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I firmly believe that this depends entirely on your players.
If you have players who have played with the standard races quite a bit, you can easily say "Hey guys, let's add a few to the mix for this new game!" and that's okay. You can get as many races as you like, eventually, though I wouldn't recommend introducing them more than six at a time or so.
If you've got a person who's new to RPG's in the mix, you want fewer options. Two dozen races will be a baffling number to absorb all at once; it's better to present the five or six most common. (or most common families - you could lump half-elves and half-orcs with humans, for example, to collapse the list a bit)
Subraces I like to handle on the fly, but if you want to make subraces, then make as many as you like. But don't just throw them all in front of your players at once! Just tell the players something like: "Once you've picked out your basic race, I have plenty of subraces for you to peruse." or "If one of these looks good, but you don't like the numbers that come with it, then I'll help you find a subrace that fits your character's needs better." If they indicate that they'd rather not bother, don't push it. If they seem interested, then they can look through the options.
You could easily have thirty subraces or so. That's too much for most people to look through in a timely fashion. But if someone's choosing between three or four possibilities, that's much more manageable.
You want to give your players options. Not work.
So, would you like to tell us about your players?
It might sound weird to hear, but honestly don't worry about it. And what I mean by that is take what you are definitely going to be using and that are "major races," ones out and about in the world, either because of numbers (humans) or importance (high powered/legendary) and detail them. If you want to introduce a race that you have plans for as an npc (ambassador or some thing maybe) and the players want to play one, cool you already have them worked out. If the players want something you didn't consider, you can take what you have and insert where appropriate or make a quick switch of things in a way that makes sense. Detailing every inch of the world is cool, but by leaving some areas undefined you have the option of putting something new that crops up during game play there and it doesn't disrupt your world any.
It is much less hectic and obnoxious to leave some places open than to try and consider absolutely everything in advance and find yourself frustrated with something you didn't consider from the get go. There will probably be occasions of "oops sorry, RETCON incoming" but as it is for the PC's they are a lot less likely to complain ;)
Doing it this way allows you to get what you think is important done without limiting anything (which is what it sounds like you are trying to avoid) in the future.
Personally it breaks my verisimilitude to have wide varieties of sentient races. I mean, you've got humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, and orcs. Then all the goblinoids, and sahuagin/skum/kuo-toa/merfolk. And it spins out of control from there.
I say there's humans, elves, dwarves, halflings-all PC races, then orcs and gobbos who are largely baddies and there to be swatted at in large numbers. Maybe dragons, and giants, but their populations are waning and/or who knows what crazy schemes they have cooked up.
That's all I need in my game. Heck I'm tempted to get rid of anything but humans, but my players would whine too much.
Also, I ditched gnomes because they suck.
Personally it breaks my verisimilitude to have wide varieties of sentient races. I mean, you've got humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, and orcs. Then all the goblinoids, and sahuagin/skum/kuo-toa/merfolk. And it spins out of control from there.
I say there's humans, elves, dwarves, halflings-all PC races, then orcs and gobbos who are largely baddies and there to be swatted at in large numbers. Maybe dragons, and giants, but their populations are waning and/or who knows what crazy schemes they have cooked up.
That's all I need in my game. Heck I'm tempted to get rid of anything but humans, but my players would whine too much.
Also, I ditched gnomes because they suck.
There is no accounting for some peoples tastes, it is a fantasy game after all ;)
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Open up the choice to your players. If nobody wants to play, for instance, a Dwarf, then you can probably safely ignore dwarves. Maybe they exist in the setting, maybe they don't. If none of the players particularly care to play one, and you don't have a whiz-bang storyline involving them, they can go fly a kite.
Same with any race, really. Unless you've got storyline reasons to include Changelings or Goliaths or Aasimar, if none of the players want to play such a thing, then there's no reason to bother with where they 'fit into the setting.'
Just start with what the players want, and include what you are planning on using. Anything else can be cut out, or left far, far off-screen. (For instance, if Drow as an enemy is a feature, then Drow exist. If exploring ancient Dwarven ruins is a plot point, then their at least *were* Dwarves in the setting, although they might well be extinct, or at least, thought to be extinct, in the 'modern day'...)
I can't speak for anyone else, but I do a much better job developing individual races, if I don't clutter the game with a couple of dozen sub-races or only-slightly-different humanoids.
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Open up the choice to your players. If nobody wants to play, for instance, a Dwarf, then you can probably safely ignore dwarves. Maybe they exist in the setting, maybe they don't. If none of the players particularly care to play one, and you don't have a whiz-bang storyline involving them, they can go fly a kite.
Same with any race, really. Unless you've got storyline reasons to include Changelings or Goliaths or Aasimar, if none of the players want to play such a thing, then there's no reason to bother with where they 'fit into the setting.'
Just start with what the players want, and include what you are planning on using. Anything else can be cut out, or left far, far off-screen. (For instance, if Drow as an enemy is a feature, then Drow exist. If exploring ancient Dwarven ruins is a plot point, then their at least *were* Dwarves in the setting, although they might well be extinct, or at least, thought to be extinct, in the 'modern day'...)
I can't speak for anyone else, but I do a much better job developing individual races, if I don't clutter the game with a couple of dozen sub-races or only-slightly-different humanoids.
You really only need one. Artesia does this well by having each ethnicity get different bonuses on skills and abilities. Personally, I don't like the idea of the need for oodles of intelligent races in a campaign world. Three would be just enough (human, elf, dwarf and maybe half-elf in very rare instances).
From an evolutionary standpoint, a combination of intelligent races competing for the same limited resources would probably have wiped out the others in an act of genocide or interbred with them to constitute one single race.
I think you should first start with what kind of world you want to create. Fantasy (and thus pathfinder/dnd) means a lot of things to a lot of people. The worlds these games are played reflect that.
You have everything from Ebberon to George R R Martin and everything in between. If you want 'close to real' setting like Martin, with limited fantasy elements, fewer races. If you want a 'high fantasy' world where there is treasure and dragons in every cave, well then I think a larger number of races is appropriate.
Find out which races your players want to play. Then add +4 more for future development that you would like to build the world around as GM.
Players happy and Your happy, everyone wins.
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From an evolutionary standpoint, a combination of intelligent races competing for the same limited resources would probably have wiped out the others in an act of genocide or interbred with them to constitute one single race.
Not necessarily; it's possible to imagine plausible worlds in which this would not be the case. For instance, Larry Niven's Ringworld is home to many humanoid species that manage to interact more or less peacefully.
The fewer races you have in your world, the more depth you can give to them - elaborate on their culture, show how their clothing, food, way of building, customs and manners of speech differ.
With every sentient race you add, you diminish the impact of all the others. If everybody gets to be special and different, nobody truly is.
Now, if you are happy with your world being a sort of over the top, anything goes Muppet Show, by all means go for that. But personally, I think less is more.
Got a better idea.
First session, sit down and tell them the horrible story of your world. There were once dozens of races, and they fought in great genocidal wars, finally ending in a nuclear winter that wiped out every sentient race on the planet.
The answer is 0. There are 0 races on your world.
Then pack your stuff up and leave. They'll never forget you.
If you intend to publish these stories, you will need to make sure you aren't infringing on anyone's copyrights, which means consulting with a lawyer who specializes in that sort of thing. While I am not a lawyer, I can already tell you that "the races from Eberron as well as the ones from Monte Cooke's Diamond Throne, Vulcans, Klingons, Shiar, Illithids, Gith, Goa'uld" are all copyright their respective owners. Be cautious and take steps to protect yourself from legal unpleasantness before you put hard work into a creative project.
Beyond that, I would advise dividing up your world into clear geographic regions and focusing on direct conflicts between 1-4 races in each one, which you already have a good start on.
Consider also that while all these races are intelligent, that does not necessarily mean they are suitable as PCs. In particular, if two races are in a constant state of war with one another, it is probably a bad idea to have both available as PCs in the same party, unless they have an exceptional reason not to kill each other on sight. Generally speaking, it is better to have enmity between PC races as a result of old or simmering conflicts rather than active wars.
Also, some races just make terrible PCs. For example, Sahuagin can't survive for long outside of salt water, which severely limits their ability to participate in any adventure that doesn't take place under the sea. When underwater however, they have nearly overwhelming advantages compared to the standard PC races, who can't breathe water or swim well, let alone having racial powers to make friends with sharks and fly into a rage. You could design a relatively balanced fish-man race to serve as PCs, but then it wouldn't really be a Sahuagin. Basically, it is important to draw distinctions between the heroic, PC races, and those that are best left as NPCs and Antagonists.
From what I've read of your description, I would say that the sahuagin, elder psionic race, and evil tieflings are probably not PC-friendly. The aasimar are somewhat borderline, as their role as rulers of a kingdom and position as a dying race lends them to being NPCs, but I can see some potential in the odd rebellious noble out to earn a name for himself as a hero.
The hobgoblins, drow, neutral tieflings, desert wanderering gypsies, and either the dragonkin or giantkin all sound like decent PC options. Assuming you keep the core races, that more or less doubles the number of options for your PCs, which is probably more than enough.
If it was me designing this world, I'd probably just make the gnomes or halflings the desert wanderers, and drop dwarves and half-orcs from the setting entirely, and have the hobgoblins take their "place" as warlike dwellers in mountain and underground fortresses who happen to be ugly...but that is just me.