Humans are the most populous ancestry in Aedelor. They are also one of the oldest, having been created as a result of the shattering along with giants and halflings. Humans survived through the Thousand Year Wars in part to their adaptive and ambitious nature. Humans can be found in nearly every corner of Aedelor and are made up of a diverse array of ethnicities and faiths. They control the most domains of any ancestry in Aedelor.

Characteristics

Humans are some of the most diverse people in Aedelor. Human skin tones range from light tan to dark brown and a variety of shades in between, and their hair is brown, black, blonde, or red. They stand between five to six and a half feet tall, with rare exceptions. Their eyes have blue, brown, grey, or green irises. They physically mature in 15-20 years and can live upwards of 100 years before dying of natural causes. Humans gradually show signs of their old age with wrinkled skin, weakened strength, and greying hair starting at 60-70 years old. In some cases, humans older than 90 will also show severe signs of decreased mental faculties.

Diversity may be humans' greatest strength and weakness. It has allowed them to survive the harsh conditions of early Aedelor and even allowed them to thrive. But it also makes them dangerous. Humans regularly make war with people they see as different than themselves. Their ambition has allowed them to innovate in ways that others wouldn't have thought of, but also makes them easily corruptible.

Names and Language

Humans spoke a wide variety of languages for thousands of years, making homogeny difficult, though eventually leading to the common tongue which is now spoken across all of Aedelor. This also makes their names quite different from each other depending on ethnicity. Most humans have a given name and a family name; given names are usually sex-dependent.

With rare exceptions, humans tend to recycle given names by using sentimentally important ones. Examples include giving their children their own name, their parents' name, or even the name of a famous or culturally important person.

Origins

Millions of the shards that came from the Shattering of Bahamut were the right size and brilliance to create humankind in Aedelor. Every small variation in these millions of shards made a wide array of humans in nearly every corner of the world. However, despite being the most numerous ancestry created in the shattering, they were far from the dominant one in the young, dangerous, and volatile world. Primitive human tribes lived in the shadow of calissae for generations. In some parts of the world, humans died out completely due to the calissae.

As calissae began to decline, they began nurturing humankind in a variety of ways, usually out of selfish desire and not benevolence. Dragons in Valdar taught the first humans how to use arcane magic. Giants in northern Ealia integrated humans with their giantkin and taught them advanced mining and smithing techniques. Over generations, humans began to worship some calissae while continuing to vilify others. Their influence over groups of humans shaped and moulded the many ethnicities that exist in Aedelor today. Approaching and following the Withering, humans began to replace calissae as the dominant ancestry in Aedelor. Their ambition has led them to claim the most dominions in the world and they continue to try and spread their influence and power.

Human Characters