Human

According to the reckoning of most historians, humans are the youngest of the common races, late to arrive on the world scene and short-lived in comparison to dwarves, elves, and dragons. Perhaps it is because of their shorter lives that they strive to achieve as much as they can in the years they are given. Or maybe they feel they have something to prove to the elder races, and that’s why they build their villages on daring and potentially treacherous lands. Whatever drives them, humans are the innovators, the achievers, and the pioneers of the world.

### **A Broad Spectrum**

With their emergence into the new world, humans appeared all across Wormwood. They are one of the most physically diverse of the races, allowing them to survive in a number of climates. There is no typical human. An individual can stand from 5 feet to a little over 6 feet tall and weigh from 125 to 250 pounds. Human skin shades range from nearly black to very pale, and hair colors from black to blond (and feature a variety of styles); males might sport facial hair that is sparse or thick. A lot of humans have a dash of nonhuman blood, revealing hints of elf, orc, or other lineages. Humans reach adulthood in their late teens and rarely live even a single century.

### **Variety In All Things**

Humans are the most adaptable and ambitious people among the common races. They have widely varying tastes, morals, and customs in the many different lands where they have settled. When they settle, though, they stay: they build lasting towns and villages, and even started building their own cities that rival the size of the feyborn cities. An individual human might have a relatively short life span, but a human nation or culture preserves traditions with origins far beyond the reach of any single human’s memory. They live fully in the present—making them well suited to the adventuring life—but also plan for the future, striving to leave a lasting legacy. Individually and as a group, humans are adaptable opportunists, and they stay alert to changing political and social dynamics.

### **Lasting Institutions**

Where a single elf or dwarf might take on the responsibility of guarding a special location or a powerful secret, humans found sacred orders and institutions for such purposes. While dwarf clans and halfling elders pass on the ancient traditions to each new generation, human temples, governments, libraries, and codes of law fix their traditions in the bedrock of history. Humans dream of immortality, but (except for those few who seek undeath or divine ascension to escape death’s clutches) they achieve it by ensuring that they will be remembered when they are gone.

Although some humans can be xenophobic, in general their societies are inclusive. Human lands welcome large numbers of nonhumans compared to the proportion of humans who live in nonhuman lands.

### **Exemplars of Ambition**

Humans who seek adventure are the most daring and ambitious members of a daring and ambitious race. They seek to earn glory in the eyes of their fellows by amassing power, wealth, and fame. Humans aim to champion causes rather than territories or groups.

### **Echoes Of The Earth**

Unlike the four tribes who were shaped by the fallout of the Flame, humans emerged into the world centuries after the feyborn had begun to build their great cities and the beastfolk had taken to their wild lands. Humans emerged, seemingly straight from the ground, stepping into a new, hostile world.

Humans who are direct descendants from those who first emerged from the earth, tell stories of underground chambers built to discourage their ancestors from leaving, but dwindling food and resources forced the humans to dig their way towards the surface. Because of the inaccuracy of oral storytelling, some have called the validity of these tales into question. The current hypothesis is that the humans were created by the four primordial deities to aid the four tribes.

### **Human Names**

Human names are human names, figure it out.