This is the official title of a human or other creature that tries to smooth the conflicts between one society and another. In a world where there is a great number of different intelligent species as well as different cultures, and where they live so close to each other, this is an important occupation.
The job of Species Diplomat is an ancient one amongst humans, which is why most diplomats are humans. Diplomacy was created as a simple weapon to keep humanity going in the face of other species that were more powerful, magical, even more intelligent. Dragons prize humans for Suma material, many other creatures favour humans as prime material for transformation to increase their own species, and of course they are good eating. So the humans used guile, analysis and sense to persuade the intelligent other species to stop preying on them, in exchange for knowledge on other usable species, trade negotiation, willing victims and answers to problems plaguing them. Eventually a group of people became so good at it they turned it into both a living and way of life.
Nowadays, dragons, giant wasps, half-breed creatures etc. can call for a college-trained diplomat to visit them and settle a problem that would benefit from a skilled, impartial onlooker. Successfully sorting out the situation gives credit and wealth to the college, and safety to the human race in general. No-one asks what will happen if the human fails, as that has been the strongest yet most unspoken part of the contract for it's 2000 year existence - the diplomat will likely be used for breeding stock or transformed into the species with the problem, as may other humans if the failure was suitably poor.
The diplomat must become very learned, knowing a huge amount about etiquette, sociology, biology, negotiation and any other field which would ensure success and keep them in with those they do business with. If a species feels more comfortable if the diplomat were as naked as they are, naked they must be. If the diplomat must share a kill, that's what she would have to do. Some are magicians, or naturally powerful creatures, but they are not allowed to use their powers to escape their fate in the event of failure (and in doing so create an incident). If they fail, they have to be prepared to pay the price – usually transformation into the species they failed or use as mates and for breeding.
The good points of being a diplomat are the respect and protection bought by their achievements. Every intelligent creature knows that to harm a diplomat is to anger the dragons, Imps and entire nations her kind has helped. Plus upon graduation, a diplomat gains a strange emotional power, a sort of psychic shield. Those that look upon her consider her to be neither an enemy, potential food, nor a likely mate. A diplomat could walk alone through a lizard man encampment or herd of raptors without being endangered. Her distant, business-like temperament and confidence is the key to this protection. It's lost if she becomes too flustered, afraid, or tempted with sexual pleasure.
At every college is a gallery of portraits of those students who have surpassed in their achievements. It's customary to draw a new picture should the student… change, and place them side by side, as a lesson to those who take the role of a diplomat too lightly. Many of the portraits show the resulting creatures with their mates and children, in their new environment. Some portraits are over a thousand years old, but some of the students portrayed in them are still alive and well, particularly the ones who have lost cases to dragons.
This profession draws two main types of people. Those who want to help others, and learn about other species. And those who, whether they know it themselves or not, actually want to lose a case... College administrators must carefully distribute jobs that will almost certainly fail to the latter. It's common horrified rumour amongst students that somewhere in each college is a group of records that describe which of them are suitable sacrificial lambs to appease the creatures in a case that is impossible to resolve. ("Clarabelle : Human. A bad learner with a tendency to daydream. Draws many pictures of birds, sometimes with anthropomorphic traits. Suspected of hiding more risqué pictures of same. She is unlikely to progress far as a diplomat, but will make a fine harpy. Advise to send her to the Hook Peninsula on the New Continent, where her lack of learning will not get in her way to help the population there (or add to it)").