Human kinds

Since the term human is defined, in Universe, by the human essence, that is, corporeal creatures with corporeal and spiritual life, vastly different kinds of creatures can be classed under the term human. Another term alternatively used is individual. That said, humanity is ordinarily subdivided into 30 kinds, all of which fall under one of two primary clades:

## Immortals

Humans with ambrosia. Ambrosia is an ethereal substance which impedes the body associated to a form, which is normally a human soul, from being completely corrupted, meaning that death is by it avoided. That said, ambrosia has an expiration date and so immortals can still die of old age. Certain magical weapons have been specifically engineered to hasten the expiration of ambrosia and thus cause death onto immortals, with the only victims of such so far being Baldr and Zagreus. There are two general clades of immortals:

### Deities

Immortals born with ambrosia of their own, being capable of giving part of that ambrosia to other humans in a relation of patronage, through which their clients are made to be immortals up until their own death, after which they become mortals. Two kinds of deity can be distinguished:

#### Henads

Also known as gods by pagans, they are deities capable of having divine children with mortals. While henads may have one mortal parent, they must always have one divine, henad parent. The first two henads, Hydros and Ge, were the only ones to be born of two mortals, Adam and Eve. All other henads descend from them.

#### Nephilim

Also known as demigods by pagans, they are deities incapable of having divine children with mortals. Nephilim are the children of henads and mortals or clients, and can actually ascend to become henads themselves if they go through a sort of personal, idiosyncratic, ethereal awakening. While only two henads were ever killed (Baldr and Zagreus), a few many nephilim have been killed by the referred weapons throughout history. Nephilim cannot presently become patrons to any clients, but such can be done through their ascension into divinity.

### Clients

Immortals whose ambrosia comes from another, that is, from a patron henad. If the patron henad dies, their ambrosia is gone and they become mortals. There are two general clades of clients:

#### Fey

Clients who were born as such, being thus natural clients. There are four kinds of fey:

##### Guardians

A fey kind first birthed by Uranus, capable of both assexual reproduction and male sexual reproduction with other kinds. Guardians were originally meant to grow up on Morningland and migrate to Skyworld to serve the henads. That said, Lucifer incarnated as the guardian nephilim son of a guardian and the henad Aurora and lead a rebellion against the then already jovian rule. He eventually managed to ascend into becoming a henad and, in doing so, managed to trade Uranus' ambrosia contained in his followers for his own ambrosia. God eventually decided to kill Lucifer after he defeated Zeus, making all of his followers unfortunate (without a client) and allowing for the Zeus-aligned guardians to kill them, since they couldn't actually have another patron after their patron died.

##### Sukon

A fey kind first birthed by Cronus to inhabit the Hidden Tropics. After Zeus overthrew Cronus, they became general enemies of the henads, leading to a long history of hostilities, the creation of the henad-killing weapons and their exile to the underground of the Earth. Alike with the guardians and Uranus, the natural patron of the Sukon is Cronus, but they can't change patrons like the guardians, meaning that they are locked with him. Since he hasn't ever died, the Sukon have never had a single fatality, though they almost killed a Sukon nephilim, Sancus. That said, once reduced to effective (though not actual) death in a battle, the sukon will normally be sent to the Hidden Tropics, from where they may be temporarily sent to Tartarus as a form of punishment or live under the henads' favor in their home world.

##### Fiends

A fey kind first birthed by Typhon to inhabit Elmar. They are hopelessly feral due to an inherent vice towards consuming the mana of other mortals. All fiends are born already in their adulthood, but their feral habits blind them to civility, heavily inclining them towards hopelessly murderous intent. Fiends can reproduce sexually and asexually, but their offspring with every kind of human except henads is always a fiend. As long as there is mana for them to consume, fiends will continue to rapidly reproduce, though they are normally more apt to reproduce when other humans are apt to put up resistance, so mostly during daytime. Like the Sukon, fiends cannot exchange their patron, meaning that they don't actually die in being defeated in battle, and due to their similar but greater irreverence they end up being brought to Tartarus. There are ten general types of fiends: basilisks (dragon-like), krakens (squid-like), harpies (bird-like), tarrasques (reptile-like), hanzaki (amphibian-like), aboleths (fish-like), nuckelavees (mammal-like), insectoids (insect-like), skolex (worm-like) and wraiths (phantom-like).

##### Akrosians

A fey kind composed of humans who used to be fiends but, through a process known as crossing, managed to lose their feral hunger for mana, being much better adapted to civility and kindness. Like fiends, akrosians are all adults and all of their offspring with mortals and nephilim are fiends. For this reason, akrosians will tend to abstain from reproduction. Crossings have only been performed on akrosians by others or the akrosians themselves when the performers were followers of Yahweh, the deity who claims to be (and actually is) God, the Creator. The fact no parcists, manicheans, satanists or pagans have ever been able to perform a crossing inclines the other religions towards affirming that the act is actually of a miraculous nature, a statement contested by pagans, gnostic satanists and parcists, who claim Yahweh is a henad, not God, but accepted by manicheans, who contend Yahweh is actually an Anti-God, capable of performing miracles like God would. Since they are not irreverent like fiends or the Sukon, the akrosians are not abducted like they are, and have been living on Earth, Elmar and Morningland ever since the first one, Akros, was crossed 15 thousand years ago, by the hands of Enoch.

#### Ascended

Clients who were born as mortals but came to be under a patron henad. There are two general clades of ascended:

##### Spooks

Ascended who currently live on Earth, Elmar, the Morningland, Eden or Hell. As to not interfere in the lives of the mortals within their residing facet, spooks are normally made to live hidden in the ethereal dimensions, being thus very hard to spot. Many places, specially on Earth, are secured from their presence by special incenses and artifacts which keep them away. There are four kinds of spooks:

###### Undead

Spooks who did not ascend (that is, embibe a henad's ambrosia) voluntarily, normally being the victims of the vindictive anger of a higher henad, such as Thanatos, who will occasionally torture those who prove him wrong by making them immortal and throwing them in Hell. Undead are not under the previously described restrictions in movement and appearance. Spook who ascended voluntarily are dubbed phantoms.

###### Soul Reapers

Phantoms who work directly for the henads in handing down ambrosia when requested by them and punishing spooks and certain fey who violate cosmic law. All other phantoms are denominated ghosts.

###### Wisps

Ghosts who live in one of the seven facets. They are the devotees of ghost henads, such as Melinoe.

###### Cthones

Ghosts who live in Hell, normally Asphodelus. They are the devotees of cthonic henads, such as Hekate or even Persephone.

##### Fortunate

Ascended who currently live either outside of the seven facets or in Skyworld, the Mystical Abyss or even the Hidden Tropics. According to each location, there are four kinds of fortunate:

###### Skyfolk

Those fortunate who live in one of the many pagan havens in Skyworld, the designation for most virtuous pagans after a near-death experience.

###### Abyssals

Those fortunate who live in the Mystical Abyss.

###### Tropicalians

Those fortunate who live in the Hidden Tropics.

###### Venusians

Those fortunate who live in Venus, the ordinary designation for Aphrodite's devotees.

## Mortals

Humans without ambrosia, and may thus be killed through attacks and means other than ambrosia expiration. There are two general clades of mortals:

### Fallen

Mortals who were born immortal. So far, only the guardians previously aligned to Lucifer have experienced such a loss of ambrosia, and so this kinds refers exclusively to them.

### Gardeners

Naturals (mortals born as such) who resemble Adam and Eve in kind, having a large array of magical powers and natural, individual quirks which they each excel at. Pagans normally call only gardeners human, but christians have popularized the usage of the term in the broadest sense, since the atonement brought by Christ has saved all kinds of rational corporeal creatures. There are five kinds of gardeners:

#### Sethites

Once the first couple was freed by Aether and started settling the Earth, their first two mortal sons were born: Cain and Abel. After God gave more praise to a sacrifice in his honor from Abel than one from Cain, the latter, furious with his brother, committed murder, leading to God marking him and his father Adam declaring his exile. Since the firstborn was out, a new son, Seth, had to be birthed to take his place as Adam's heir. Though Adam had other sons, it is primarily from Seth and Cain that came all future generation of gardeners, with those gardeners on Earth being mainly descended from Seth and thus called sethites. Most enchantments attempting to contain the magical powers of sethites have failed, and so the Earth is home to the strongest variety of gardeners. The remaining kinds of gardener are called cainites. After the Flood ravaged most intelligent life on the face of the Earth, Noah became the common ancestor of all living sethites through his three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, the three of which would disappear during the event of Tower of Babel and go on to live for billions of years afterwards.

#### Stained

These are the cainites whose birth is anterior to the Flood, thus including figures like Cain. After the murder of Abel, the murderer and his wife moved away from the others and eventually settled in a town wherein he would build the Rose Guard, a secretive organization responsible for research and containment regarding various magical artifacts, phenomena, techniques and creatures. During the Flood, the Sukon hid underground, never to reemerge again, while most of the gardeners, with the exception of Noah and his family, perished, including almost all cainites, the only ones spared being those allowed by Zeus to migrate, constituting the other three kinds of gardeners.

#### Illians

The first cainites fleeing from the Flood settled in the facet of Eden, wherein they first initiated the tradition of suppressing their magical powers to keep fiends away. As such, the illians are, to this day, the only ordinary human settlers of the facet. They are also known as edenites.

#### Morning Humans

As the flood worsened, a group of cainites taking refuge in the Flying Castles of the Rose Guard urged the henads to let them migrate to other facets to escape doom, and after a long debate in Skyworld, they were allowed to enter Morningland.

#### Elmarians

Some of those in the second batch of migrants were separated from the others and sent to Elmar as a rewards to their higher dignity with the henads. Much like morning humans, elmarians have suppressed their own powers to reduce the presence of fiends, but only partially, unlike the illians.

### Monsters

Naturals who very much diverge from Adam and Eve in kind, presenting a distinct physiognomy and a completely different array of magical powers. Monsters generally resulted from the dilution of various henad genes into the mortal gene-pool through cainites and a few sethites. There are ten kinds of monsters:

#### Jotuns

Having been briefed on some of the secrets behind traveling between facets, a few elmarians from the first generations decided to explore the other facets and thus ended up stuck in Vatnsheim. There, they were all set to be executed, but some of the females found favor with Ymir and so, from them, the henad would birth the first jotuns, who were sent to live on Earth at the time of Babel. This first kin of monsters were the field giants, monsters with a distinctively gardener look (that is, real life human appearance), but averaging ten to fifteen feet in height. Though they were very strong and many of them exhibited exceptional speed, stamina and power, they carried no natural magical abilities, much less any quirks, being thus distinctively monstrous. All other kin of jotuns and kinds of monsters descend from the first field giants.

#### Petres

During the time of Babel, the sethite Nimrod had conquered the whole world under a singular empire, but struggled to maintain unity after the three patriarchs, sons of Noah, had gone missing. To worsen his situation, the newly arrived field giants were rebellious and frequently disputed his claims. Aiming to combat them, Nimrod asked for a favor from the henad Tudigong, who birth the first earth golems from among the field giants as loyal servants to Babel. Through these, who are now considered to be the first petres, the empire managed to contain the unrest, leading to the stable period during which the Tower of Babel event took place, then leading to the fall of the Empire. Earth golems have a body made out of hard, brown dirt clogs and cobblestones connected by vines, adorned with plants of all sorts and both earth and plant-related magical powers. From them, all other petre kin would emerge.

#### Coloroids

After the confusion at the Tower of Babel, many field giants attempted to flee the Earth to settle areas under cainite control, for they did not recognize themselves as monsters like the earth golems. As such, a group of them rediscovered the old Rose Guard installations and, using the technology therein, started attempting to enter other facets. Having eventually discovered the difficulty in that, some of them settled for sailing to other planets in the World. The largest of such groups, the Spring Crusaders, voyaged to Venus, wherein they were received by the venusians and almost all killed. The survivors among them were the women who Priapus, son of Aphrodite, found favor with and from them birthed the first coloroids: the colores. They have a human-like appearance, size, body, varyingly cartoonish facial features, cartoon-related magical powers as well as some inclination towards drastically different types of all sorts of magic, a saturated, mono-colored skin and, normally, hair of the same color. From these colores, all other coloroids would eventually come. Since they were not devotees, the first colores were sent back to live on Earth, wherein many of them joined the efforts of the revived Rose Guard in facet traveling.

#### Orkin

Another group of field giants who chose to the flee the Central Planet were the Red Star Crusaders, who settled the deserted planet Mars, at the time ruled by the henad Cygnus. Wanting to entertain the other henads, Cygnus mingled with some of the Red Star Crusaders and thus birthed the first orkin, the orcs, seven feet tall, greenish humanoids with large lower tusks, so that they would battle for survival in giant arenas in the red deserts. From these orcs, all other orkin would eventually come. After a million years fighting on the red planet, the orcs were put to better use by Cygnus when they were cast down on Earth to fight the Abelic Kingdom in the name of the Cainic Kingdom, the former being a pure sethite kingdom and the latter being a sethite kingdom backed by the monsters in the Rose Guard.

#### Alfkin

With the escalation of the war between the Abelic and Cainic Kingdoms in the context of the coming of the orcs, some colores defected from the Rose Guard an joined the Abelic Kingdom. From these defectors, Heimdall, honored by their mission, would birth the first alfkin, the Alfheim elves, white humans with light blue hair and elvish features, that is, a soft skin, straight hair and pointed ears. These first elves, from which all other alfkin would come forth, were instrumental to the defeat of the orcs and the disalignment between the Rose Guard and the Cainic Kingdom which would follow. As a reward for their victory, Heimdall would create the Kingdom of Alfheim, a gigantic floating island chained to the Earth, for them to live in isolation. With the Kingdom, came the title of King of Alfheim, which gave its bearer mystical powers over the island and all Alfheim elves.

#### Mystions

In the following millennia, as peace would come to reign, a group of colore Rose Guards would explore the calm seas and find the Island of Nysirios, wherein the remains of Polybotes could still be found from after the battle between Typhon's giants and Zeus' gods. Polybotes would then trick the colores into interacting with his magical corpse and, from this interaction, created the first mystions, the tieflings, as a subject race to him. Through the tieflings, the henad started conquering the seas, creating more and tiefling from the dead bodies of his victims and earning insane amounts of loot. A maritime alliance would eventually defeat the tiefling pirates and contain the island under the Rose Guard, but since tieflings had not been made to reproduce without it, the henad Demeter had to modify their physiognomy to allow for sexual reproduction and dymorphism. From these new, purple tieflings, humanoids with smooth, grayish yet colored skin, a long tail, blank white eyes and a large, curved horns covered under darker tones of skin, contrasting their human-like and/or colored hair and elf-like ears, all mystions would emerge.

#### Dweebs

During the first migration of field giants out of the Earth, a few got lost in their way to Mercury, and thus the planet came to avoided by travelers who feared the fiends that guarded it. That said, this group, having gone through for millions of years in empty space, eventually attracted the attention of the henad Dellingr, who birthed the first dweebs, the dwarves, humanoids with human-like skin and hair, a bulky body, around four feet and eight inches in height, large beards they are born with, tool-enhancing spell casting and smiting-related magical powers, from among them. The dwarves were then gifted with a road-map to Mercury, which they were only allowed to use if and when they defeated the field giants among them. As it turns out, they did finally arrive in Mercury, only to find in it a miserable planet. Not liking their disdain for it, Hermes birthed from all dwarf females the first goblins, another kin of the dweeb constituted of humanoids three feet in height, a slim body, large, elvish ears, head, hands, mouth and feet, small eyes and greenish skin, which caused much outrage among the dwarves, motivating them to leave the creatures alone in the planet and head back to Earth. All goblins would eventually leave Mercury through a portal accidentally created by sethites.

#### Ents

As the sethites became more and more of a coastal presence in response to the original tiefling pirates, the interior of the continents came to be dominated by the orc hordes, leading to the destruction of many ancient sethite civilizations in the process. One such, more druidic civilizations was salvaged by the henad Pan, who mingled among local earth golem servants of theirs and thus originated the first ents, the tree ents, in the ancient Salachi Riverbed. From these tree ents, all other ents would originate.

#### Dracoic

While the early tree ents protected many ancient sethite civilizations from ruin, desert civilizations, like that of the Quetza, were now even more threatened, since orcs now had fewer targets. As a result, an orc horde eventually breached the walls of these people, whose patron henad was Quetzalcoatl, and completely destroyed their cities. In revenge, the patron henad mingled with all of the women from the horde and thus birthed the first dracoic, the red dragons, creatures with twenty feet in height, four legs and, normally, two wings, red scales, two reddish horns curving like a brow ridge on the head, a discrete crest running from the back of the head to the tip of the tail, darker tones to the extremities of the wings, fire breath and fire-related magical powers, from which all other dracoic would eventually emerge. These first dragons created such pressure in beating back the orcs and reforming the Quetza Empire that they came to represent a threat to sethites and tieflings as well.

#### Beholderish

As the Draconic Quetza Empire was finally coming to an end, more and more dragons started to defect from Quetzalcoatl, but since their reputation was tarnished, they found it difficult to associate with other henads. As a result of that, Maculus, one such late Quetza dragon, ended up reaching the end of his life without a patronage, and thus feared dying and going to Hell. To evade his destiny, he asked Thanatos, the henad most associated with death, to spare him and give him some ambrosia so that he could continue to live. Tartarus gave in to his wishes and gave of his own ambrosia, but instead of turning him into a ghost or something the sort, decided to make of him the first undead, throwing him into Hell to suffer until the ambrosia expired. Maculus managed to descend his way in Hell until reaching Tartarus, wherein he found banished henads, such as Theia, with whom he would birth the first beholderish, the beholders, large, three feet tall, floating lobes with a large eye and mouth and ten smaller eye-stalks. Human reproduction was normally restricted on Tartarus ever since Hydros had sealed Adam and Eve, but such restriction was only between henads and between non-henads, not between both. As such, these mysterious creatures were born as loopholes, which were then immediately patched by Zeus upon taking notice of them. Not deserving the punishment of Tartarus, Zeus judged them worthy of Earth, and so they were there sent, most then associating with the Rose Guard and helping in the final steps of the facet travel breakthrough. Beholders can inhibit magical attacks by looking at them with their larger eye and each of their eye-stalks has a different magical ray they can shoot, each one with a different effect: charming you into falling in love with the monster; paralyzing you with a venom; frightening you; slowing you down; making you more neurotic about your companions; controlling your body telekinetically; putting you to sleep; petrifying you or parts of your body; disintegrating you or parts of your body; and, finally, killing you outright or making parts of your body rot. From them, all other beholderish would originate. It would only take around ten thousand years from then on for all sorts of monsters to emerge among the ten kinds and then spread out to Elmar and the Morningland, before Zeus would finally and definitively restrict facet travel.