Sourceland Races

These are the Races of sapient species in the Sourcelands, including a bit of their history and information about their biology. 
== The Story of the Eldar ==
While the Eldar were not the first sapient species to arrive exist on the planet, they are the best place to start, in hopes of creating some sort of chronological understanding of why the world is as it is. 
=== Religion ===
The Eldar are atheists and have not had any form of religion in thousands of years. What ever religious beliefs they once had, were seemingly associated with the planets and the stars, and certain reverent expressions regarding the various planets in the Solar System stuck with them. 
Incidentally, this is also why humans wrongfully believe that the Elves worshiped the planets and stars as gods. 
=== Home World: Obrimos ===
The Eldar claim to hail from the planet Obrimos, in the same solar-system as Terra, and they claim that this is where all their knowledge comes from. This in turn, humans later misunderstood and interpreted as Obrimos being the God of Knowledge and Wisdom. 
Obrimos had a history not unlike any planet where a Sapient species starts to develop. The Eldar were no different than humans of the real world are, they evolved from primitive species and became something superior to the animals around them, and soon learned how to harness their own biology through technological means. They even attempted primitive Space-Travel.
=== Genetic Manipulation ===
The Eldar discovered ways to change their own biology, by altering their DNA. They became beautiful and physiologically extremely superior. 
The average Eldar, after cracking their own DNA, was at least 6 ft tall (180 cm - much taller than their species originally was), weighed only about 150 lbs (70 kg), had perfect serene facial features, were abnormally fast and strong, immune to almost all sickness and were extremely long-lived (in fact believed to be immortal). 
There was a price for their genetic manipulation - the Elder could only control and manage the continuation of perfection, through controlled parenthood, by eliminating poor genes from the sperm and the egg. 
In order to prevent the Eldar from accidentally procreating imperfect members of society, female Eldar had a small implant surgically installed in their womb as soon as this formed during the very fetal development. The device would target Elven DNA, and essentially terminate any pregnancy that fell outside of certain parameters, before a Fetus even started to form (the termination happened moments after conception). 
The Eldar who came to Terra did not bring birthing facilities with them, and some where forced to simply remove their implants, resulting in the creation of the Elven species (imperfect Eldar - literally Lesser Eldar, translated from the Eldar language). 
Amusingly, the Eldar imlpants did not seem to prevent pregnancies that were not associated with the Eldar genetic code, meaning they were capable of breeding with other species. 
=== Discovering the "Others" ===
The Eldar were very technologically advanced, and eventually discovered a different dimension. This dimension housed mysterious beings that the Eldar were capable of limited communication with. The beings on the other side, were theorized to be no different from any other Sapient Species, living their lives completely oblivious to the wants and needs of the Eldar, but interestingly - the relationship seemed to be uneven, despite the general assumptions that the two people were more or less equivalent. 
The "Others" that the Eldar were in contact with, were able to anchor themselves to certain objects or individuals in the Eldar's dimension, and view the world, and even interact with it. The Elder never discovered a way to do the opposite. 
Only a select few of the Others had these powers, and were some sort of Mediums in their own world, and there was a revolution in their world after this discovery. The Government got involved and made several extremely interesting discoveries. 
The Others could harness some forms of extremely valuable energy from the dimension of the Eldars, seemingly both invisible and useless (and unproblematic to generate), through their connections. This could only be done through the anchor-points, and those only appeared on planets. 
The Eldar could in turn, also harness massive amounts of powerful energy from the other dimension, and it was likewise unproblematic and useless to the Others. So a mutually beneficiary relationship arose, and it kept developing. 
Certain materials were discovered that appeared capable of being turned into small moveable anchor-points, creating mobile infinite power sources and the two species also shared technology between each other, discovering quickly that the laws of physics seemed to be slightly different across dimensions, but not different enough that their technological inventions were incompatible. 
The Others assisted the Eldar in creating powerful teleportation devices, and they could use these devices to scour other planets for anchor points, intrigued to see if these lead to other planets in the control of the Others. The Eldar were also extremely interested in exploring space, having already successfully traveled to several of the moons of Obrimos, by means of primitive Space-Ships. 
=== The Arrival on Terra ===
The Eldar teleported several teams to Terra, landing on various land-masses across the surface, and established outposts near their drop locations, seeking Anchors. At first, they did not find any signs of Sapient life on the planet, but found it entirely hospitable by their own standards. 
The Eldar Outposts would later become the Elven Enclaves. However, while the mission at first was going great, the Eldar soon had trouble with the first Sapient Species they discovered on the planet... Dragons. 
While they were busy trying to secure help from home, they were suddenly cut off from communicating with Obrimos, and little did they know, at the time, that they would be stranded on Terra. 
The Eldar had very limited technology at their disposal, from the initial arrival - they could teleport and communicate between the outposts, and they had a few vehicles with them, as well as plenty of weapons and perimeter defenses, and limited medical equipment, laboratory equipment and repair facilities. 
Once their initial camps were established, they were awaiting more to arrive, but that obviously never happened. 
=== The destruction of Obrimos ===
The Others had warned the Eldar, that not everyone in their dimension were under the same unified government, and neither were the Eldar. A group of Eldar colonized the planet Sanguine (the planet closest to Terra), and they made contact with other "Others". This resulted in a schism in Eldar society, and eventually Sanguine became an extremely popular colony that soon turned out to have massive amounts of natural resources. 
Sanguine soon became a powerful rival to the divided people of Obrimos, and eventually a war broke out. It was a short and extremely bitter war. 
Obrimos was destroyed, or rendered inhospitable, in the war with Sanguine. The war sent some sort of chain reaction through the dimensional anchors on Obrimos, that in turn destroyed the Others who were allied with the Eldars of Orbimos, causing some sort of ghostly distortional flickers to constantly appear across the surface of Obrimos. 
The Eldar on Terra discovered Mors, not realizing it was their homeworld, and thought it to be merely a star that hadn't been visible from their own world, naming it Mors after the discoverer. 
Incidentally, the wars with Sanguine, and the growing theory that Sanguine had to be the reason they were cut off from Obrimos, and the fact that Sanguine is visible from Terra, all lead to the fact that humans came to regard Sanguine, the planet, as the "God of War". 
=== Discovering the Deep Ones ===
The Eldar were forced to deal with the Dragon situation on their own. They had, in truth, been unfortunate enough to awaken a single mother-dragon that was very displeased with their presence. They managed to subdue the dragon eventually - not so much affraid of that one dragon (as they had brought more than enough weapons to deal with it), but afraid that there would be more of them. 
The Dragon, in turn, showed great hatred towards the Eldar, and was able to communicate with them. It relayed to them, that the only other similar looking creatures it had ever had the displeasure of meeting, were the Deep Ones (Dwegar in Eldar language). 
The Dwegar have never been encountered by a human, nor by any living Dwarfs or living Elves. Only dragons and Eldar can confirm their actual existence, and as such they remain mythical legends in the eyes of most. 
Realizing they were not alone on the planet, but that these Dwegar, supposedly lived far underground, the Eldar launched an expedition to discover them, certain that their communication equipment was merely broken, and Obrimos would soon send aid, so they decided to make themselves useful. 
From their expedition, only one returned, telling tales of small stout humanoids living deep underground, who were seemingly made of clay, who had taken most of them prisoners and killed others on sight.
=== The long silence ===
The Eldar trapped on Terra did not receive any help from Obrimos and started to fear the worst. They knew that they had been at war with Sanguine at the time of being sent to Terra, but they had not suspected that this could possibly have delayed them THIS long, from sending help. 
Eventually, one of the Eldar made the shocking discovery that all the celestial movements of Mors were perfectly in sync with where Orbimos was supposed to be, and the truth eventually dawned on the Eldar, that their homeworld had likely been destroyed. 
The Eldar never quite stopped referring to Orbimos as their homeworld and to Mors as a painful memory, associated with death, and the humans later understood this, as the Eldar originally had, that they were two separate celestial bodies and that Mors was the God of the Dead. 
The Eldar outposts fortified themselves against attacks from the Dwegar and the Dragons both, expecting soon to be attacked and attempted exterminated. They were right to do so, but it was neither the Dragons nor the Dwegar that came for them, but their reckoning would not come for several hundreds of years. 
=== The birth of Elves ===
In the time that passed, the Eldar had had to make hard choices, such as several of the Eldar women removing their implants, in attempts to be able to have children without the presence of a fertility clinic. This wasn't a strange decision, considering that the few Eldar on Terra had come with the intention of never leaving, and colonizing the planet, and as such, almost all of them were coupled with other Eldar present there and had always intended to have their offspring on the planet. 
Many of the Elder women were not able to remove their implants however, because it was determined that their wombs would not survive the removal, and even less likely that the women themselves would. 
The Eldar lacked any proper medical facilities, but through primitive surgery, managed to remove the implants from some of the younger women (not that age normally mattered too much to the Eldar - though scar-tissue made it difficult to operate in the wombs of the older women). 
It was not long before the first of them had become pregnant, because the Eldar selected for the missions were all couples, as the intention was to colonize the planet, none of them ever had any intentions of leaving and were always expecting to sire children on Terra, just not without any proper equipment. 
In the meantime, the Eldar had formed a good relationship with the Silver Dragon they had captured, and had in turn released it after nursing it back to health, and extending their protection to it, while it was injured. 
The Dragon in return, told the Eldar that the Dwegar were truly evil creatures that served some sort of dark entity, and that they were not original inhabitants on the planet, but had been born as the result of some sort of Dragon-related tragedy or incident. At least, this was what the Dragons believed. 
While it was extremely hard to believe that they had indeed encountered magical underground beings made from clay, they had also not found any means to scientifically support the existence of a creature such as the Dragon, and they were more prone to taking its advice than shunning it away than they would have been if the advice had come from a less fantastical source. 
The Dragon in turn, offered to prove its magical powers to the Eldar, by keeping their pregnant women and children safe and healthy. The Eldar did not really have anything to lose at that point, and allowed the Dragon to substitute the presence of any proper medical facility, and did not regret their decision. 
The children born from the uncontrolled unions of Eldar, were expected to be genetically inferior to the Eldar, and while that was perhaps partially true, the Eldar were shocked to find that the children were genetically extremely different from their their parents, much more so than should be possible - and in fact so much so, that it was difficult to argue that it was even the same species, though they certainly looked extremely similar. 
The Elves turned out to have innate magical powers, and while they were not immortal, they were very long-lived. The Elves reached adulthood at a very slow rate, it took a full century before the first generation of Elves were considered adults - which was shocking to the Eldar who were accustomed to a child reaching adulthood in roughly 20 years. 
The Eldar were not numerous enough to populate the planet alone, as they would quickly reach incestuous breeding conditions, due to their small numbers. The fact that the Elves had completely different DNA than their parents, seemed to immediately remove this problem from the concern of the Eldar. 
=== The Dwodar invasion ===
Not long after the first generation of Elves reached adulthood, were the Eldar outposts under attack by an enemy they had never imagined. The Dwodar, who appeared to them as a dark mirror of Eldar.
The Dwodar had black skin, their eyes were red and glowed like fire when light reflected in them. Their eyes, while still moderately capable of seeing normally, were primarily useful for seeing where there was NO light, and the adaptation of this quality had somehow destroyed their capability of properly seeing when there was light. 
The Dwodar were somewhat shorter than the Eldar, but otherwise looked incredibly similar to their fair counterparts, and were also genetically almost identical. 
The Dwodar attacked at night, when the Eldar were at a slight disadvantage (the Eldar had genetically engineered themselves to have as good nightvision as possible, without losing day-sight), and the initial Skirmishes were gruesome. The Dwodar were obviously very young, and they were also capable of using magic, similar to the Elves, and wielding primitive weaponry, such as Swords and Bows. 
In their hour of need, the Silver Dragon came to the rescue of the the Eldar, and drove off the Dwodar who took considerable losses and fled back underground. The Eldar captured enough to run tests and realize that they had to be the forced offspring of the captured Eldar from the expedition, but somehow corrupted. 
The Silver Dragon had used its powerful magic to break some sort of spell that was on the Dwodar, and that was when they had fled back underground. The spell, was a mind-control spell that had been on the Dwodar from their conception, and now that they were free of it, they would no longer do the bidding of the Dwegar anymore - but they retained a powerful fear and hate of the Eldar and the Silver Dragons that would carry on down the generations. 
=== The discovery of the Dwarves ===
Shocked to learn what the Dwegar had done to their people, the Eldar were also extremely outraged and scared. The Silver Dragon revealed that the Dwegar were not the original inhabitants of terra. Once, the Dragons had been the only sapient species, but they had seen a lesser species that they compared to the Eldar, that had evolved from primitive beings. 
This naturally made the Eldar extremely excited, as they knew full well, that their own origin had been identical. The Eldar were all military trained scientists, many of them had fantasized about discovering other Sapient life. 
The Dragon referred to these Sapients as the "Agents of the Deep-Ones" (Dwarves in Eldar language). The dragon had not realized that the Dwegar used magic to control their agents, and thought that the Dwarves were working for the Dwegar out of their own volition, which was why it hadn't bothered to mention the Dwarves being a separate species until now. 
The Dwarves have evolved very far since they Eldar originally discovered them, being little more than cavemen, essentially neanderthals, at the time of their discovery. 
The Dwarves lived above ground in small villages, scattered across the globe. It didn't take the Eldar long to find them either, because the Dwarves were searching for the Eldar, coming with fire and weapons - seeking to destroy them. The Dwarves were nomadic hunter-gatherers, so they had no use for living in places the Eldar considered fertile and hospitable, as they did not know how to farm. 
Using their own Elven mages as a relay for the Dragon's powerful magic, they were able to collectively lift the spell from the Dwarves. The dwarven species awoke collectively from a powerful illusion, that had them believing that they WERE Dwegar, serving their people above ground as scouts. Now they all suddenly saw vivid flashes of pointy-eared magic-weaving people and felt the awe inspiring presence of the Silver Dragon, and suddenly they realized they were made from flesh and blood, and were quite mortal. 
The Dwarves had no way of communicating with each other at the time, and were a scattered and people with little more than tribal identities to fall back on, now that the entire illusion that held them enslaved was broken. Many of them attacked the Eldar, but this lead to nothing but their death. Others went searching for the Dwegar, but they never returned to the Surface. 
=== Dwarven Evolution ===
The Eldar had to make a fast decision, because there was a serious panic spreading in all the Dwarven settlements, and it was leading them down a destructive path that had already claimed over 70% of the males of the Dwarven populations, who had either gone on expeditions into the deep, or tried to kill the Eldar. 
The Eldar used their superior firepower to subdue the remaining Dwarves. This was an extremely reluctant decision, as they did not wish to interfere with an early developing species. In fact, they were supposed to leave species like that alone and observe them, but the species was practically driving itself into extinction due to being influenced by some sort of magical force - in every way possible, the scenario didn't align with any Eldar protocols. 
The Dwarves were forced into camps where the Eldar could study them, and hope to come up with a solution. Studies of the Dwarves showed that their DNA was incredibly volatile, which wasn't surprising given that the species was supposedly recently evolved from mere animals, but it was more than that. The lead scientists believed that the Dwarven genes had been prevented from further evolution, and should long ago had reached new stages of their existence, and it was as if their genes wanted to "catch up". 
Incidentally, the problem would turn out to solve itself. A minor indiscretion between an unknown Elven male and a random Dwarven female, resulted in the birth of a half-breed. No one had been aware that the woman in particular was pregnant with a half-breed, so when the baby was born, it came as a huge shock to the entire team of Eldar researchers. 
The child was born healthy and entirely functional - but not only that, the Child seemed to have capabilities beyond those of the Dwarves. The child mostly appeared Dwarven, though it was more intelligent. Strangely, the child was magically numb - in fact, the child exhibited some magical resistance even. 
The discovery split the waters, but it was soon decided that to save the species, the Dwarves would either have to result to incest, severely harming their chances of evolving in a positive direction, or the Eldar could supply the necessary genes, and apparently uplift their species. 
Needless to say, the Elven adolescent teenage-males were more than happy to supply the needed genes. 
It stands as one of the most laughable chapters in Terran history, that the continued Dwarven species was literally the result of a bunch of desperate Dwarven women, hooking up with a bunch of Elven teenagers, against the wishes of their parents. 
Humor aside, the Eldar were forced to keep the women in camps until the children were grown, and that incidentally meant that the children watched their mothers die, because the Dwarven half-breed children did not have the same lifespan as their original species. 
They also grew up without fathers, having been explicitly told by their mothers that their fathers were killed by the Eldar. Growing up with the knowledge that their mothers had been raped by their captors who murdered the men who should rightfully have been their fathers, the new generation of Dwarves did not grow up with the best relationship to the Eldar. It was a grudging relationship at best. 
=== The Dwarven Wars ===
When the first generation of Dwarves came of age, after a very long childhood of growing up with Eldar education, the Eldar sent the Dwarves off with a considerable share of their own equipment. In fact, records seem to indicate that the Dwarves were given an entire outpost, reputedly located somewhere in what is now Nordmar. 
The Dwarves had enough reverence for the Eldar at that point to wait a few years and sending a formal declaration of hostility. 
The Dwarves started spreading rapidly across the surface, much more so than the Elves ever did. The Dwarves carried a heritage with them, having been told from the very beginning by their ancestors, not to trust anything the Eldar ever said and to fear their dragons. 
The Dwarves firmly believed that they were once a great and proud people who had been decimated and enslaved by the Eldar and their dragons - and they believed firmly that they came from the depths below the surface. They spread out, quite on purpose, seeking signs of their heritage, finding their old abandoned villages all over the world and seeking further of signs of their ancestors, finding nothing of note. 
Eventually, the Dwarves had spread wide enough that it became difficult for the Eldar to go anywhere without crossing Dwarven territory, and at that point the Eldar more or less just chose to ignore their declaration of hostility. The Dwarves were naturally provoked by this, and a war broke out. 
The Eldar never truly understood how scorned the Dwarves were, or how deep a hatred the Dwarves carried for the Eldar. They thought that surely the Dwarves could see that the Eldar har helped them. 
The war erupted was a serious one, and the Dwarves had the advantage of having the Elven enclaves practically surrounded and being superior in numbers. The Eldar largely had a technological advantage over the Dwarves, but the war soon put their enclaves in great danger. 
It is unknown exactly what the Eldar and the Elves did to end the war, but it was something extremely serious. It caused the Dwarves to flee into the underground tunnels they had been seeking their ancestors within, and forced them to stay there for centuries, if not more. During this time, the Dwarves became what they are now, short stout and magically completely cold and dead. 
=== The decline of the Eldar ===
The war had cost the Eldar the bulk of their technological equipment, and there were no means to recreate it, because they had not found any anchor points on Terra yet, as they didn't have the man-power to search for them, nor had the peace and quiet necessary to do so. 
It was at this point that the Eldar realized that they no longer served any practical function for the Elves, who relied on magic that the Eldar could not use nor understand. 
The Eldar moved into an old remote outpost, serving as loremasters, scholars and tutors for their people - and as a wise council to consult on important matters, but largely removed themselves from the Elven society. 
=== The dawn of Humans ===
If the Elves had learned one thing from their battles with the Dwarves, it was that they could not continue relying on their dwindling supply of technologically superior weapons to defend themselves against what ever threat would come next. 
Using the DNA from the Dwarves, they started engineering the humans, but they were aiming to create a species similar to what the Dwarves had been when they originally discovered them. 
The Elves were in charge of this, as the Eldar had lost most of their equipment over the ages, and while extremely learned and knowledgeable, the Elves and their magic was the new means to what ever end, for their joint people. Humans were created through largely unknown means, to serve the Enclaves - the first of them appearing in the Westerlands. 
The humans were dumb, ugly, clumsy but strong and endurant by design. On purpose created so that they did not share the Eldar's ability to see well at night, so that they would be prone to inactivity in the night. 
The results were extremely gratifying. The humans were well suited as guards, protectors and manual labor and were soon in use in all the enclaves. 
Unfortunately for the Elves, the humans carried multiple genes that the Elves had not fully understood, perhaps due to their focus being mystical. The humans evolved very rapidly - as that seemed to have been the nature of the Dwarves at the time of their discovery, and the humans also turned out to be capable of wielding magic and interbreeding with Elves. 
The humans soon started resembling Elves more and more - many Elves started seeing their old enemies in them, the Dwarves before their descend into the darkness. Many Elves unwittingly started mistreating the humans for that reason. 
The Elves found the humans to be very attractive - at least the men. There was practically no interest in the human women, who were mostly just used for breeding more humans. The Elves used the male humans for many cruel things, some of them sexual - but also blood-sports, pitting them against each other in deadly sports - occasionally, those with good genes were allowed to mate, only to see the mother of their children paired with another man after her pregnancy, and seeing the children taken away. 
They literally gave the humans all the necessary hatred and the skills to rise up against them, and that was exactly what happened. In the Westerlands, the humans rose up and took over in a matter of hours, placing their former masters in chains, turning the tables. 
Across the globe, panicked elves began searching for solutions, fearing the same would soon happen to them. :
* One Enclave, in the Western Orient, immediately isolated itself entirely from the outside world after executing all humans in the Enclave, keeping only moderate contact with the Eldar through magical communication. 
* Another Enclave, in the Eastern Orient, was overcome with guilt and raised the humans up to their equals, in t
* A third enclave, in the Source Lands, destroyed the humans too, only to later realize that they should never have done that, when they soon were all killed by other enemies. 
* Another Enclave, in the Northern Orient, had discovered that some few humans did have magical powers - as an inevitable result from mixing in Elven genes. They decided to appoint these as equals, but keep the rest as slaves - and the few humans elevated above the others seemed to prevent any revolutions, though the Elves were quickly outnumbered, even in the ruling class... 
* Yet another Enclave, in the Rahamra, attempted to maintain the slavery of the humans and even fought to retake the Westerlands, but lost that war and soon had a revolution of their own. They fought hard to put that revolution down, but without the protection of the humans, they soon became a footnote in Terran history.
=== The Gnomes ===
It is fairly interesting that the Gnomes came to be. The Gnomes split from the main dwarven population somewhere during their descent, when they fled underground. They seem to have made up about a third of the Dwarven population, and were the ones that carried more Elven genes than Dwarven, or at least more Elven genes than the rest. 
The Gnomes were more slender than their Dwarven counterparts, and just slightly taller too, by average and they were all magically awakened, just like their Elven ancestors. 
The Gnomes were eventually exiled by the Dwarves - not out of hostility or racism, but because the Gnomes continued having magical "accidents" happen around them, due to a sheer lack of control or any form of culture in their society related to magic, and also because they seemed incapable of mating with the Dwarves, at least eventually. 
It had not initially been clear, but after a few hundred years, it became obvious that there were indeed two separate species living among each other. The Gnomes went closer to the surface, seeking out Dragons, hoping desperately to find mentors to teach them about their talents, but retained an alliance with the Dwarves. 
=== The Haflings ===
The Dwarves needed food during their underground exile. They survived for a long time, through unknown means, but eventually it was clear that some Dwarves would have to be sent to the surface, regardless of what that meant for them. 
Those Dwarves eventually became the haflings. 
== Humans ==
There are Seven dominant cultures of humans in the Source Lands;
* Westerlanders, who were the first to rise up against their Elven Overlords, binding their own masters in the same chains they used to wear - forming an Empire, the legacy of which has proven as immortal as their former Overlords. 
* The Nordmarians who migrated from the Westerlands before the revolution happened, and into Nordmar which were under Dwarven control, who later formed a powerful but decentralized nation of hardy people. 
* Western-Orientals, who were set free, but prevented from ever returning to the Elven Enclave of Zelenthir, on the pain of death. Exiled and confused, the hardy Western-Orientals formed powerful tribes that slowly evolved into civilized nations, driven forward largely by religion. 
* The Northern Orientals, who live in a strange (and mostly unwilling) symbiosis with both human and Elven overlords, in the Magocratic Slavers nation of Talanthia (the Sourceland Equivalent of Siberia).
* The South-Eastern Orientals who fled from the Northern Orient, and formed the nomadic horsemen-tribes that now roam the area known as the Central Orient. 
* The South Orientals, who ended up stuck on the other side of the Zelenthir Enclave, after being released, and didn't come into contact with their own people again, until they had become two separate people from generations of separation. 
* Eastern-Orientals, who were freed and raised up to the equals of their Elven creators, who still lead their societies, though their people existing in a symbiosis, with the exception of a small Island Kingdom, of humans in a self-imposed exile who shun the Elves for largely unknown reasons. 
=== Languages ===
The Elves taught the humans six different languages on purpose, so that humans would not be able to collaborate across outposts. These six languages are now known as; 
* Western Common (Westerlands - including Nordmar)
* Eastern Common (Western Orient and Southern Orient)
* North Common (Talanthia and Central Orient)
* Oriental Common (Far Eastern Orient)
* and finally, Umbayan, the Native Rahamran tongue, still spoken by the humans there, who seemingly outlived their overlords. 
The regional dialects of each of those three, completely different, languages are roughly as different from each other as Spanish is from Latin - at least in the worst cases. In milder cases, it's more akin to Danish and Norwegian, or even just the difference between Southern American and East Coast American. 
=== Eastern Orientals ===
The Eastern-Orientals interbreed a lot with Elves, and it is difficult to say that there are even any full-blooded humans left in the Eastern Orient. The humans there are considerably shorter with angled eyes and very lithe features, who age very slowly and seem to live to fairly venerable ages. 
Laughing yet? No but seriously, I'm not joking. 
Culturally, they seem to embrace the Elven teachings of the Eastern Oriental Elves, namely to be open and pacifistic, and not seek conflict. They defend themselves with powerful magic, using storms to deter enemy ships, using avalanches and rock-slides to protect themselves from invading armies and relying heavily on the reputation that has spread from these displays, to deter anyone else. 
===== Inspiration =====
Mythical Ancient China, but there is very little to actually compare. The people of the Eastern Orient resemble a people as I imagine they would be, if they grew up in a place where Chi and Kung-fu and Buddhism actually seemed real, instead of just vaguely believing in it. 
=== Western Orientals ===
The Western Orientals were freed and never reached any grounds for union or togetherness. They became incredibly diverse and unalike as a result. 
After generations of warfare, the Western Orientals unified to a degree, under the common religion - The Holy Light. The Western Orient is still somewhat divided, the Northern-most state is known as the Western-Oriental Empire, and is an extremely elusive state, that was once a colony of the Westerlands, specifically of Estheim. 
There is then the Western-Oriental Sultanate, found just South of of the Empire, and is a Vassal of the Empire. 
South, and actually almost connecting with the Rahamra, is the Western Oriental Caliphate, a region formerly plagued by barbarism and tribal violence, but where the Western-Oriental Empire forced peace by introducing their religion to the people, which they now - in turn - take VERY seriously. They are a protectorate of the Empire. 
===== Inspiration =====
The Empire is inspired by the Persian Empire, the Sultanate is inspired by the Ottoman Empire and the caliphate is inspired by the middle-east in general. 
=== Northern Orientals ===
The harsh lands of Talanthia would have made a slave revolution impossible. The Elves there feared nothing from their slaves - it was their own ideology, namely that magic made them superior and gave them the right to rule, that made them uplift the humans that were capable of working magic. 
In Talanthia, those related to a living and breathing magic user are elevated to free-citizens. Those that work magic are Feudal rulers, who lord over their serfs or slaves, being the rest of the population. 
Talanthia is sparsely populated, consisting of 9 cities, but they were among the first to start using constructs and undead to guard their borders and their settlements. 
Because of their closed borders, extremely little is known about the people from there. 
===== Inspiration =====
Thay from the Forgotten Realms setting. 
=== Central Orientals ===
The Central Orientals control the largest swath of land in the Orient, except for the generally underpopulated and inhospitable region of Talanthia (the Northern Orient). The Central Orientals fled from the Northern Orient, and very slowly grew into people consisting of barbaric tribes of nomadic horsemen. 
The Central orientals have no unifying empire or government, and no one seems to desire their lands. 
===== Inspiration =====
While inspired by the Mongols, you should really look more at the Dothraki from A Song of Ice and Fire, than you should look at the historical Mongol people. 
=== Southern Orientals ===
The Southern Orientals were stuck on the other, and much more fertile side, of the Zelenthir Empire, emerging from the hostile mountains that the mysterious Elven Enclave was located among, into seemingly frothing jungle and endless grasslands. 
The Southern Orientals built a strong lasting Empire, separated from other nations by the jungles and later the endless steppes, and of course the mysterious mountains they originally came from, and have an almost religious fear of. 
===== Inspiration =====
Medieval India.
=== Umbayan Nations ===
The large patch of land, known largely as the Umbayan lands, named after the first people to be discovered who were native to the region - the Umbayans are not a singular people, but rather a large collection of tribes that have nothing, except genetics in common. 
The Umbayans have mixed their heritage with Goblinoid blood, or rather, this was done on purpose to them, by their overlords, who hoped that this would slow down their evolution and keep them from evolving into capable beings. 
It certainly did slow them down, but it didn't stop them. The Umbayans are dark-skinned, tall and muscular, with angular facial features, powerful jaws, flat noses and powerful tempers. 
Generations of breeding among themselves have thinned out the Goblinoid genes quite significantly, but Umbayans still tend to be hot-tempered and impatient, thus less likely to learn complex arts - though they are almost always physically superior to humans of other regions, at least on average. Even Umbayan women cut impressive figures, standing over 6 ft tall on average, and outweighing most human men from other regions, from sheer muscle. 
The Umbayans are still a tribal society, living fairly primitive existences - despite centuries of freedom from the Elves and no apparent hardships befalling them, other than their own tribal wars. Only recently, after being discovered by their Westerland cousins, have they started turning a new leaf, at least near the border nations, that have started adopting Westerland inventions and techniques. 
===== Inspiration =====
I just felt like writing something that was going to be perceived as extremely racist without, in reality, at all being so.
=== Nordmar ===
In Nordmar, the humans sought refuge among the Dwarves. As such, the humans adopted a lot of Dwarven culture. Eventually, their relationship with the Dwarves faded and became less important than their own growing culture, but their alliance with their Dwarven friends was never forgotten. 
Nordmar has always been divided and decentralized - several major tribes split the land into regions, and their ways of life are all significantly different. 
===== Inspiration =====
Scandinavia - back when it was actually interesting. But alas, still fairly irrelevant. 
=== Westerlands ===
The Westerlands had a continent-spanning Empire that was the strongest force of living creatures working in union, that the planet of Terra had ever seen. So powerful, that even the Eldar made contact with them on a few occasions. Powerful enough to attract the attention of Dragons, Dwarves and any other living beings on the planet. 
Everything has an ending and a beginning. The Empire was born out of the flames of the human revolution, and it ended eventually, due to a number of factors that historians have a hard time agreeing on. Some say it was the birth of the cult of Helios that killed the Empire, others say that it was the uneven distribution of labor and resources taken from some provinces, such as Orlais and Novera, used in the colonization of the Source Lands that caused these nations to realize how great they were, and how they didn't need the Empire. 
Others believe it was gradual decay and a growing decentralization that caused the Empire to eventually collapse. Regardless of who is right, the Empire is now a diverse, but still culturally similar, continent with many nations that work together at times, and against each other at other times. 
===== Inspiration =====
Medieval Europe.