Tolkien also created Orcs. The word "orc", according to Wikipedia, has more ancient origins. The fantasy race of Orcs started with Tolkien, so usage will be as risky as with using Hobbits.

Another thing to keep in mind, even if a fantasy race has old folklore roots, their specific fantasy characteristics may be of more recent origin. That also has a potential of being a copyright issue.

My visual indexes of Poser content are at http://www.sharecg.com/pf/rgagnon