Players Handbook Species and Stildane

As established in the Stildane Setting Guide, the land of Stildane is a great place to play whatever kind of species you want. While some players may run with this to play some wild starspawn or fun new species, some may want something more familiar. In order to accommodate this, I have made small spaces in Stildane for the player's handbook species. While these are riffs on the ideas rather than straightforward elves and dwarves, they should hopefully have the range to allow for a number of player characters and interpretations. I will be calling these kind of starspawn "PHB starspawn", for the Players Handbook.
NOTE: These are not set in stone. If you as a player of DM feel that these setups don't fit what you want from the species, do change them. The point of these is to provide a sense of place in the world for these archetypal fantasy species, not to lock anyone into any place.
Humans: Humans are already a species in Halika! In fact, they are one of the more common ones. Great news - this one is already there.

Elves

Elves in Stildane are an uncommon species, mostly found in Northern Stildane. They are strange humanoids, often not fully integrated into society but not entirely detached from it either. Some among them have long lifespans, but most do not - and none of them have their ancestor's lifespans, which lasted many centuries. Some elves feel a deep anxiety about this, and take it to mean that they are in a state of "decay" as a community; others simply take it as a necessary cost for freeing themselves from the magical clutches of the wasteland. The magic inherent in elves, that feeds their cantrip casting and lifespans, must be absorbed from the wasteland - and that comes with its own set of health risks (including being eaten by monsters as well as medical complications).
Elves began in the Kingdom of Dovenar many centuries ago, as humans who were taken by capricious Forest Spirits to serve as meat puppets, servants, and emissaries. These humans were shaped into thin, 'graceful' shapes by the spirits, who had a small selection of preferred appearances and aesthetics. Elves are no longer bound to such shapes, but it has changed their average body type. Modern elves are almost entirely the descendants of these original puppets, who fled in every direction after their overlord spirits were banished.
"Half Elves" make up the vast majority of the elven population. These are elves that have grown up in broader society, and often are not "pure blooded" in their ancestry. While their lifespans are lower, they tend to be better integrated into society and are known as charismatic and socially capable - their 'elven grace and beauty' is not undermined by poor socialization like it is for other elves. Half Elves have moved along trade routes to most places in Stildane, and it wouldn't be strange to see them anywhere on the continent. Half Elves are, in lifespan and biology, essentially human.
"Wood Elves" are elves who live near or in the Chaos Wastes. Their magical elven nature is fed by the wasteland radiation, but they do not embrace the wasteland for the most part - they seek to shape it into something they can live with. They live in a handful small villages and nomadic tribes, some of which have wandered quite far from their homeland. While Wood Elves lack the magical affinity and extreme slowed aging of the Dark or High Elves, they do have some slowed aging (comparable to Kobolds, or even Prisms) and physical properties.
"Dark Elves" are the descendants of elves who who either were taken with their masters back into the wasteland, or who went to a Chaos Nexus to try and absorb power and reclaim their ancient glory. Most "Dark Elves" live in the wasteland or in the underground tunnels that crisscross Stildane (hence their name). These elves are more physically diverse than others; their skin is often a color not found naturally in anyone else (purple, blue, green, scarlet, metallic, green) and they often have other mutations. Dark Elf settlements are prone to cult-like structures, and some are said to be ruled by the ancient spirits that once ruled all elves. Those underground tend to be the more normal ones, as these are the groups that escaped the nightmare villages at the border of the chaos nexii. While Dark elves can live lengths comparable to Solars, none do - those in the wasteland who reach a certain age are claimed by the Spirits, and those who escape the wasteland are said to be cursed to die a tragic end.
"High Elves are elves who live in civilized lands who use tactical magical exposure to try and maintain their higher levels of innate magic. This exposure can involve living near magical artifacts or sites, purposefully channeling magic nearby wild magic sites for extended periods of time, or even forcing their children to sleep in a room that contains a small shard of Ederstone. These are the least common kind of elf, with only one community of note located in their homeland of Dovenar. Most High Elven families are not the most adjusted bunch; they attach moral value to their elven past and reject the outside world as somehow spoiled or polluting.
A small number of high elves live this way for purely pragmatic reasons - they want their children to live longer and have more magical affinity, and they consider the risks and costs worthwhile - but the sheer danger and mortality rates (especially to young children, as this exposure must begin young) makes this attitude extremely hubristic in its own right. While High elves can live lengths comparable to Solars, the only known High Elves more than three-hundred years old are either highly-traumatized victims of the Last Kivish Scouring, or mutated stragglers struggling with some haunting or major medical problem.

Dwarves

Dwarves in Stildane are one of the more common types of PHB Starspawn. They live in small groups throughout Stildane, typically near Prisms. This is because they are a kind of mutated Half Prism with a slightly more Human appearance; they can still eat rocks, hear a full prism range of pitches, and sense a mineral's composition with a touch, but they have lost their blindsense and natural armor entirely. Dwarves most recognizable for their metallic teeth and their brilliant gem-like eyes.
Dwarves began in the mountain-kingdoms of Varasa, specifically the prism-hold of Udragest. They spread through the region for many centuries, before a large number of them migrated North into the Cursed Rurateg Mountains. Their ability to navigate both prism and humanoid societies with ease has allowed them to prosper, just as half-prisms have prospered around the world.
"Hill Dwarves" are dwarves native to the Varasa mountains and other settled societies. Their name comes from their tendency to live above ground in accessible places, where they can best act as merchants between Prism and non-prism groups.
"Mountain Dwarves", are dwarves who live in more dangerous regions - typically descendants of the migrants into the Cursed peaks. Mountain dwarves are less healthy on average (as they eat less varied foods), but often live in very militarized societies that impart martial skills to all members. They are known as "mountain dwarves" because they tend to live underground, in fortified prism-holds protected from the worst of the wastes.

Halflings

Halflings are a curious group, who have a natural relationship with soil that is just as keen as a dwarf's with stone. They are a small community, overwhelmingly rural. They are also a recently formed species, only a few centuries old.
Halflings hail from The Delent. The largest Starspawn ethnic group, the "Yolps", are a group of mole-like people who live in burrows and have turned to agriculture since their ancient kingdom fell. Halflings are simply Yolps who have been mutated back into a humanoid shape. The largest group comes from the town of Hodsyarn, which experienced a magical maelstrom in 1710 that transformed the Yolps living there into Halflings. Since 1710, small Halfling groups have migrated around Stildane and have exploded in number - though they are still too small a group to really be noticed on a large scale.
Honestly, the basic Halfling subraces are almost indistinguishable from each other and do not warrant being separated by lore.

Orcs

Orcs, or Half-orcs (call them whatever you want), are an old variety of Starspawn that can be found across Stildane in reasonable numbers. They tend to be more common the further North you go, but small groups can be found anywhere. Different orcish groups look and act radically different; some have tusks, some are just very tall and bulky green people, and some have boar-like heads and dense fur. While many orc groups tend to live at the edge of the chaos wastes and therefore have a hardy frontier culture of normalized violence and hardship, this is hardly a universal trait.
The original orcs were a group of Starspawn that were spared annihilation by the First Kivish Empire, and were kept as servants. Their use by Verkohn the Truthful as personal slave attendants and bodyguards made them fashionable, and they were favored by the aristocracy and encouraged to multiply. In the late Kivish empire's caste system, orcs were at the top of the starspawn hierarchy and tended towards military roles. This system planted small orcish garrisons around the fringes of the empire - and these garrisons were cut loose when the empire collapsed a millennium ago. Multiple Kivish empires have succeeded that brutal and ancient one, and these empires have continued to push orcs towards the frontiers - a role that Reverent Kivish respect as a "traditional" one for orcs. Other orcs, who moved into towns and farmland and found themselves being displaced back towards the frontier during the Scourings, decided to move as far South as they could to avoid being dragged to the frontier. It has been several centuries since the last Scouring, though, so orcs have started to drift back into the Stildanian settled heartlands.
While orcs are more numerous than most of the other PHB Starspawn on this list, they are not so numerous as to have a real reputation in most places - they are seen as frontiersmen warriors in the far North around Kizen and Gennorholn, but what that means is flexible. The wide variety of orcish variations that have formed over the years helps this - "orc" is now a starspawn family rather than a specific body type, so it is something of a self-identifying label for communities.

Gnomes

Gnomes are Haltia and their Star-touched variants. Most Stildanian Haltia are descended from the unions between Kobolds and non-Kobolds, and have no attachment to distant Desmia (though some Haltia are descended from Desmian migrants or merchants).
"Forest Gnomes" are pure Haltia - they are small folk with a natural tie to the land that they were born to, and can speak with small animals.
"Rock Gnomes" are a mutated sub-type of Haltia common in Southern Stildane, originally native to Eastern Eketen before migrating around the continent. They are like a mix between half-prism and Haltia, perhaps through intermarriage with Dwarven communities. While they lack the Haltia's ties to the land, they do have a cultural tradition of tinkering.

Dragonborn

Dragonborn are a rare form of Starspawn from the wastes, notable for their breath weapon. Most common around the Sanctuary of Uvasten, but small groups have wandered around the continent. They are a small group with basically no unified history. The one common thread of Dragonborn is that they believe that they have a connection to the great magical beasts of the chaos wastes.

Tieflings

Tieflings are an old variety of Starspawn found overwhelmingly in the chaos wastelands. They come in many varieties, and each group keeps to themselves. Many Tiefling groups are committed to either strong ideologies or end up in cult-like structures.
Tiefling communities are plagued by a secret that village leaders keep to themselves: that they are, by prophecy, doomed to one day produce a child who will grow up to plunge the world into an age of chaos. Some communities react to this with extreme guilt and self-hatred, to try and police any "evil" instincts out of their children. Others react with a kind of fatalistic longing for the future herald, and push their children too far to try and uncover who will be that lord of chaos. Some communities swear oaths to never speak of or think of the prophecy at all, and choose to go all-out into new ideas that might recontextualize what "chaos" even means. So a Tiefling could come with trauma, or they might be lucky and come from one that has healthily resolved their baggage.
Tieflings are not universally hated in this setting, since most people just see them as normal starspawn. Rather, since Tieflings are overwhelmingly wastelanders, they are seen as perpetual foreigners and outsiders because of their isolation. Tieflings tend to be fish out of water for the most part, even if some of them are healthily socialized in mainstream society.