Human

## Overview

**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 mighty empires on the foundation of conquest and trade. Whatever drives them, humans are the innovators, the achievers, and the pioneers of the worlds.

Known Humans: Chrono, Cyra, Lu Zhi Ying.

### Personality and psychology

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 cities to last for the ages, and great kingdoms that can persist for long centuries. 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.

### Physical description

Although they are far off descendants of the Elven race, there are cases in which humans are born with peculiar traits and magic affinity. With their penchant for migration and conquest, humans are more physically diverse than other common races. There is no typical human. An individual can stand from 1.50 meters to a little over 1.80 meters tall and weigh from 50 to 120 kilograms. Human skin shades range from nearly black to very pale, and hair colors from black to blond (curly, kinky, or straight); 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.

## Culture

### Human Names

Having so much more variety than other cultures, humans as a whole have no typical names. Some human parents give their children names from other languages, such as Dwarvish or Elvish (pronounced more or less correctly), but most parents give names that are linked to their region’s culture or to the naming traditions of their ancestors.

### Language

Thanks to their great expansion over the whole continent of Lomia, the Humans' dialects had grown and evolved into varied, most peculiar manners. One living in the far east might have trouble with inhabitants of the central desert wastes. The most popular languages are the Common language, Undercommon, Dwarvish, Elvish, Giant, Gnomish, Goblin, Halfling, and Orc languages. There are also rare exotic languages, such as Draconic, Druidic, Orc, Troll, Vampire, and Warlock languages.

### Society

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.

### Laws and Justice

The legal system is based on the presumption of innocence, which is a legal principle that every person accused of any crime is considered innocent until proven guilty. Under the presumption of innocence, the legal burden of proof is thus on the prosecution, which must present compelling evidence to the trier of fact (a judge or a jury).

### Leisure

Human past times can go from more quiet, introspective activities such as writing, reading, crafting, gardening, and such as in out world (ahem) to and tinkering on impossibly complex steam powered machines or creating a new world system. Magic is well spread, although it is not the spotlight of the Human civilisation - the works of the steel and fuel being the beating core of the world. As the climate is predominantly cold, most activities happen indoors or in specially arranged gathering spaces.

For entertainment, a weary traveler or party-seeker can find inns, restaurants and other establishments.

### Arts and Crafts

Sculpture, Painting, Printmaking, Calligraphy, Photography, Woodworking, Jewellry, Sewing, Metalworking, Ceramic art.

### Technology

The development factor differs throughout the continent, quiet, reclusive villages giving way to plains of frost, woodlands, then metropolis that serve as hubs of culture and technology. Hybrid use of both magic and mechanisms allow for contraptions and whole automated buildings to exists.

## Trivia

* The technology featured in this universe is generally just as advanced as that of our modern world, but it uses steam as its energy source instead of electricity, gas or oil. As a result, steampunk technology takes on a retro look reminiscent of the Industrial Revolution era. As Douglas Fetherling so aptly put it, “Steampunk is a genre that imagines how different the past might have been had the future come earlier.”