Races

Various **races** live on board the Ship. There are approximately 130 million sentient beings on the Ship, giving it roughly the population density of Albania.

## Dragons

There are about thirty dragons living on The Ship at any one time - it's not, to a dragon, that large a space. Of those thirty, most are relatively young, since as they get older dragons like to settle down, and the constantly-changing nature of The Ship becomes distasteful. The exceptions are Aenur and Myrseth - Aenur, a ancient silver dragon and Myrseth, her ancient red dragon boyfriend/mortal enemy. Neither of them will leave The Ship in the claws of the other.

## Elves

Nowhere near as populous as the humans or dwarves, the elves are a culture of isolationists - about 6.5 million elves in total. Their largest settlements are in the Girwood along the Sternwall, and their long lives and very slow reproduction gives them a very consistent culture and population. Elven settlements are usually very well-defended, although those defences are not always obvious. They trade reluctantly with the rest of The Ship, mostly with the dwarves for weapons and tools.

## Dwarves

The dwarves live almost entirely Belowdecks, in the warrens and tunnels of service ducts, engineering accessways, pipe runs and the various other structures that honeycomb the "underground". Exploring the Lost Lands - anything more than about half a mile below the surface - is very tightly regulated and requires extensive training and expertise. The dwarves are the closest thing there are to experts on the engineering of The Ship, and their ignorance is frightening. Only the constant work of the Keepers prevents disaster from overwhelming the dwarven kingdoms beneath the surface.

There are over a hundred major dwarven settlements below the surface, housing a total dwarven population of about thirteen million. Most of these settlements are large, since dwarves are naturally gregarious and sociable, but there are dozens or hundreds of small mining villages or research outposts

## Humans

Humans are by far the largest racial group on The Ship, numbering between sixty and seventy million. The largest human settlement is of course Midship, but there are over two hundred human settlements across the Middek Plain and in the Foksell Mountains, as well as smaller but still substantial settlements in the Sternwall range. Humans founded Anchorhead, the settlement that surrounds the hawse hole down which the anchor chain rolls when the Ship docks.

Humans were particularly hard-hit by the Great Plague, but have made the most accelerated progress in recovering from it, now back to pre-plague population levels. Human settlements tend to be the most diverse, whether demographically, religiously, politically or culturally.

## Orcs

Orcs were brought into the Ship project as labourers and menials, although a large number were trained as metalworkers and so on during the construction project. Despite intense pressure during the construction and launch, the orcs maintained the outlines of their culture - clans, tribes, and the fundamental quest for independence and freedom. Taller, tougher, and stronger than humans, orcs are powerful, dangerous combatants, all the more so because their ancestors have passed down the technological secrets of efficient steel manufacture. Even now, thousands of years later, the orcish foundries rival their dwarven competitors in every way.

The orcs have long dwelt in the Foksell Mountains, which is dotted with dozens of orcish settlements, typically called orcholds or clanholds regardless of the population size - a tiny family outpost of a dozen orcs is a hold, as is Dead Rifling, the great orcish capital. Orcs are incredibly tolerant of crowded conditions and nothing approaching an effective census has ever been possible, but most calculations put the orcish population at somewhere north of thirty-two million.

## Half-elves

Half-elves - specifically, half-elven and half-human - are a numerous if unpopular segment of society. Most analyses estimate the half-elven population at roughly four million, almost all of which dwells on Middek in human settlements - few elven settlements are prepared to tolerate the presence of half-elves. The only notable half-elven settlement is Moonglow Bay, on the shores of the Central Lake, which was repopulated by half-elves in the wake of the Great Plague and has remained dominated by them ever since.

Half-elves tend to emphasise their human heritage, since this is the easiest path to, if not acceptance, then at least tolerance. Some, however, determined to make a name for themselves, do not, and either cling to their elven side or, more commonly, reject both halves of their ancestry and try to build a uniquely half-elven personality.

## Half-orcs

About as common as half-elves, with about four million half-orcs living somewhere on The Ship. Unlike half-elves, half-orcs are not simply tolerated by the orcholds, they're actively recruited. Although half-orcs are not as strong or tough as full-blooded orcs, they are considerably more intelligent and usually have useful family connections with their human family members. Almost all orcish ambassadors (and every clan has at least one) is a half-orc, and most human settlements that send ambassadors to the Foksells send half-orc ambassadors.

## Dragonborn

Many dragons have capacity to take humanoid form. Many dragons, while in humanoid form, find humanoid romantic partners. The offspring of those encounters are dragonborn - half (usually) human, half dragon. Dragonborn who breed with other dragonborn have dragonborn children, and their immunity to the Great Plague has let their numbers build up considerably - most analyses now place the dragonborn population at somewhere between two and three million.

Almost all dragonborn live in the larger human settlements, although some can be found almost everywhere. The resilience of their dragon heritage makes them sturdy and independent, although dragonborn work well as part of a small team. Not over sociable, there are no dragonborn cities or even towns, although there are some decent-sized villages in the after parts of Middek that are almost entirely dragonborn in population.

## Immigrants

"Immigrants" is the general term for those small clusters of other races that have found their way up the chain over the last hundred centuries. Gnolls, goblinoids, kobolds, displacer beasts, beholders, hundreds of others. The terms isn't really an epithet as it is a descriptor - Immigrants tend not to have their own settlements, but rather dwell in places dominated by another race and have to deal with the sociopolitical consequences. Some areas are more welcoming that others - there are, for example, very few Immigrants in elven territories.

There is no central Ship-wide census or "immigration department", which means nobody knows how many of what race are on the Ship. Given the sheer size of the Ship, a small group determined to keep their heads down could probably remain undetected indefinitely.

## Keepers

The Keepers are six-legged insectoids that appear to have neither sentience nor self-awareness. They appear as if from nowhere, move about the Ship, conduct repairs and other, more arcane, rituals, and then disappear again. Careful observation reveals hatches cut into rocks and hillsides all over the Ship, but few have dared to pass within. None have returned.

Keepers are entirely non-violent, and never retaliate if attacked. However, killing Keepers is considered taboo by every culture on the Ship, and most of them have explicit - and stringently enforced - laws forbidding even attempts to study them. After all, if they are coming from the Ship, they're probably doing something to keep the air in and the lights on. Who knows what might happen if you were to stop one on some essential errand?

This doesn't stop the crazy or the violent or the violently crazy from attacking Keepers, but it does mean that few people manage to get more than one or two before local law enforcement catches up with them. Nobody knows how many Keepers there are, or what would happen if they disappeared.