Humans

**Humans** are the most numerous and politically dominant sentient species with hundreds of major and minor colonies worldwide. Their continent of origin is unknown, but by the Tyranno Aetate they could be found anywhere, engaged in many different pursuits: adventurers, mercenaries, smugglers, merchants, soldiers, assassins, farmers, criminals, labourers, slaves, slavers, and many others. Since Humans were the most common sentient species, they were often considered to be a standard or average to which the biology, psychology, and culture of other species were compared.

## Etymology

The noun homō means "human being", while the participle sapiēns means "discerning, wise, sensible".

## Morphology

The Humans are a sentient species that belonged to the simians, a subgroup of the primate order of mammals. As such, they were similar to a number of other species variously designated as apes. They were taxonomically referred to as Homo sapiens.

Humans were bipedal beings with a bilateral symmetry, having a front and a back end, as well as an upside and downside. Their body comprised a head, neck, torso, and four limbs. The upper limbs, called arms, ended in hands which had five fingers each; the lower ones, called legs, ended in feet with also five digits. The Human fingers had multiple points of articulation, and one of them was an opposable thumb that allowed for fine manipulation. Finally, they had one head perched atop a torso. Other sentient species that had a body type roughly similar to Humans and walked upright were often referred to as humanoids, since Humans were the most common example. Unlike certain other mammalian species, they had only a light covering of body hair. Most of it was concentrated on the head and, in the case of adult males, face.

Humans were endotherms, or "warm-blooded" animals, meaning they maintained a constant body temperature independent of the environment using the energy from their food. While some mistakenly described themselves as carnivores, Humans were in fact omnivores, subsisting on both animal tissue and plant-based foods. For that reason, their gastrointestinal system was much longer than that of true carnivores. Many Humans were partial to food products that were unhealthy for them because of their high fat or sugar content.

The Human genome was considered to be remarkably elastic. In reaction to environmental changes, selection pressures only needed few millennia to engage new genes and reshape the Human bodies. A consequence of that exceptional adaptability was the existence of many Near-Human species—that is offshoots of the baseline Humans who had followed their own evolution.

As was common to many humanoid species, Humans had two sexes: male and female, with the latter being distinguished by their pronounced breasts, overall smaller stature and lesser quantity of body hair. Members of the Human race could interbreed naturally with many other species, including the Sylphs, the Elves, and the Auldrans. In some cases, Humans could only produce offspring with members of other species with the help of alchemy.

## Society and Culture

Humans were noted for being naturally learning and extremely adaptable—not only in terms of physiology, but also mentality and society. Their societies were capable of transforming very quickly in response to a wide array of conditions, which explains why two Human populations could have next to nothing in common culturally speaking. As noted by Rethmaryss, some Human peoples had more in common with neighbors of other species than with their own kind.

## History

The species was initially thought to have emerged from a predecessor within the genus Homo around 14,000 years ago. A problem with the morphological classification of "anatomically modern" was that it would not have included certain extant populations. For this reason, a lineage-based (cladistic) definition of H. sapiens has been suggested, in which H. sapiens would by definition refer to the modern human lineage following the split from the Neanderthal lineage.

## Language

Most humans spoke the language generally spoke the language referred to as Basic, the language used worldwide as the common language or trade language, but some populations of humans preferred their own native tongue.

## Technology

Technologically speaking, humans are not very highly advanced although their minds are able to think much larger than most other species, allowing them to create concepts outside of the norm, as seen by the other species.