you asked for an example of a custom race, so I gave you an entire idea that I had
the elementals are a rare and nearly mystical race and each individual is only 1 element (might not have been clear on that)
but as humanoid they are all like her, human like creatures with control and powers fitting their element.
but can also turn into a animal minded monster and lose their humanity for ever
most live as humanoids cause they rather live a normal live then as a monster, but there are a few out their trough

so yeah that was the race in a nut shell, but I should properly have added the intel of the character I had in mind to show its not just power and monster stuff right away
sorry about that then

btw, I am thinking that it might be an idea to keep most of the artifacts locations for my main char to my self, cause some are hidden in natural area's and the first one of these things (as 3 others) can sense the others when close by enough (like you said with the artifacts reacting when the chosen is close by) so it might be an idea that if someone else (like you) gives us a location we go past or trough, thet suddenly my char notice one upgrade for him close by
that way its mostly random when he gets an upgrade, its based mostly (with a few exceptions based on situations) on what others give me to work with for a location ^^