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There's a reason that Tolkein used the races he did. They didn't just sprout from his mind. Tolkein was a mythographer, and the creatures he used were archetypes from European myths. The reason isn't so much familiarity as *resonance*.
On the other hand, most of the 'original' races I've seen just seem contrived. It's a bunch of attributes thrown together or some unusual feature that defines the race, but no thought has been given to where this creature fits in the ecology or why it might have developed. They also lack any kind of resonance or history unless the game creators have created reams of documents for each race.
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