Humans Species in Gates of Eternity [2.0] | World Anvil

Humans

Humans are the most common mortal species of the world, that despite their apparent lack of special abilities and in-born skills seems to have found more success than most of their competitors. Majority of the modern great powers have at least half of their population composed of humans, more often than not including the local elites.   Mankind seems to have achieved that simply by being sufficiently numerous, as while its percentage among the world's population seems to be slowly dwindling, the fall from their starting numbers is a long process that might never be concluded.   What's more majority of the species that has managed to regionally replace humans are, in fact, subspecies of Mankind. Whether this indicates that humans as a whole are somewhat better adapted to the circumstances is anyone's guess.   Humans - like some other species - are divided internally between subspecies and races. The former are significantly more divergent from what is considered to be baseline humanity, while the latter tend to be differentiated by minor issues (such as colour of skin and hair with some minor facial structure differences) and are typically omitted from most lists.

Basic Information

Anatomy

Humans as a rule are humanoids (which shouldn't be surprising), so they have an upright position, two arms, two legs, and a head. They also of more or less similar build - while average height of their population is greatly dependent on the issue of nutrition during childhood, it will generally be contained between 1,7m and 2m (with even the best fed population regularly having 'shorties' among them).

Biological Traits

Subspecies

Beastkin are a subspecies originally created by the Ancient of Flesh as footsoldiers in their conquest of Telya, they now have developed three main racial subcategories on their own (aligned with the cosmologies that has, for some reason, decided to reimagine their entire species) and truly atrocious number of races (each mixing humans with some animal type).   Halfdaemons are an end-result of sex (consensual or not) between a human and a spirit (primarily of the daemon type). There is a single race of half-daemons per daemon type, though it's typically shared between a number of similar daemons of the same allegiance and similar nature (for example berserians are a result of interbreeding with almost all daemons of the Nine Hordes).   Half-daemons are heavily magical species, although their origin means that they are too little in number to ever become an actual population (at least in Material Worlds).   High Humans, the resident human subspecies of Karadia. They were created through some (admittedly rather tame) genmaturgic modifications during the imperial Second Era. They are healthier, stronger, and better-looking than baseline humans.   They also have a number of lesser, quality-of-life style improvements (for example mostly painless and almost bloodless periods for females). Unfortunately, centuries have passed without proper genetic maintenance (save for some nobles with access to few remaining alchemists on this level). This, together with some occasional interbreeding has began to water down the modifications.   Lilims are a relatively recent addition to the family of Man, being barely older than the Grand Empire of Karadia. They are the resident 'demonpeople', with horns, leather wings and tails, created from normal humans by the ancient shamans of their people through usage of some genmaturgic artifacts scavenged from the ruins of the Xylian Dominion.   They've done that primarily to strengthen themselves enough to be able to fight against the Beastkin of Telya, a war that continues to this day.   Reverses are a human subspecies hailing originally from the continent of Menoria, whose actual heritage (and origin) is a mystery. They are known to be nocturnal people, with light blinding them easily (but with excellent nightvision as a compensation).   As a sideeffect their cultural perception of light and dark is effectively reversed (hence the name). That concludes their list of differences from the baseline humans.   Tunnelers are a species of humans that - through supernatural means or not - has adapted to living in the Labirynth. They are pale-skinned people with much better eyesight in low-light environment. They, naturally, fare way worse outside of Labirynth, and are known to have to spend a lot of time getting used to living on the surface if they ever decide to move there.

Genetics and Reproduction

Two genders (with some very rare cases that are divergent from the baseline on that field, half of them a result of some corruption), one of them doing the pregnancy and the other doing the impregnation.   The special factor that's common to all humans (especially the baseline ones) is that they can have children with other subspecies of Mankind and even some non-humans (which is a reason why some scholars suggest that majority if not all of the humanoid non-humans are in fact human subspecies that diverged much earlier).   However, what is also their special factor, is that their traits almost never come on-top from the struggle, meaning that while the result of almost all pairings will be fertile, they will (in majority of cases) take more after their non-human (or non-baseline human) parent.   This is especially visible in human-daemon pairings, with humans being the only species to create halfdaemons. In all other pairings - for example an elf-daemon ones - the result will be children of their 'mundane' parent species, with some inborn magic talent, perhaps with some minor inherited ability. Only human blood is 'thin' enough to be overtaken by its daemonic counterpart to the point where the result is a hybrid.

Additional Information

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

Humans as a species have a relatively standard combination of decent eyesight and hearing, so-so taste and touch and rather vestigial smell. However some subspecies can be greatly altered when compared to the baseline (especially the Beastkin and some of the half-daemons) - in a way, this is the most divergent part of the great family of Man. As a result, trying to summarize the entire category in a single article is a folly.


Comments

Please Login in order to comment!