AW SNAP! Geddit? Because Frogboy wrote all of the stuff?

In all seriousness, all of those races are evil sexy.

I don't know exactly what you want. Ooze people? Dragon people? Rock people?

The reason why people use classic races is that people already have a degree of familiarity with that race. In my experience the exoticism of races don't really add anything to the story. If anything, they detract from it. I really would have just been happy with *just* human factions in a fantasy world. That would be original.

All fantasy games essentially have basically the same backstory. I'm fine with that, because the backstory merely serves as a context for the story to come. I'd much prefer fantasies to keep the creation myths at a minimum, or better make them vague and contradictory. There's simply no good mythological background, really, that hasn't been used before.

To me, the meat of the story is not the originality, it's motivations, neuroses, non-mythological history, sociological and psychological factors.

Damn right! I hate how the first thing about a world is how it was created by a tear drop from a crying ellephant held in space by the mistress of magic that started out as a cloud of godlike gas.

I just want some refrence or lore in the world that explains that "Our salvation comes from the first, the One. The joyus ellephant of creation!"

I am going to play the Krax first simply because it looks like that guy is using a creative pose to give someone the finger.  

Arhhhh a fellow Elephantian, and I thought I was the only one. Rumour has it we are the slowest growing religion in the world.

The only time I want creation myths minimized is when the game world is as narratively weak as GalCiv or Starcraft. The thing that has me starting to lower my expectations for the Elemental story is that in a fantasy setting, I want mysterious foundations for the world. As in permanently un-knowable from the player POV; woven into the guts of the code, but never set out in full detail in the UI or spin-off materials.

Vague and contradictory creation myths are a great way to build that sort of mystery into the environment, but Brad's a software designer and competitive gamer, and those folks tend to like complete, 'logically consistent' systems. It's starting to look a bit like the magic in Elemental is really just super-science-fiction with pre-industrial decorations. More like a Michael Moorcock End of Time story than, say, George Martin's A Game of Thrones.

It kind of defeats the point of having multiple races in each faction if all of the Empire boils down to "evil". They're probably not all evil (or at least have substantially varying degrees of evil), just like I doubt all the Kingdoms are universally "good".

If all Kingdoms are permanently friendly with each other, and all Empires are as well, I would consider that a disastrous design decision (speaking for the sandbox mode here, not the campaign).  Having the sandbox mode be "two team" would completely ruin the game for me.  I find it highly unlikely that'll be the case.  In the campaign, possibly, as it's telling a story, but not in sandbox mode.

There's no reason two "good" races can't go to war with each other over political circumstances, resources, etc.  Obviously two "evil" races can basically do whatever they want to each other.

Some comments on the faction pics and the little we know about the factions. (NB no comments are meant to flame anyone, they are just a point of view.)

First, the art. Not bad at all, some of them are quite good. On the plus: the Mucha inspiration, the original style.

On the minus side: some of the weapons are a bit too big, it takes away from the realism but most of all from the "class". Please don't fall into the Warhammer trap to think that what is vulgar and exagerrated is something to strive for. Monsters should be grotesque yes, but it can still be done with feeling, class and style. Example: a wizard's wand's power is not linked to its size (no pun intended )  

Another weak point seems to be the faces: some of them look too "cartoonish" or "painted", I don't feel inspired by the Trogs for example although they should have the potential to be really cool.  

Of the Empire pictures I definitely prefer the last one, Kraxis (beatiful gold on his mantle and armour). But I do note that he looks (not just inspired by, but really looks) like an arab/persian, so I hope you are not putting this in as the one evil, "blood traitor" human race while the Kingdoms will be all filled with fairskinned blonds (of European/American looks ...). Skimming over the Kingdom pics it actually looks like this could be the case. It's not about striving for PC 100%, but this one just seemed to be so evident, but I wait until we've seen more before complaining at all.
  
On the factions:

It is a surprise to see that elves, dwarves etc are now included so evidently this way "through the backdoor" by saying they are really human, but ... I guess it's a compromise that should work for most people, maybe even a genius stroke considering the differing views on the subject.

But there is one big question mark on the factions (both kingdoms and empires). Are we really going to get something that feels inspiring and is also memorable? It's too early to say with the little we know, but for me the alarms are definitely ringing. Elemental should be THE fantasy strategy game to take over from the best older titles like MoM, AoWSM and Dominions 3. So, let's just start to make a quick comparison with what Dominions 3 has to offer as Factions (called Nations in D3).

In D3 we have 50 playable Nations! In EWoM 10. This means that indeed the faction customisation will need to be really good or EWoM will fall short on this point.
     
But most of all, the Factions in EWoM seem to be a bit generic. A qualified guess for the Kingdoms (without knowing much more than the pics) would be that something like the following basic ideas could be behind each faction:
1. classical western medieval society lead by white wizard (paridens), 2. warriors/knights (Altar), 3. Diplomats (Capitar), 4. dwarves (ironeers), 5. wood elves (Tarth).

I hope you can prove me wrong but it could be rather difficult to make something very inspiring and memorable out of just "diplomats", "warriors" etc ... True, we wait for more info, but let's just make a small comparison with D3 again. I only take the factions/nations starting with first letter in the alphabet (!) so these are not picked out because they are more interesting and colourful than the others:
    
Abysia: devil-worshippers (burning braziers fed with still beating hearts ...) combined with some Middle Eastern concepts

Agartha: dying race of pale, cave-dwelling humanoids desperately mummifying their ancestors in wide, opulent halls.

Arcoscephale: ancient Greek City States and Hellas (classical legendary beasts, astrologers, Alexander the Great).

Atlantis: a nation of (Lovecraftian) Deep Ones native to the depths (krakens ...).

 - That is less than a line to give the flavour of each (and I'm no expert on them either).
 
Do you see the difference? What variety, such good and colourful and fantastical concepts, taking inspiration from so varied sources but still working together.

I hope EWoM can live up to such a high standard, because this is one of the very foundations for the game. Modding is not an excuse for a game lacking inspiring and well thought-out factions. I'm not complaining here, we know too little yet, but we would really appreciate to know some more on the inspiration and ideas behind the factions to see if they "feel right". No number of cool spells can make up for a missing good basic concept.

So let's hope that Umber and Altar and Capitar and Resoln and all you have come up with will inspire us as much as Atlantis can with a few words!

I don't really think it's fair to be comparing EWOM to D3.  Sure, D3 has a lot of races, and a dizzying variety of units within those races.  But most of them also look like this:

Nice enough, but by no means to the graphical style which EWOM is shooting for.  Quality is usually gained at the sacrifice of quantity, and vice versa.  But EWOM has something going for it, in that respect, which is identical in philosophy to D3:  moddability!  Those who want a greater diversity of races can simply mod them in.  And I'm sure they will.  In that happy medium, everyone should be satisfied.

The number of factions couldn't be the same as in D3. Isn't D3 in 2D? Last time I checked, 2D art is faster and cheaper. (even if you are a pixel artist)

The flavor of the factions in D3 is constricted by any kind of lore/campaign? Elemental's faction should try to strive for variety and interesting options but working withint the self imposed limits. I think it's possibe to achieve that but more time will be needed as Stardock polishes it (and more parts are added to the beta and users can provide feedback). That their level of "awe" reaches the same as otehr factions of otehrs games, that is something that I don't know and that would be dependant of point of view. (That Atlantis doesn't sound very... original? It's just Cthulhu*)

* said by someone who hasn't played the game so forgive me if that faction is something more than what I understood of it. Just putting an example of "point of view".

Troof! I'm more interested in the stories that come out of playing big open-ended games, not the ones that go into them.

As intrigued as I am by the history of Kraxis, I think I'll be playing them mainly because the sovereign resembles Ming the Merciless.

I don't see any real Arab/Persian link.  He may be swarthy-skinned, sure, but he's also largely in shadow, which adds to the 'dark' nature of this very menacing-looking Kraxian.  Arab/Persian/etc. was not the first thing to pop into my head. 'This guy looks like one mean mutha trucker' was.

True, but it's a lot easier to create 2d sprites/gfx. Not that I am against anything better/3d [like the Elemental engine..]

All I am saying is: I surely won't be able to create 3d creature models for Elemental... It would be awesome if we would have a creature creator like the one in Spore.

Umber look cool. Hoping they have an easier time getting hold of Umderdroths  than the other factions

So, we get in the base game an official Empire of men whith Kraxis ? Good to know.

Showed this to a friend and his question made me speechless.  "Why is it fantasy worlds have every creature of the night but no black people like me?"

I don't think race really plays into it one way or another.  Just because a character is not black does not mean they're Caucasian.  Or Asian.  Or Arabic.  Or any other racial/ethnic stereotype.

Come to think of it, why are all the sentient Fallen shades of ~blue? It'd be as nice to see some variation in the skin tones of the Fallen as it would be to see in those of the humans.

My Polar Faction of ebony skinned people is going to rock. My Desert Faction of fair skinned people is going to rock too.

And smurfs while rule them all!!!