Human
Created by the gods before recorded history, humans are a quixotic and somewhat fragmented people whose civilizations can be found in almost every corner of the known world. Their apocryphal beginnings as primordial clay have afforded them an incredible range of diversity—no two humans are exactly alike, and they vary almost as much in physical appearance as they do in hearts and minds. Yet, their differences—and the numberless wars waged over them—obscure a fundamental truth of humankind that they themselves have long forgotten: humans are inexorably tied to Fate, just as Fate is tied to them.
In many ways, it is this simple fact that has allowed humans to forge their own destinies—how they have come to better themselves, to learn, to propagate and thrive in an inhospitable, primeval world brimming with violence and horror. No matter what calamity befalls them, humans become stronger and smarter every turn of the season before ultimately passing that experience down so that their progeny might build upon what their parents left behind.
Yet, for all of humanity’s strengths, they embody a multitude of weaknesses. Their vast divergences of thought often put entire nations at odds, while wildly varying upbringings and experiences can produce a nearly unlimited range of personalities. Worse still, humans are just as likely to work against each other as they are to cooperate, reducing some of the greatest civilizations in history to dusty ruins because so-and-so squabbled over whose face was stamped on a coin, or elevating multiple generations of a family to unquestionable kingship because 400 years earlier a toothless ancestor built their house in the right spot.
Still, humans can be brave and wily, and they often defy the cards they’re dealt. It was humans, after all, who betrayed the gods—the stewards of Fate itself—and doomed themselves to drift, fateless, into oblivion. And perhaps it will be them again, the cutthroats, the adventurers, the theurges all, who will learn to save themselves, as they have always done.
Basic Information
Anatomy
After many fits and starts, the gods at last achieved their creative aspirations with the formation of humanity. Though humans lacked the raw might of their giant predecessors and the innate eldritch power of the visiting aes, they were designed to adapt and overcome any threat or obstacle, not as individuals but as a whole, fueled by their own mortality.
If there is one truth of the human condition, it’s that it ends. Invariably, and soon, in the grand scheme of things. However, this does not dissuade human folk from striving to achieve the impossible. Far from it. It drives them to succeed and to leave a legacy for which they will be remembered. A legacy that the next short-lived generation will build upon, and the next.
Humans lacked claws and fangs, the natural weapons of the wild, so they made their own. They lacked thick fur to keep them warm, so they took it from those beasts that did, and then stole the secrets of fire from the heavens themselves. There was not enough food, so they began to raise their own. They lacked the ability to will dwellings from the earth and metal as the daimn and aes did, so thousands of them crushed and chopped and carved wood and stone with tools that they made and raised them to heights that rivaled the mountains. With their numbers and drive (and more than a little help from a connection to Fate that was their birthright), humankind spread to all corners of the world, no matter how inhospitable, and claimed it all as undisputed masters.
Pushed too hard, however, the drives at the heart of humanity’s success can take them to dangerous extremes. As mortals, the finality of death, and the fear of it, haunts their brief lives. Their suits of steel, their healing arts, their walls of stone, their farming and ranching—at best, these only delay the inevitable.
But driven by their fear of death, convinced they might overcome anything, and touched by Fate, the human Oligarchs dared the impossible, and succeeded in slaying the gods, rising to godhood themselves. Thus, the gods brought about their own downfall. And this, in turn, released a torrent of untamed Fate into the world, where it elevated the Blackbirds to challenge and perhaps throw down these new gods.
- Ancestral Modifier: +1 to three Bonuses and –1 to three Bonuses, chosen by the player
- Boon: One chosen by the player
- Bane: Mortal
- Impact on role-play: None