The Human Diaspora

Culture

Major language groups and dialects

Common

Common is a creole derived from several human tongues, of which there are so many that it can be said each ship has its own dialect. It started as a trade pidgin containing just enough words to barter and convey navigational data, but as humans started to colonize the Recondite Archipelago and ships from far flung locations banded together for mutual aid, Common developed into a richer, fuller language with its own writing system. As the Third Dynasty crumbled and humans started filling odd power vacuums back on the continents, Common's flexibility of expression and easy to learn syllabary/featural alphabet of logical interlocking letters made it, despite a cobbled together and wretchedly illogical grammar structure, a very appealing language for communicating beyond one's borders, regardless of species. It has in fact supplanted formal Dwarvish in widespread use, though not in its status as a class marker.

Average technological level

Not as advanced in metalworking or weaponry as dwarves and gnomes, but unsurpassed in shipbuilding and navigation.

Funerary and Memorial customs

Landlocked humans will put in a sizeable effort to ensure their dead loved ones are buried where, for most of human history, it was simply most convenient: at sea. Cremation can be used to make a body more transportable for this purpose, though it is not common among shipboard humans. Locks of hair set behind glass in brooches or lockets make common, portable memorials better suited to itinerant life than the great stone memorials of the Dwarves or the mourning trees of the Elves. As with other species, black is the color of knowledge, hence remembrance, hence mourning.