was like "compoundfolk"; and I think I like "alloyfolk" best but I've got a race of Dwarves+Gnomes called Engineers that that would fit way better; I also like "melangefolk" though I don't know for sure how to pronounce it, and "muttfolk" fills out the list... For now, I'm throwing them all into a "these guys are known by all these words, plus Mongrelfolk (and Engineers are also known as Alloyfolk, just to be confusing)" without picking one to be the official main one.

I'm hesitant to use "humans" (or "humanoids"), because stepping on the toes of official game terms (I'm working in D&D 5e, though this setting has also been played in D&D 3.5e and PF 1e -- all three of which use both of those as official game terms for something) begs for dangerous OOC confusion, which is less fun than purely IC confusion. If I were writing a story or designing my own system, I'd probably like this option best.

[LibraryOgre]

I like "mixies" (aside from sounding like "pixies");

My objection to "mixies" comes entirely from being a parent.

[KorvinStarmast]

My objection to "mixies" comes entirely from being a parent.

Oh dear. I had no idea that those abominations existed. Blech.

[Vizzerdrix]

Hodges/Podges

I second this option. It sounds cute.

I'll toss in Amalgaloids.

[El Dorado]

You could something like Ogier (Wheel of Time). For mongrelfolk, maybe the M'grel (muh-GREL) Take the original word, break it up, add an apostrophe, a dash...make it fancy.

[ChudoJogurt]

I would suggest by picking some word that means "the people" or "community". It seems to be a convergent ethnonym for groups that are wider than ethnicity but not quite a race.
E.g. la raza, desi, ummah, etc.

[RustyArcana]

Crosses/Crossies
Far Cries
Gnarlies

I also like the idea of the Mongrelfolk calling themselves the Nameless, since every other race believes the mongrelfolk to be misshapen members of other races, their race thus has no name.

[Morphic tide]

You could use "gemongfolk", shifting back to the Old English word the root "mong" came form that apparently translates to "mingling" (which fits perfectly with the backstory) while stripping the French-originating diminutive suffix "-rel" that denoted the pejorative. Or comb over French words for various sorts of mixture and apply a non-pejorative English diminutive suffix to flip the etymology with something like "tisserrock".