Human

Basic description:

Just like you and me!  Humans are versatile and successful adventurers. They receive 2 bonus training points at first level, make powerful lumberjacks.  Humans also have the broadest class choices.

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Humans, humans. What else can be said?

Physiology:

Humans of Brain Cancer are not initially all that much different than humans of our mundane era. They still come in a very wide variety of sizes, shapes, and colors. Humans have now taken to cosmetic surgery, nanobot infusions, cybernetics, genetic enhancements, sexual augmentations, in vitro changes, and more all in an order to be "more human than human". To find a human with large amounts of scarring, weakened sexual characteristics, atrophied muscle mass, extensive signs of advanced aging, etc. is all now rare in most places in Merika.

History:

Humans are, without a doubt, the oldest sapient race of Brain Cancer, were the sole sapient race during most of history, and never had to deal with a more advanced sapient race "coming down" to attack them. For a long period of time, human dominance was the order of the day as it was known as anthropocentrism. Humans dominated a truly united Merika, Yndonesia, Rossya, and Usterlea... then known as other areas but Merika was believed to be a "superpower" and was regarded to be the most powerful nation.

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Most of life was good for the human species before the Changes occured, there were however stark economic inequalities, pervasive gender and sexual orientation prejudices, and horrible examples of intra-species violence with humans attacking, enslaving, humiliating, and killing each other on the basis of skin color and/or religion in the long history before the Changes.

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When the Changes occurred, first believed to be the Technovirus, but throughout all of them, the number of the species played against them in many ways and the age of the species ensured they were hit by ALL of the Changes. The technovirus spread through animals, plants, minerals, and people; turning them into technology and hitting densely populated areas without psychic protection that started to appear only after some time the Technovirus first appeared. When new species started rising up, it was humanity they had to deal with and humanity had to deal with them more often than not. When psychic bloodlust started to happen, it was humans who took the brunt of it. Humanity has survived though, adapted even, and so many, but not all, of the class, gender, and racial or color differences of the species have been diminished and people seeking to reignite those differences have been rejected, sometimes violently.

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Now in Merika, the human race is coming to a crossroads... Will it continue to adapt and survive, or is it true that the other races are making conscious and unconscious efforts to replace them as the dominant species? And what would that entail? Will humans go extinct or become some thrall species? Or is there a way to find peace between the new races? And does this feeling about race even need to exist with Rossya and Yndonesia on the horizon?

Culture:

Humans, on the literal surface of Merika, are still the majority race (Without even including lowmen or human mutants). They are also believed to be present in Yndonesia, Rossya, and were in Usterlea before it became completely uninhabitable for anyone of any race. Most cities are "human cities" with human building and architecture with non-humans building under it, around it, or on top of the ruins of them. Humans are the founders of these cities as well as the founders of the regions and except for the Rift region are the majority there as well.

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Humans in Merika only really talk to humans in Merika though, some say that despite the suspicion and hostility that humans have for non-humans, it is nothing compared to the suspicion and hostility that humans have for Yndonesia and Rossya even if the people there are humans, and maybe it could even be justified. The reasoning for this is that humans in Merika "adapted" to the Changes, it made them stronger in their eyes. Humans in Usterlea, we'll never know how they took to it, because they nuked and biochemically bombed themselves to oblivion because they thought the Changes would be a fate worse than death. Yndonesia, which is literally anywhere not Merika, Rossya, or Usterlea is full of humans who "succumbed" to the Changes, and now Yndonesia is a massive ecologically tortured place supposedly full of ultra-violent witch-kings, giant bat-man soldiers, skinless marauders, and poison breathing pirates who turn to stone when they touch dry land. Some scholars persist in saying Yndonesia is not really all that different than Merika, however them producing any evidence of that means they bypassed the protective mesh that surrounds Merika and then that means off comes the head! Then there is Rossya which is perhaps the most complicated of them all. One could say Rossyan humans both adapted AND succumbed to the Changes finding out to how to manipulate it on a limited scale. Rossya openly played with eugenics, necromancy, supersoldier augmentations, vivisection, human experimentation, and more and it is said now that Rossya's humans aren't even human anymore. It is, perhaps with a dose of irony, that some elite and upper class humans want to open a dialogue with Rossya despite there being reports that unlike Yndonesia, it is becoming increasingly aggressive and getting closer to Merika though the the northern wastes region of Yndonesia.

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Humans have interesting interspecies relations as a whole. Right now, it is not a good time for human-elf relations. Elves have recently clearly become the majority surface dwelling species in the Rift region of Merika, something that is both frightening and enraging for many humans. This combined with their "uncanny valley" similar appearance and the fact that they are faster and more in tuned with their senses than humans doesn't help either. There are some places where this animosity has broken into outright race wars between humans and elves. Despite this, there are some individual accounts of humans and elves developing positive relationships, deep friendships, and some even entering into romantic relationships but these are extreme outliers at this time. Humans are also the progenitor race for lowmen, yetis, and "mutated" mutants with a range of feelings for them; ranging from peace and acceptance, merely tolerating their existence, to wanting their extermination. Humans don't have a lot of positive relationsips with the so-called "primitive" and "vermin" races, because the former is clearly "coming up" to challenge human dominance and the latter is, well, still "vermin" in the eyes of many humans and because they are also challenging human dominance, a notable exception would be the Familiars of the primitives who are domesticated carnivores who became sapient, many of them still seek to protect humans and the feeling is mutual from many of those humans as well. There are other individual accounts of humans forming friendships and even romantic relationships with many races, there are no exceptions to this.

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Humans have the widest class selection and were the founders so to speak, being in these classes the longest, with the exception of Hive. Many classes originated from human needs and skills. Agents, Elites, Judges, Savages, and more all originated from human societies. Even Strippers came from the secret abilities of professionally nude humans. Noteworthy here are Exterminators, they are an honored class by a wide range of humans, good and upright humans can admire Exterminators for killing true monsters and immoral humans can also like Exterminators for defending humanity through the bloodshed of as many non-humans as possible and it is not uncommon to see a human city honoring an Exterminator in some way with New Naw Ork even naming an entire street after one. Humans also became the first Funks who realized that the Changes weren't the end of the world but rather the next chapter of it, and for a brief time they along with Funks of other races proudly protected researchers and researched the Changes themselves while protecting both people who survived as well as new people of the Changes and looking for a defense against the Dark Gods, unfortunately it did not last as those Dark Gods in the forms of Expressionless, Headwound, Mallama, and forming a temporary alliance with Yoggum joined forces with depraved mercenaries, raiders, warlords, savages, slavers, and undead pillagers who all put an end to the plans of these reality-manipulating "girl and boy scouts" in the Nights of the Great Murder Spree... but it is believed the Funks went into hiding and they will eventually return to exact justice on the forces of evil.

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Finally, it is worth mentioning humans also have the widest selection of gods to worship from and with many of those deities generally taking on a human form; including Amarazita, DaChief, Expressionless, Foss, Headwound, Kleff, Mallama, President, Torlus, and Ultraporn generally look human to worshipers who are able to deeply commune with them. Jayhovah also has something in common with humans being that he predates the Changes, but Jayhovah does not share the anti-non-human prejudice that many humans have, instead reserving that for his fellow deities.