Human (ToF)

**Humans** are a race in the Tides of Fate universe. Among the first races that existed in their world such as the Elves , humans are one of the most recurring species in the world of Carokiiv, and are the most notable natives of the continent of Betoriv, the westernmost landmass of the planet.

They are noted to be the race with the greatest magical potential among all due to the advanced and powerful magic which forms the pillar of their civilisation. Many prominent mages were humans, not from the other Near Human races.

## Origin and Early History

Humans first appeared in their native land of Betoriv, just before the Beast Races appeared in the continent. During the era of the latter races, when they lorded over the humans and used them as their slaves, it did not take long for them to begin plotting and starting rebellions against their overlords, where they used their natural intelligence and resilience to gain advantage. The humans were the first to turn against the Beast Races.

When the fabled event known as the "Advent of Magic" came about, many humans and the other Near Humans throughout the world were granted the gift of using magic. Using this newfound gift, the humans grew in power by learning how to utilize the otherworldly, and the Beast Races could not imitate or exceed this mysterious power even with their natural talents and inherited strength. Despite the fact that the Beast Races resorted to killing many humans, there were always seemed to be more, and the eventual development of combat magic soon marked the final days of the Beast Races.

Despite the victory of the humans, they (much like the other Near Humans) enslaved the defeated Beast Races and eventually drove them to extinction overtime, all while reversing their fortunes and created modern civilisation.

## Acceptance of Magic

### The Dark Age

The humans, after defeating the Beast Races with the power of magic, didn't immediately depend on magic to create civilisation, instead using their normal abilities, so that they would not fall into the trap of depending on magic. This originally noble intent slowly warped over the years into humanity becoming distrustful of magic, and labelling it as a demonic art. Thus, the very power that allowed humanity to become free became the enemy of humanity

This began the schism of normal humans, those who were born with no ability to wield magic and the magic wielders. The majority at that time, who were the normal humans that didn't possess magic circuits, decided to band together out of fear the magic users would use magic to lord over them. They used their much superior numbers to conduct witch hunts against the magic users, and thus a long standing persecution of magic users began.

This led to a time known as the "Dark Age" to humans. Magic users hid their talents and went into hiding, practicing only when they were not observed. The original heroes of mankind were reduced to devilish heretics that were seen as deviant and evil. The persecution continued even as humanity imitated the other Near Human species, and built civilisation in the same manner, except without magic.

The mages suffered in silence and wished for a day where they would be able to freely use magic again. However, as the non magic users outnumbered them drastically, they could not do much to protest their current state.

### Age of Enlightenment

The birth of a very powerful mage, though, heralded a great change. This man, the great hero Kyron Avelenyss, the Zero King, was born as a response to the pleas of the many mages who suffered in silence, as well as to put an end to the dark age of corrupted decadence. Wielding unimaginably powerful magic that became the Vitakinetic Art of ruling life and death alongside his other powers, he brought judgement to those who persecuted mages, and redemption to mages.

The Zero King wielded magic on a scale that was never thought possible, and despite being a mere human, his magic had surpassed that of any other mage by such a large degree, he was very well seen as a god by those who viewed him. The humans who denounced magic now had an opponent they couldn't defeat, no matter how many of them banded together. The gap in strength between the Zero King and the non magical was so large, it couldn't be filled by sheer numbers. The Zero King had with him the support of the Asterians of Flinrock, as he had married their High Asterian as his Queen and Wife.

The magic users banded around the Zero King, and together, they enlisted the help of the other near human races and brought an end to the age of persecution by killing a majority of normal humans that decided to uphold the persecution of mages, as well as granting Magical Circuits to those who were willing to support him. The Zero King brought the land out from an age of discrimination against mages, and thrust magic into the spotlight as a respectable art. It was this time the Primodial Magic clans were born when Kyron created the original magic crests, namely for the extinct Arichron and Kharrakos, as well as the still extant Ayashi, Kinaste and Kudaigenov clans.

Using the power of magic, the Zero King rebuilt his civilisation with the mages, for the mages. Magic became the most exalted art of the humans, and modern civilisation began. Seeing the various injustices in the other lands, which he heartily disapproved of, the Zero King set up a new system of governance, where only the capable would lead, with no say from those he thought as uneducated. He was determined for humanity to not make the same mistakes as the other Near Humans, and also for them to never return to the era of discrimination.

The Zero King is also regarded as the "King of Magic", after he codified the first magical systems, split the elements from the original intuition based magic casting in order to educate mages much easier and drew the first magic crest in himself and his followers. Thus, he ushered in a new age of magical understanding and power that managed to help humanity advance.

### The Age of Magic

Humanity flourished under the rule of the Zero King, who eventually decided to leave his position as an immortal, absolute Monarch of mankind and depart for lands unknown with his queen. He left the care of humanity to the various politicians who were personally trained by him in the art of wise governance, and they formed the first Aristocratic government of mankind. The Chronopsis clan was descended from Kyron's daughter Serra, and the Avelenyss, which bears his name, from his son Aralin.

Due to the overturn of the old system where mages were discriminated against, now it was a great and powerful art due to the efforts of the Zero King. Mages became eager to unlock new secrets, and the Zero King's great expertise of magic was taught to his many followers and disciples, who formulated new ways to use the many spells. Due to the prosperity of humankind in Betoriv, their home region, other races flocked to it, either escaping from their unstable home, or seeking better prospects, bringing their own knowledge to the land in the process.

The art of drawing magical circuits was learned from the elves, and only through the refinement of the most intelligent human mages was this "soul surgery" turned from barbaric art to scientific, principled skill. With this in mind, human mages began exploring Soul Manipulation techniques and evolved the soul manipulation magic, which became the foundation for all soul based magic in future. Further more, this refined techniques allowed magic families to replicate Kyron's magic crest drawing technique and even create the famed Vitakinetic Channels that led to immortality.

The first family crest that incorporated the Vitakinetic Circuits was drawn by the Magical Prodigy Ahriman Phenex, first head of the oldest magic clan, the Phenex clan of Betoriv. His incredibly complex crest remains the first of only two which includes two vitakinetic channels, and is aligned with the power of flames. Mages followed his footsteps, and many of the newer magic clans, such as the Ice aligned Heimdiall clan and the Electricity aligned Aesion clan were born, using the family crests.

With the support of these many talented mages, and a wise government, Betoriv soon proved to prosper. When the elves entered war against each other, they appropriated the art of drawing magical crests from the humans, and soon developed their own. After the long drawn out total wars in Kyrsides, several elven tactical class mages fled to to Betoriv hoping for peace, and they brought with them the knowledge of tactical magic, the powerful incantations which changed the battlefield in one spell.

The humans knew, and predicted that with the development of tactical magic and the tactical mages which cast them, soon the elves would find that they could use it against other states and the borders of Kyrsides would increase. This information was taken in by the mage clans, who developed their own version of tactical magic. Some of the clans cooperated and they began work on a new kind of magic - the strategic magic.

### Age of Ascension

The humans had lived in peace for a while, and the development of the tactical magic in their mage clans meant that they could turn away both Elven invaders from Kyrsides and the Dwarven invaders from Setora. Gaining technology from breaking down what they obtained from occasional small scale Setoran incursions, the humans decided to work slightly on technology, but continued to focus on the development of magic as an art, as their society improved daily due to new innovations such as working sewage systems, a magical power grid that could supply heating, lighting and cooking demands and such.

The next crux of magic came in a duel between the exalted heir of the Phenex Clan, Balthazar Phenex and his upstart challenger, the new magus head Reydan Aesion, who had just completed his clan crest. Both men dueled in an arena, where Reydan first showed the full power of the Grimoires that mages could wield and create. The Grimoire Equip, which became a next level extreme magic form that didn't make anymore sense, and allowed the user to to cast magic beyond even the greatest human mages. The missing piece of the puzzle to solving the problem of transcending the output of Tactical Magic was finally completed.

The humans managed to develop the Strategic Magic in time for deployment against an Elven incursion designed to test the defenses of the humans. Deploying their first Strategic Magus, Asyran Chronopsis, who tore apart not just an Elven army but a huge area around him with temporal twisting, the ability of mages to take cities was shown. And thus Carokiiv fell into an enforced peace, where a single mage could hold sway over a whole nation and turn back an attack with a threat of mutually assured destruction.

## Modern Age

After the Zero King's overturning of the original bigoted humanity, it has come a long way, and established Betoriv as one of the strongest nations on Carokiiv. Magic became popular again, and as the number of people who could wield magic increased dramatically when humanity recovered from its self purge, magic became not only an exalted art, but a common one.

Governmental institutes were set up to govern the masses efficiently and effectively with a good intention, and they are made in a way to reduce bureaucracy and stamp out corruption of all kinds. Educational institutes have been set up to facilitate the dissemination of knowledge. Trade was also established with other nations whenever possible to make the economy prosper. Details the humans observed about the other races, which they didn't find useful, was used as a cautionary tale of how not to govern and build society.

Due to such, humanity as a whole prospered in time to come, under a strong, unified government that is also a singular entity. This has allowed them to have a relatively smooth sailing path compared to the other races after their extremely violent and tumultuous history. Thanks to many generations of good governance, humanity has thus prospered for a long time.

## Traits

Humans still look as they should. Thus, their defining traits are more nebulous. It is known that humans are able to breed successfully with all other Near Human races, other than the Natives of Flinrock, the Asterians. They are very variable in terms of skin color, size, build and features, hence humans are subdivided into further races, this being a merely aesthetic separation of the humans into further subdivisions for easy classification.

What all humans are, though, is that they are naturally attuned to magic, and have a strong affinity for the casting of magic of many different kinds. Humans have made most of the quantum leaps when it comes to the Flash Casting of magic, and generally they are at the forefront of magical theory almost all the time, with slight interruptions from only the elves.

There is great variance in the magical aptitude of humans, though. They can be born with anything from no ability to use magic at all due to lacking magic circuits and nodules, or they can have the highest quality and quantity of magic circuits coupled with the largest mana pools of all races. The average human is known to possess quite a high circuit count with decent quality, although that doesn't immediately qualify them as mages.

Humans are known to be resistant to magic due to how closely tied they are to magic. They also tend to be able to cast stronger versions of spells due to an innate efficiency with magic that increases their output per unit of mana consumed.

Humans naturally are able to manipulate magical energy, which can allow them to repeat a spell they cast for less mana and faster if it is a Flash Casted spell, increasing their efficiency further via recycling wasted energy, redirect magical energy for healing or even charge themselves from ambient mana. Humans can also accelerate their circuits to empty faster and leave more space for rapid flash casts or uharden ambient magicka into a nearly unbreakable shield, although the strain of this limits it to once a day.

All in all, humans in general are optimized for casting magic, although they also possess the ability and intelligence to use non magical forms of combat such as swordplay and martial arts. Due to their relatively durable bodies, they also make fine swordsmen and warriors if well trained, and being adaptable, while they may not excel in the physical field compared to other races, they can certainly use a mix of skills to fight on par.

## Other miscellaneous details

Humans tend to be the most open minded of the races as they learned from the mistakes of the other Near Human race, which they have only caught up to in the recent past due to their long standing hatred of magic in the old days, before they accepted and embraced it. They do have a knack for adapting to what is presented to them and finding a way to benefit themselves. However, humans tend to have strong wills and they generally refuse to bend to might if it is presented to them

Humans have been known to accept the presence of foreign outsiders from other races, and will generally not be hostile towards such individuals unless the individual shows hostility first. This is what allowed Betoriv to be a multicultural state which has citizens of almost all the Near Human races. Most humans do not mind marrying a person from another Near Human race either, although these are not hard rules and racist humans will exist.

Most humans stand in the middle when it comes to being conservative or liberal. They do not mind being given freedoms, but from their observation of other races, have learned that laws and restrictions are important to their social order and thus do not seek absolute freedom in general. They tend to look down on people who cannot hold their tongue, and freedom of speech and action tends to be disagreeable to most. There are of course more conservative and more liberal individuals.

As humans are very adherent to the concept that magic is an important part of their daily lives, mages tend to be admired, and people aspire to be mages. Being a magic user is to automatically give a good first impression to most humans. Due to how magical sensitivity works, a person who lacks Magic Circuits gives off a very alien and hostile aura, or rather a total lack of aura, making them shunned. While people with no Circuits are rare, they exist and are generally offered "Soul Surgery" at a reduced price for the first few Circuits drawn to normalize them if discovered.

Humans have a generally patriarchal naming system, where the children will simply take the last name of their father, and wives take the last name of their husbands. This is to keep linear inheritance clear from generation to generation. As polygamy is allowed for the highest tier of elite males who can afford it (generally mage families, to ensure that there are proper descendants), this also prevents half siblings from having multiple last names and confusing the inheritance. There are cultural variations and various views on it, but the norm is still to use the same last name as the male line. Humans tend to have two to three part names, with a familial last name that is inherited from the father, as mentioned.

## Trivia

* The humans are the only ones capable of harboring and creating fabled legendary individuals known as Kings of the End. The exact reason/s as to why remains mostly a mystery to all non-human races.