Sapient Species of Third Age Materia

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Author's Note: This article explains the sapient demographics of Third Age Materia, after massive upheaval caused by a catastrophe known as the Deluge. To see the sapient diversity of First Age Materia, prior to the Deluge's floods and tsunamis, see the full article: Sapient Species of First Age Materia. Those who lived in the First Age but survived to the Third Age will still be found here.

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Species diversity on Waking Materia—both sapient and wild—is drastically lower in the Third Age than ever before. This due to a number of factors, most importantly the plane-wide flooding and tsunamis caused by the Deluge, as well as sapient colonization, hunting and warfare. Some First Age sentients are also thought to have left the plane voluntarily, leaving perhaps only small populations that would be genetically subsumed by others.

Articles herein use the term "species" to mean groups that are largely genetically isolated from each other, though most known humanoids are still related enough to interbreed without medical complication. (Social and cultural complications are, of course, a different matter.)

Materia's surviving, Third Age sapients are as follows.

Aspected

“Aspected” is a general term for humanoids who have been touched (or chosen?) at birth by elements that weave the fabric of Waking Materia or the Duskscape. See the main article for a list of known aspected phenomena.

Note that Aspected are not a true race. Rather, they may occur in any race (though some seem to have preferences, like ifrit amongst humans, sylphs among arakh, oreads among dwarves, etc.). Such births are rare, and most Material Cultures react to visible Aspected with awe, fear and sometimes reverence. Whether shunned or celebrated, people born aspected are rarely allowed to lead normal lives.

Humans

A fast-paced, eccentric and intellectually-driven species that was a small minority among the First Age empires. They've since thrived, partly due to their historical affinity for upland & mountainous areas that were spared by the Deluge, and partly due to their gregariousness, which makes them more willing to diversify culturally and geographically.

The vast majority of Materian humans are Meranthic, meaning they possess at least some percentage of elven blood, making them slighter and less hairy than their pure-blooded cousins. These more basal humans can only be found in small numbers in the Valamonian uplands and the Islands of Agåntyr.

Dwarves

See also the full article: Dwarves. Gregarious and straightforward, yet notoriously untalkative about their vast, complex, subterranean civilizations, dwarves are a paradoxical folk. Trade with surfacers tends to occur in topside outpost towns, as only the Most Very Important of non-dwarven VIPs are allowed inside their heavily-guarded, underground cities. In a similar vein, romance and interbreeding with non-dwarves is rarely tolerated. Worshippers of the dwarven god of skaldry and diplomacy, Galadnock mac-Kenzie, claim they existed as a species on Materia prior to the arrival of the first empires (as noted by mac-Kenzie himself), a claim most scholars find suspect at best, empty boasting at worst.

Meranthic Elves

Nearly all Materian elves are Meranthic; what few Ur-Mera or basal elves exist on the plane are interplanar visitors or the direct progeny thereof.

Eladrin

See also the full article: The Eladrin. Also called wood elves or red elves, the eladrin have a particular affinity for forests and jungles (or perhaps a distaste for places that lack the sights, smells and noises of these places). Thought to be the descendants of the time god Ahm's second aspect, the Sword of Eventide. The most long-lived of Material sapients, eladrin are an unhurried and contemplative people, with peacable natures so long as circumstances permit. They prefer their architecture minimal, their cuisine simple and their songs long, but also have sometimes complex beliefs around philosophy & spirituality that other sapients generally find bewildering, save for some dedicated human and halfling scholars.

Drow

See also the full article: The Drow. The dark elves, thought to be the descendents of Ahm's third aspect, the Sword of Nyxfall. Their light sensitivity, ingrained sense of superiority and tendency to worship Duskscape Regents have meant a distant and often chilly relationship with surface races, but the riches and beauty of the surface world are too strong a draw for some, and drow merchants or mercenary guilds are not wholly uncommon.

Enari

See also the full article: The Enari. The white elves, moon elves, or ghost elves; children of Ahm's first aspect, the Sword of Morningtide. The enari are more robust and short-statured than their eladrin & drow cousins, with pale, almost ghostly complexions and grey to white hair, sometimes with shades of blue and purple. A remote and spiritual people, they have a particular affinity to arctic-oceanic ecosystems, maintaining strictly reverent relationships with elder spirits of the permafrost, basalt crags, walruses, narwhals, moose and the like.

Halflings

See also the full article: Halflings. A simple and unpretentious people, halflings generally prefer the pastoral-communal lifestyles of their remote villages, however a rare few are drawn to the open road or the noisy, scintillating complexity of ‘tallclan’ society. Proud musicians and storytellers, their art is highly sought after in human civilization, and halflings that can tolerate climbing high chairs and dodging oblivous, tallclan pedestrians—though rare—can make a good living in human, elven and even arakh cities. Those rare few will often describe their clanfolk as stubborn and set in their ways.

Arakh

See also the full article: Arakh. Powerfully-built, swarthy, fang-toothed, vaguely catlike Humanoids who superficially resemble humans, but are descended from the Ur-Arakh lineage rather than the apelike Ur-Anthra. Like the elves, there are virtually no pure-blooded arakh on Waking Materia; all populations are "Gretanthic" or mixed human-arakh. With their powerful sense of smell, arakh prefer the open air, away from dense human and elven settlements.

Varya & Galateids

Aside from the chelicerans, the only Created species found on Waking Materia, both in exceedingly small numbers.

Varya

See also the full article: Varya. ‘Varya’ is a word in the Eladrin Old Tongue, without direct translation but meaning something between ‘guardian’ and ‘archivist’. These ‘guardians’ are beings of wooden sinew, where the roots of Elderbirches are "guided" into humanoid forms. They've historically taken a variety of shapes including bipdeal, quadrupedal and centaur-like. Constructs, you say? They are, yes, but with one major difference from golems or animates: they have souls. They are people, each individual as unique as you and I.

Galateids

See also the full article: Galateids. Mysterious beings generally found only in the inner echelons of the Holy City of Calm in Jura, the Galateids are apparent “cousins” of the Varya, sharing the plant beings’ nature as “ghosts in the shell,” but whose shells are of hand-crafted materials like jointed porcelain or flowstone as opposed to Elderbirch roots.

The Ong & Baraka

Seemingly the only still-extant race of indigenous Materians, they are divided into the bonobo-like Baraka and the orangutan-like Ong. The former resides in the jungles of the Howling Fantods to the far southeast of the Broken Empire, while the latter retains a small, reclusive civilization deep (and high) in the Emerald Expanse of Marai.

The Baraka

See also the full article: Baraka. The baraka of the Howling Fantods are a viciously martial society, with a heirarchy based purely on personal combat. The top half(?) of the population wear masks symbolizing their rank, with perhaps a thousand "Red Masks" at the bottom of this masked caste, a couple hundred "White Masks" in the middle and a few dozen with fearsome, custom-carved masks at the top. The society is presumably ruled by the First, and the Maskless caste appear to have no rights compared to the Masked.

The Ong

See also the full article: Ong. The ong of the Emerald Expanse are larger than the baraka, but less violent and greatly dislike leaving the protection of their canopy villages. As a result their civilization has shrunk a frightening amount due to waves of colonization by the Antediluvian Iyō theomilitary under Lichlord Io'a, and later the human-drow alliance that could come to be known as the Oronaga Clan of the Maraian Commonwealth. If they are to survive the coming decades, something needs to give.

The Saska'atch

The scattered, near-extinct Saska'atch of the Oztrojan Arcstrand and the Outmarcher island of Aukslanding are probably cousins of the ong, however the near-impassability of the oceans between the Broken Empire and Marai means an absence of any scholarship on the subject.

The Hecath

See also the full article: Hecath. Aside from Created species like the varya, galateids and chelicerans, the fungal-insectoid Hecath are the only non-Humanoid sapient species on Waking Materia. Their biology is a symbiotic partnership between fungal saprolings and insectoid dragonmoths, where a subtype of saprolings known as "pilots" graft themselves to the brains of the dragonmoths, creating an intelligent dual mind. They are led by the astounding, demigodlike saproling Queens. Once a thriving First Age species laid low by the Deluge.

Etiainen

See also the full article: Etiainen. Though their origin is only known by a few remaining individuals, the blue-skinned, white-haired etiainen are not actually a race but are individuals of multiple races, converted to their current state by a powerful ritual, millennia ago on a faraway plane. Though they can be killed by normal means (and indeed, only a few hundred remain of an unknown number, possibly in the tens of thousands), they are functionally immortal. Some consider them undead, but the truth is even more bizarre: they are not affected by either positive nor negative energy. There are usually only a few dozen Etiainen on Waking Materia at most.

Chelicerans

See also the full article: Chelicerans. One of only three fully-Created species on Waking Materia aside from the varya and galateids. A race of large elf-scorpion centaurs originally created as elite soldiers for the armies of Lichlord Chelicerax. The Red Emperor's hunger and intemperance outweighed his skills in statecraft however, and his empire was eventually laid low by a series of betrayals and unwinnable guerilla quagmires. Chelicerans that survived the subsequent routs and culls by their creator's enemies would carve out spartan proto-cultures at the edges of First Age Civilization. For some tribes it would not be far enough away, and being unable to reproduce, would eventually fall to further clashes with Humanoids. Only a few scattered populations remain.

The Näckros

See also the full article: Näckros. The Näckros have never been heard to speak any verbal language; the name is Valamonian for 'Sea Lily' as blooms of that plant tend to be left in the wake of their bizarre, unfamiliar magicks. They are "mer-giants" of large size (body length over 9' for most adults) and an odd, mottled colouration of pitch blacks and bright whites.

Almost nothing is known about these creatures; though the odd sightings are reported, it's unclear whether they even still exist. The one major interaction they've had with surface humanoids was the sudden and devastating Näckros War in Late First Age Valamon, where a massive army (perhaps the entire population) of the mer-giants suddenly emerged from the ocean and attacked the continent, riding flying manta rays and vanguarded by sharks with crustaceon-like legs.

Banner: [Left to Right] 1. The Hermit of Mink Hollow, a Varya druid. 2. The bardic demigod Laila By-the-Sea a Meranthic human. 3. Galahaut, an Eladrin ranger. 4. Erekh-Zokh, a Baraka warrior.