I’ve been toying with some concepts for a specific race in a fantasy setting I’ve been thinking about. Right now I’m leaning towards either of the following:

Physically speaking, they’re a completely human-like tribal race whose culture involves individually picking animals to emulate and crafting wooden masks of those animals. They would have some method of spiritually connecting with their totem animals but I haven’t decided how that would work exactly..

Or

They would be a race of tribal -beast- people, extremely predatory, who normally wear masks patterned off of animals they either prefer to hunt or otherwise spend most of their time with (If their culture has shepherds, then one might wear a sheep mask, for example). After the arrival of a human settler race, many of them take to wearing unintentionally creepy human-masks over their beastial faces… whether this is to be more relatable to the humans, to mock them, or hinting that they view them as prey, is unknown. One thing is certain: their core beliefs dictate that they only show their faces to other living beings if they either trust them completely or are about to eat them…

Thoughts?