Human

Fast Facts

Population: 150,000,000+ Lifespan: 100 Years Height: Between 4' and 6'8" Weight: Between 60 and 400 lbs.

Racial Ability: Metropolitan A human is awarded +25 XP at creation. Humanity has seeped its culture into every social niche on Antarok, bargaining for social upward mobility with every race; wherever they go, they will always have the potential to earn the recognition of their peers. Even the Vokhazul might think twice before enslaving a human, as his peerage already free among them might bargain for their freedom.

History

There is no one history to cover humanity as a whole, as they ubiquitous enough to have given rise to many kingdoms and empires in the scant few millennia they have been present in the world. While the fair-skinned Freefolk of the Dullahan Republic bicker for their say in policy, the dragon worshiping Jian of the east look inward for perfectionism. Southward on the subcontinent of Asp, the Kani people wield their darker complexions to better blend in with the humid jungles. Meanwhile, the hardy Nedes of the far north survive a harsh, frozen world teeming with the undead.

Origin

While the subject is left to debate, many scholars point to an Æld'Norai record of civil war, the defeated faction banished to Ælven colonies across the world after being stripped of everything that made them an elf - and the Æelves who remember the war are certain that humanity stemmed from those disparate populations rebelling just as their overlords turned inward and became the overbearing tyrants they are today.

A human is the weaker, mortal kin of an Æelf.

Biology

Humanity is a hodgepodge of cultures and bloodlines with a bewildering variety of diversity. So too is the stature and appearance of a human dictated by diet, lifestyle, and genetic lineage.

Age & Reproduction

Humanity reproduces quickly with a high birth rate. Often the mother is well taken care of throughout her term, given leave of duty to that affect. Birth is overseen by a Maltrician to ensure that both parent and child do not suffer complications.

By eighteen years of age, a human is seen as fully mature. They stay healthy and fit well into their forties, and tend to decline rapidly in health once they reach their early fifties, most often passing away due to age sometime in their seventies. Those who can afford treatment by a Maltrician may reverse many factors of their aging, appearing middle aged without blemish - if pale and emaciated with spindly limbs - well beyond their 160th year before their mind simply fails. This is very common in Dullahan where many humans do not look their age, able to function even in the military decades after reaching an age in the triple digits.

A human with life extending treatments is often referred to by the younger or less privileged as a spook, as it is hard to tell the difference between their emaciated yet lively bodies and the monsters which might pretend to be human. Many such monsters pretend to be spooks.

Psychology

Humans are among the most psychologically varied peoples in all the world. What conformity they do have is often splintered between several factions of dissident views; their mood can be warm or cold depending on the culture, and opinions contrary to the status quo are more common among their kind versus those of other races. A short lifespan forces humans to contend with their own mortality and drive themselves forward with greater fervor whereas the longer lived races are less concerned with what is happening in the short-term.

Society

Carving out swathes of land for themselves across the world, human-kind presides over kingdoms and empires in all manner of governance and creed. Rarely does humanity stay free of oppression for long due to the prevalence of Arcana and the pillaging warbands of the Vokhazan, necessitating vast kingdoms and empires or some degree of isolation from the mainland.

First there is the Republic of Dullahan, locked at the horns with its neighbor, the much smaller Jingoist Magocracy of Aurum. There is also the quiet and powerful Jianese Empire, as well as the waning Kani Kingdom. Having lost their homeland in Slahane to an invasion of the living dead, the Nedes have fled the frigid north to become nomadic communities and small settlements across the world.

Several more predominantly human cities enjoying tributary or vassal-state status exist across the world, and a network of free ports trading in rare goods and produce dots much of the sea; these are both terrorized and protected by leagues of rivaling pirate-states, shielding them from raids by the Vokhazan navy.

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Technology Humanity can be considered to have entered its pre-industrial era within the Republic of Dullahan. Humans there value the Practices more than any race save for the Stonekin, utilizing its applications in their daily commerce through potions, prosthetics, and healing procedures rivaling the efficacy of modern healthcare. Maltricians are the most common Practice, with ten thousand of their number spread out between nearly every human city.

Freefolk possess the Printing Press, including Fantasy-Steampunk factories which struggle more with the scarcity and logistics of raw materials than they do the production of complex goods. Golems are not hard to find in cities, Airships sometimes braving voyages between the capital and those duchies and counties with fortified airports. Even electricity has begun to see use in the homes of the democratic Avant Garde.

Many factions - especially the military of Dullahan - make use of alchemic mutagen to warp their bodies beyond that of what a normal human is capable of.

Although several Enterprises have begun to seek trade routes towards the east, the Jian are far enough away from it all, so tightly bound to their Arcana and dragons that they are locked in a rigid caste structure which rejects adopting the consumerism of a far-removed country. As the Kani are still akin to a powerful tribe of shamans and warlocks, they simply create their own comforts out of thin air.

Social Structure

Serfs, Tradesmen, Scholars, Magi, Politicians, and Nobility.

Language

Freefolk and Nedes speak the Common language, whilst Jian speak Jianese, and Kani converse in Snake-Tongue just as the Najda do. Aurumites also speak Common, but prefer to write in Glyphics, an exclusively written pictographic language which conveys more capacity for complex logic and formulae in fewer brush strokes.

Common is by far the most dominant language in all the world, with many merchants and the diplomatically minded studying it for inter-cultural communication.