I figure that when dealing with something that has a psychology that doesn't necessarily follow a precise human template, the goal is to make it be
perceived as alien. So you start by removing the sociological structures and nonverbal cues that tell people you are "from around these parts." Preferably in ways that communicate the specific "otherness" of that entity in question and that highlight the "alien shores of another's mind" (to borrow a phrase from CS Friedman) even if we otherwise look identical.
To go with a quote from Patrick Rothfuss from
Wise Man's Fear on the Fae:
I have heard people say that men and the Fae are as different as dogs and wolves. While this is an easy analogy, it is far from true. Wolves and dogs are only separated by a minor shade of blood. Both howl at night. If beaten, both will bite.
No. Our people and theirs are as different as water and alcohol. In equal glasses they look the same. Both liquid. Both clear. Both wet, after a fashion. But one will burn, and the other will not. This has nothing to do with temperament or timing. These two things behave differently because they are profoundly, fundamentally not the same.
The same is true with humans and the Fae. We forget it at our peril.
So how does one communicate this? I won't claim to do it well, but I am striving to improve in this area. I like to borrow the worldbuilding tools that science fiction and fantasy writers have used for ages.
I start by removing the sociological structures that people will associate with being "from here" (not necessarily human, but from this place since the word "alien" comes from the Latin
alienus or "belonging to another"). To me it is important to ask not just what
is "alien" but what
conveys a
sense of the "alien" to most people.
So what is my concept of time? What is my concept of space? What is my emotional template? How intelligent am I compared to the human average and how would this manifest? What are the social rules that are common among humans but which I—coming from whatever background it is that I am coming from—probably have at best limited awareness of? Do I understand concepts such as "gender" or "age"?
Then there are matters that are defined in relationship to the local culture that every human culture does a little differently. When we look at the subcategories for nonverbal communication we have concepts such as haptics (touch), kinesics (body movement), vocalics (paralanguage), chronemics (sense of time), and proxemics (sense of space). There are also varying degrees of
high and low context and matters of how the
character would view status.
Consciously thinking about these is a great way to portray the "alien." This goes when trying to portray something that does have a human psychosocial template but is from a significant region (humans from different regions should generally have different cultures, after all) as well as when trying to portray something that is truly
inhuman.
So a Mystic Wood Elf is both incredibly long-lived and incredibly focused on the
present. Sensation, emotion, but also with a long lifespan in which to contemplate these things. How does this change how that character interacts? How does this character interact from the standpoint of rank and status? Since the race is almost defined in terms of their passions, is there a way to effectively communicate this through tone of voice or how I pitch my voice? The MWE might have a very difference sense of what constitutes "personal space" and naturally stand at a distance that others would view as uncomfortable. Or spontaneously end up sitting on the table because that's a more comfortable place to sit for the conversation at hand.
If I am playing Life Elemental it doesn't even have the context, necessarily, to understand the beings it is talking to. Perhaps a flat affect and level pattern of speaking, maybe adding slight pauses to the speaking pattern to give the impression of it translating "english" from something more alien. Then there are the cultural notes in what it talks about and how it refers to things since it really isn't from around these parts. Its sense of time is not. quite. in. sync. so it might make sense to refer to things in terms of "lifespans" ("that will happen in the lifespan of a fruit fly" instead of "an instant") or in terms of seasons (instead of months, since seasons more closely match growth than a kind-of-lunar calendar). Perhaps make every movement very deliberate, or shift restlessly when on the mortal plane because of being surrounded by small deaths everywhere.
There are myriad other ways to interpret both of these, of course, just take the basic principles and extrapolate outward and you may end up in a very different place that still gets the point across. That—to me—is really the important thing.
