A Species by Any Other Term

As I work through some of the final terminology for the Grymvald setting, regarding how to generally refer to both player character and nonplayer characters, as humans, elves, etc., I find myself running into a lot of variance in thought in the community as to what is acceptable and what could be and/or should be changed, or not.  Then, a few days ago, when I was just about settled on the term "sentient species" as a catch-all that could work, an article appears on io9.com called, "Prominent scientists sign declaration that animals have conscious awareness, just like us" and my thinking has to take some additional turns before I can nail this down.  Read more here!