Humans

"Foul shaven-apes the lot of you!" -Common elfese sentiment for humans.

Humans are Everwealth’s most explosive contradiction: frail in body, brief in life, yet everywhere and always enduring. Born of the drowned continent of Tarmahc, they were not a singular people but a chorus of fractured nations, raiders, raider-poets, shepherd kings, and scholar-priests alike, all swallowed by the sea during The Fall. Unlike the longer-lived Dwarfish or the caste-bound Elfese who once owned these lands before men's arrival, humanity survived not through legacy, but through velocity. They fled not toward conquest, but toward continuity, scattering like embers across the known world. Some clung to shattered fleets, others carved through mountain passes, many died alone. But enough endured to matter. Though mistrusted by elder races for their inconsistency and rootlessness, humans redefined the meaning of survival. They did not return to power with old names or forgotten crowns, but with new tools, new tactics, and an unnerving willingness to break tradition. Where Elfs clung to honor, and Dwarfs to craft, humans bent the world around their desperation. Now, they dominate Everwealth, not by divine right, but by attrition, compromise, and invention. Still, their presence remains uneasy. Humans are fractured by design, loyal more often to tribe, town, or ideology than to race or bloodline. They can birth republics or tyrants, messiahs or monsters, sometimes all in the same decade. What unites them is not blood, but momentum. They are the fire beneath the soil, always burning, never still. To some, they are heroes reborn from ash. To others, they are the great mistake left over from a dying world. But all agree: where humans walk, the ground changes.

Naming Traditions

Feminine names

• Elira.
• Briony.
• Marla.
• Seren.
• Kaelin.

Masculine names

• Cairn.
• Joran.
• Elias.
• Thom.
• Drustan.

Unisex names

• Rook.
• Rowan.
• Morgan.
• Vale.
• Ash.

Family names

Humans vary widely in their surnames based on cultural origin. Some adopt patronymic systems (e.g. Joran Wenthson), others carry names tied to places (Thornehill, Greywater), professions (Carver, Smith), or old oaths (Vowkeeper, Ashbound).

Other names

• Wards of Everwealth - A formal term used by Elfese bureaucrats and Minotauri historians to describe humans who sought protection under Everwealth’s banner following the Fall. Often used in diplomatic contexts.
• Ashborn - A poetic, sometimes reverent term referring to humanity’s rise from the literal and figurative ashes of the old world. Common in scholarly texts and epic ballads.
• Tarmahc’s Remnant - A melancholic phrase used by older races, especially Dwarfish and Smallfolk, to describe humans as the last surviving children of Tarmahc, forever chasing the ghost of a homeland they barely remember.
• The Rootless - A critical term used by some Elfese and Goblins alike, referencing humanity’s perceived lack of ancestral grounding or cultural consistency, ever-moving, ever-hungry, ever uncertain.
• Stormsown - A romanticized title for humans who braved the chaos of the Schism and claimed new lands amidst conflict. Used by Human poets and occasionally by Minotauri storytellers.
• Shaven-Ape - A racial slur used by some Elfese and Minotauri, mocking humans’ hairlessness and perceived primitiveness. Rarely used in formal speech, but common among older or prejudiced individuals, especially in private.

Culture

Major language groups and dialects

Humans of Everwealth speak Common, a creole formed from the scattered tongues of Tarmahc survivors. Though largely homogenized over the centuries, dialects persist. Northerners speak in clipped, guttural tones. Highlanders lean into poetic phrasing. Some southern remnants use rhythmic speech or retain lilted chants from drowned city-states. The last living Tarmahcians on the isles preserve Old Tongue in funeral songs and lore.

Culture and cultural heritage

Human culture is an echo chamber of loss, hope, and relentless adaptation. Each family might carry the memory of an extinct city, each village shaped by ancestral traditions, some harmonious, others at odds. The Fall reduced their homelands to seabed and ash, yet from that ruin rose a people who shaped Everwealth itself. Humans are inherently contradictory: innovative but nostalgic, communal yet individualistic. Where Dwarfs cling to kin and Elfese to caste, humans experiment with hierarchy, often clashing in their ideals. In Everwealth, they are the rulers and the rabble alike, farmers and kings, inventors and insurgents.

Shared customary codes and values

Adaptability is a virtue. A good human learns from pain and reshapes themselves. Honor is optional; survival is not. Blood may bind, but it does not dictate. There is no 'proper way', only what works. Many humans believe in building legacy not through longevity, but through deeds, children, and the indelible scars left on others’ memories.

Average technological level

Human invention is fueled by desperation and curiosity. Though they lack the longevity of Dwarfs or the mysticism of Elfs, humans are prolific tinkerers. Their greatest strengths lie in rapid iteration and reckless experimentation. In recent history:

• Developed new versions of muskets and a less-effective gunpowder substitute.
• Harnessed steam-powered wagons (albeit dangerously prone to explosion).
• Mass-produced spellscrolls by copying enchanted text onto stamped bark-pulp pages.
• Perfected siege weaponry capable of cracking even Dwarfish stone.

Common Etiquette rules

Etiquette varies by region:

• Northerners value bluntness and honesty; dancing around topics is seen as cowardly.
• Southern humans maintain elaborate greeting customs and politeness rituals.
• Urban humans in cities like Opulence value fashion, tone, and presentation.
• The only true constant: respect is earned, not owed.

Common Dress code

Clothing reflects geography and profession more than class. Northern folk wear layered wool, pelts, and fur. Highlanders favor kilts, cloaks, and clan patterns. In Opulence and Wardsea, leather coats, sashes, or tailored doublets mark rising status. Magic-users often adorn themselves with symbols and stitched sigils, while warriors favor pragmatic armor. Regardless, form follows function more often than fashion.

Art & Architecture

Human architecture favors sturdy pragmatism with splashes of flamboyance. A tavern may have crooked beams but ornate stained glass. A lord's keep may be carved from old stone, but adorned with painted frescoes of fallen ancestors. Art is highly regional. Northerners carve grim totems. Coastlanders craft intricate knotwork. Highland bards preserve history in song. Everwealth's humans paint with blood, metaphor, and roaring passion. There is little subtlety, but boundless feeling.

Foods & Cuisine

No cuisine is more varied than that of humans. Due to their rapid expansion across the continent, each subculture has formed unique staples:

• Seafood chowders and black bread in Wardsea.
• Stew pies in the North.
• Salted root dishes in the Highlands.
• Bitter greens and fermented teas in the East.
• Blood sausage and goat cheese are staples across rural farmlands.

Humans also ferment anything that isn’t nailed down, creating potent wines, ales, and liquors. “If it burns your throat, it’s drinkable.”

Common Customs, traditions and rituals

• Grave-Cairns: Humans bury their dead with stones laid atop the body, each by a mourner. To remove a stone is considered grave robbery.
• Naming Days: Infants are named only after surviving their first winter.
• Spar Ceremonies: Duels between rivals, lovers, or family to resolve disputes, often to first blood.

Birth & Baptismal Rites

Newborns are often washed in water drawn from the nearest river, believed to be a symbolic tie to the land. Some traditions involve pricking the heel with a rose thorn to ward off spirits of disease.

Coming of Age Rites

Varies by region. Most humans declare adulthood at 14-16, often marked by:

• First successful hunt.
• A pilgrimage to an ancestral ruin.
• A branded sigil denoting one’s role in their village.
• Completion of one’s first trade or spell.

Funerary and Memorial customs

Unlike Dwarfs or Elfs, humans rot and return to the soil. Burials are common, though some burn their dead or cast ashes to the sea. Grave markers are carved stone, often bearing poetic epitaphs or warnings. It's common to leave a copper coin on the eyes, “to pay the Earth.”

Common Taboos

• Desecrating the dead.
• Betraying one's own in wartime.
• Showing cowardice in the face of communal danger.
• Mocking ancestral ruins or the drowned cities of Tarmahc.

Common Myths and Legends

• The Last Ship of Tarmahc: Said to still sail the skies, crewed by ghosts, seeking unclaimed land.
• The Hollow King: A human emperor who traded his soul for immortality, now wandering without memory.
• The Children of Salt: Rumored to be sea-bound humans with gills, born from generations of hardship.

Historical figures

• Queen Veira of Blackrock - Unified five warring human clans to hold the line at the Battle of Thornwatch, despite being mortally wounded.
• Merrin the Bridgeborn - A child born during a siege, who grew to be the architect of Opulence.
• The Seablood Twins - Twin captains who led the last wave of refugees from Tarmahc across a storm-devoured ocean.

Ideals

Beauty Ideals

Wildly subjective, humans see beauty in strength, grit, wit, and presence more than form. Pale skin is prized in the North, while bronzed tone is admired in coastal regions. Tattoos, scars, and expressive eyes are admired across all lands.

Gender Ideals

Unlike the Elfese or traditionalist Dwarfs, humans are largely fluid in gender roles. A woman might lead an army, a man might raise ten children and spin wool. The ideal is competence, not conformity.

Courtship Ideals

Love is often spontaneous, romantic, or born of shared hardship. Engagements may be sealed with blood, oaths, tokens, or wild declarations shouted over mountain valleys. Marriage is rarely arranged in rural areas, though noble houses often make political bonds.

Relationship Ideals

Mutual respect, shared survival, and loyalty are prized. Jealousy and betrayal are despised, but forgiveness is a noted human trait, sometimes to their detriment.

Interesting Facts & Folklore:

• The Shattered Lineage: Humans of Everwealth often trace ancestry back to drowned nations of Tarmahc, but the stories change with every telling, half history, half myth, wholly uncertain.
• The Tidewalkers' Pact: An old tale claims the last Tarmahci kings bargained with sea spirits to save their children as their kingdoms drowned, explaining the uncanny luck of sailors born on a moonless tide.
• Ashbirth Superstition: Infants born during volcanic ashfall, especially rare now, are considered "truthborn" and said to dream of their ancestors' final deaths.
• Saltbone Practice: Some remote island-dwellers practice “saltboning,” embedding shards of coral into their skin to remember what the sea took. These humans are often feared, even by other humans.
• The Human Spirit: Many legends speak of a human's impossible durability during times of extreme passion; Accounts of men with cannon rounds through their chests, ran through 3 dozen times with many blades, still inching forward with whatever propulsion they have in their bodies no-matter how hopeless the circumstance. Unable to die until they are completely spent, or until their work is done.

Metaphors & Idioms:

• Forged in desperation, sharpened in rivalry, spoken with fire behind the teeth.
• "Break your roots to find your rise." A phrase acknowledging that greatness often requires abandoning home, blood, or the past.
• "Burn loud, die bright." A fatalistic but proud saying that celebrates intense, short-lived greatness, warriors, poets, revolutionaries.
• "Stone remembers fire." A reminder that even when conflict ends, scars and grudges remain, spoken often in the aftermath of betrayal.
• "All tongues lie, but scars don't." Refers to lived experience over words or titles; commonly used in political disputes or when judging someone's worth.
• "Blood don't bind, choice does." Popular among Human mercenaries and orphans, suggesting bonds formed by decision, not lineage, are the ones that matter.