Species: Human

Name: human(s) [HYOO-mehn(z)]

Homeworld: Navos Jorde in Nesaule

Height/Length/Weight: Humans range from 5-6.5' tall, weighing in around 100-250 lbs.

Physical Description: Humans are upright, furless, bipedal simians. They have flat faces, small eyes, small immobile ears, and large lips; their teeth are adapted to both plant and flesh, and their tongues are deft enough to allow them to make a wide variety of sounds, despite otherwise-limited vocal cords. Humans have short necks, wide shoulders (brachiating), and flexible arms; their hands are flat-palmed with no pads, four fingers, one short thumb, and no claws (only blunt, flat, flimsy fingernails). Their torsos are broad and flat, except for the females' enlarged mammary glands (which are unnecessarily large even when not pregnant or nursing), and they have no tails. Their legs are long and they walk plantigrade, though some learn to move digitigrade on their long feet; their toes are small, unclawed, and relatively useless. Humans do have some hair, but the amount varies based on ethnicity: almost all humans have a patch of hair on the skull, going from above the eyes to the nape of the neck and out above each ear. Some human males will also have some hair around their mouths and along their jawlines. Humans of either gender can have either very fine or copious amounts of hair on their arms, chests (usually males), and legs, as well as around the groin. Males have wholly external genitalia, lacking even a protective sheath.

Senses/Capabilities: Humans are sight-based creatures; they have good long-distance sight in the daytime with great color-perception, and they are equally adept at noticing static detail and motion. Their sight is poor in darkness, however. They have a sensitive sense of touch and taste, a poor sense of smell, and an average sense of hearing. They do not have impressive physical capabilities: they can run 15-20 mph with average endurance and strength, given their frames. Their dexterity, flexibility, and agility are often very good, and they are some of the most deft tool-users in the universe.

Coloration/Clothing: Human coloration is heavily influenced by ethnicity. In general, it ranges from ebony-black to pale peach-white, touching on dark red-brown, medium dirt-brown, and lighter coppery-gold in the mix. One ethnicity has blue-tinged skin and is usually very pale, appearing bluish or greyish. Humans lack markings, other than occasional speckles on fair-skinned individuals. Their hair can be any shade of brown, including natural yellows and reds, and can also be black. Human hair usually loses its coloration and becomes grey or white with age, but the same ethnicity that has blue-tinged skin can have naturally white or silvery hair in youth. Human eyes can be greens, browns, and blues, occasionally black or grey. Humans are one of the races who wear clothing the most, having as they do such vulnerable hides; they wear both hides and furs as well as woven fabrics, preferring the latter in most cases. Humans generally wear a form-fitting piece of clothing around their hips, females adding something similar to bind their breasts, and over-clothing that can include shirts, pants, skirts/dresses/kilts, robes, jackets, gloves, and cloaks. Style and color of the clothing varies all across the spectrum. Humans are one of the few species that always wear footwear and often wear leather or metal armor.

Races/Breeds: Humans have various ethnicities, usually based on geography rather than appearance or physical attributes. Being such a widespread species, it would be impossible to touch on all of them, as humans have a tendency to create cultures out of a very small population and become rigid about its defining qualities. The one ethnicity worth noting is Khamdegan, the people of the colony world Khamdega; it is unique not for its culture, but for the appearance of its people, who have blue-tinged skin and often-white hair. Khamdegan hair is usually kept long and is very fine; even eyebrows tend to grow long and drift down near the cheeks, and men keep wispy mustaches and beards that are thin and sleek. Khamdegans are very family-oriented and honor-bound, but beyond those sparse generalizations, they are just as striated into mini-cultures as any other large human population.

Language: Humans speak vocan, which has become the most well-known language in the universe for its easy pronunciation by a variety of mouths and its nearly-mathematical structure, which enables quick and solid understanding when learning it. [Note: vocan is based on Latin, if Latin had stayed a living language and evolved slightly with the times. It will probably eventually be a conlang, but first I need to learn Latin…] Humans tend to be very good at learning and speaking other languages, but their vocal cords cannot duplicate many sounds.

Technology: Humans have an as-needed approach to technology. They have little interest in machinery and robotics, unlike buthines and others, but they excel at making functionality into a refined art. Their intersun ships are a fantastic example of this, being both sturdy and reliable while being aesthetically pleasing to humans and many other races. Humans make superior blade-type weapons and are skilled woodcrafters, and their architecture is fairly renowned as some of the best in the universe. Their vehicles, however, are no more than animal-pulled carts, and their water-boats have never moved beyond sails. They make more items for entertainment and decoration than almost any other race, but they still have not developed engines of their own, though they have little problem using other races' technology and tools.

Magic: Humans are the top magic-using race in the universe, though a few others are not far behind. Capable of using any kind of magic, humans have a natural talent in and inclination towards magic as a way of survival and advancement. Humans are the only race that the luirkanni have allowed full access to the Light, and a considerable portion of the human race are Lightworkers. However, a considerable portion of the human race are cultists, as well, and since some are Coalitionists, the human race has no single allegiance. Humans have crafted themselves as a magic-based race and maintain the top position on the magical foodchain, even enslaving daereons to keep them from competing with humans; however, aneans are threatening this alphaship with their own magical affinities and their much-greater physical prowess.

Values: Human values are too diverse across their multiple mini-cultures to sum up. Most humans value some form of social interaction and loyalty; many value magical skill and power. Some humans value natural cycles, life-death, predator-prey, and still take part in that with body and mind; other humans value civilization, imposed order, and will engage in a more sophisticated lifestyle. Humans are one of the most varied and unpredictable races in the universe, so more than that cannot be generalized.

Social Groups/Society: Humans are inherently social creatures, both among their own kind and among other races. They build complex webs of relationships, staying in touch with both parents and offspring well after everyone involved is adult and even involving themselves in offspring that are only distantly related to them. Humans also make social bonds with others they work with, learn with, live near, and share interests with. Human society is moderately hierarchal, but not in the systematic sense that some groups show dominance/submission. Human cultures handle the exact shape and ritualism of hierarchy differently, from martial dominance to respect for age to hailing the most skilled and qualified as leaders of their castes. Human society tends to be built around the family, and many human cultures will mate for life; some cultures take more than one long-term mate.

Reproduction/Aging: Humans are inefficient at reproducing, for all that they're one of the most populous races in the universe. They have a nine-month gestation period for one, occasionally two, child(ren). The infant cannot feed itself or walk for almost a year; it is a child for the first 11-12 years of its life, after which it enters adolescence. Males physically mature between 16-17 years, while females mature at 17-18, but both genders are sexually mature by 13-14. Many human cultures don't consider children to be true adults until they are 20 years old, while others let them start breeding at 15 years. Despite the lengthy childhood, most humans are infertile by 50 years and begin experiencing detrimental effects of aging. Humans generally live only 70-80 years. (Note: adulthood can be greatly extended and aging greatly staved off by certain forms of magic and magic-use. The numbers here are based on averages, but some few humans can live well into their 100s and still be healthy.)

Habitat/Settlements: Humans prefer mild climates, but can survive in very cold, very wet, very dry, and very hot areas, thanks to their architecture and their clothing. Humans do poorly at very high altitudes, due to the thinner atmosphere; humans do not live underwater, though some spend most of their lives on water-boats. The vast majority of humans do live in social settlements of varying sizes and levels of civilization; their architecture is high-quality and usually aesthetically appealing, but it, too, varies by culture and by terrain. Some humans live in compartmentalized sections of one large building; others live in small, single-family dwellings. Humans rarely live with no physical structure to offer shelter and safety.

Religion/Beliefs: As varied as imaginable. Some humans are atheists; other are deists, monotheistic or polytheistic or pantheistic; some are naturalists, spiritualists, or animists. Belief in the Light, the hells, and demons is pretty well universal, but only because they can be proven to exist. There is no way to generalize or sum up any other beliefs.

Interaction w/ Other Species: Humans are generally too culturally diverse to generalize, but a few attitudes are very widespread. They're generally wary of aneans, seeing them as threats and/or magical rivals; they consider daereons to be little more than pets or servants; they look down upon vurri as less-than-people; and they are often opposed to buthines in terms of lifestyle, since humans are magic-based and buthines are technology-based. Beyond that, it depends on the individual human, its culture of origin, and the non-human in question.

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