Third Person Humans (A Brief Attempt)

[Fiery Justice]

I was trying to think of a view of humanity in a fantasy world that was fairly close to normal without being too humano-centric. So I wrote up what I thought of and here it is, open to criticisms.
Humans
Among the short-lived races of the world, there dwell the humans. They are a prolific race, much as the orcs or the goblins are, and can be found in almost any corner of the world, though they dominate only the plains. Tallish day-walkers of middling intellect and strength, humanity distinguishes itself by its curiosity and its religion.

Humans distinguish themselves among the races in their tendency towards focused worship. Few humans offer more then lip service to more then one god. They are more likely to pay their focused devotions to a god of death or of agriculture, these two factors dominating the average human life. Still, you can find dedicated cults of worship to any known god in most major cities.

Humans have a tendency to be dogmatic religiously and to frown upon arcane magic which puts off many other races, who tend to view humans as fools or cosmic brown-nosers. Human churches are also known for their many rituals or laws which cause disruptions in the daily interactions with those of dissimilar faiths. However many races have great respect for the will and devotion humans have toward the divine, and more respect the power that it grants them.

Curious as they are, humanity is known for its explorers and scholars, who are willing to dedicate their lives to the simple act of learning. Though they are not above using their knowledge to their advantage, few among those who pursue knowledge do so for that purpose. Every new horizon or unanswered question is a challenge to humanity, an affront.

This has led to many complications over the years as humanity's curiosity has pushed it into places where it does not belong, the lands and homes of other, stronger (or worse, weaker) races. It has lead to much theft, cruelty, and war. It has also revealed secrets long buried, answered ancient mysteries and reshaped the world for the better. But, while humanity considers it worth it, human curiosity has won few friends.

Human society is almost always stratified into classes based on birth, with very little or no movement in between except during times of great crises, which tend to wrack the race every seven or eight generations. Still, each crises seems to increase mobility a little bit and the rulers cycle fast enough that no individual tyrant has yet ruined the race.

Human heroes are generally stereotyped as devout, hard-working, open-minded and skilled in many areas as opposed to expert in any particular area. Oddly for a stratified race, heroes may spring from any background to win acceptance and renown if their deeds are heroic enough and they don't step on too many toes.

[Dark Herald]

Like your take, but you're still kind of showing your bias. I don't know if like your depiction of humans as religiously focused. That doesn't really jive with the flavor of the human masses depicted in the rules, like the peasant worker or the wealthy merchant. It seemed like those kinds of people were just dipping their fingers in all the pots. Little tribute here, little there, just to keep off bad luck, or get favor for a particular circumstance.

My homebrew setting is Sci Fi, and I deliberately tried to keep humans out of the spotlight. They get a bonus to a Knowledge skill (not DnD so it doesn't have exactly the same meaning), and are generally considered one of the more liberal races. What with the gender equality and capitalism of the first world countries dominating now, we can extrapolate that the men of the future are going to be individualists, free to explore their own destines and make their place in the verse. That is rather different form the other races, and even fantasy has some examples of that. Hive mind, Caste system, Apprenticeship, Great houses, Isolationists, warrior cultures, Benevolent Communism, Fascism; all are other equally realistic ways a culture could develop, with the necessary personal extrapolations even more diverse.

So, in short, humanity's one trait is it's diversity, that, and specialization. It could be argued that, since humans have no "favored class," the most dedicated individuals gravitate towards their areas of interest, and humanity continually specializes. a human, in any environment with multiple intelligent races, will seem very focused on whatever strikes their fancy, as opposed to the more balanced approach of being self sufficient.

I would go into more detail, but this isn't really the place. So

Yes Dedicated, but
not necessarily to Religion, just
to whatever facet of life they choose to focus on.

[Mando Knight]

I object to the humans being generally religiously focused and less likely to specialize in arcane magic. Elminster, and Raistlin were both human, weren't they? As was Morgan le Fay (Arthur's half-sister, born of Igraine and Gorlois).

Humans in D&D are most consistently shown as being one thing: adaptable. They fit into almost any archetype easily, and their short natural lives seems to give them the most drive to find a path to immortality of any civilized (i.e. PC) races.

[Flickerdart]

Humans have pathetic attention spans, thus most of them never achieve success in one field, rather preferring to pick up any number of inconsequential abilities instead. Those of them that do choose to focus on one path tend to achieve just enough to be a nuisance to more esteemed races.

[ondonaflash]

Humans pursue any avenue of power to climb to the top, one way or another, be it politics, religion, the sword or magic. If we had real world magic, we'd use it, aggressively and obsessively to become the best and lord it over those around ourselves.

The basic human instinct is to be the best and subjugate all others. I feel that deserves some attention. I've said it before, but we see someone who has something better than what we have, and our base, instinctual reaction is "Kill him, take his ****, **** his woman". We may subjugate that to serve higher causes, but its always there.

[Hat-Trick]

Humans, while selfish to a point can also be very selfLESS as well. It's a sporadic thing. If we see someone who has what we want, we usually feel jealousy, but if there is a crisis, we feel sympathetic to those victimized by it and is brings out the best in us. We try to have the best for ourselves, but when it counts, we care to for the entirety of the human race. Our survival instinct kicking in both circumstances, but in different ways.

The Good of the One Until the Whole is Threatened.

[ondonaflash]

The Good of the One Until the Whole is Threatened.

Enders Game :smallbiggrin:

[Gralamin]

Humans pursue any avenue of power to climb to the top, one way or another, be it politics, religion, the sword or magic. If we had real world magic, we'd use it, aggressively and obsessively to become the best and lord it over those around ourselves.

The basic human instinct is to be the best and subjugate all others. I feel that deserves some attention. I've said it before, but we see someone who has something better than what we have, and our base, instinctual reaction is "Kill him, take his ****, **** his woman". We may subjugate that to serve higher causes, but its always there.

That seems more of a personal Philosophy then established fact. I'd imagine its best to keep it out.

[ondonaflash]

That seems more of a personal Philosophy then established fact. I'd imagine its best to keep it out.

Its not a complete description, just a part of a greater whole, but a significant aspect which really shouldn't be ignored. Its what let them climb to the top of the food chain, and which leaves them in constant conflict with one another, everyone's competing to be the best.

[vicente408]

Thing is, it's really hard to "sum up" humanity in a neat little summary like you can most other fantasy races. That's because humans are the only race that has any real diversity across its population. The thing that comes up most often is their "adaptability," but all this does is put the spotlight on the fact that the other races are unrealistically monolithic and homogeneous in most traditional fantasy. Elves, dwarves, etc. are just caricatures of certain human qualities, which makes them easy to describe.

[kopout]

One thing that should be add in is that humans are, as a general rule, clingy bastards. For example, in a scorched earth senerio when all the forests are gone, the grass lands are desert, and the underdark is flooded there are still humans. clinging to life on the mountainsides, integrated with the dwarfes, living in extra-planer cites on the astral plain. They are like the cockroaches of the PhB races.

[Ravens_cry]

Humans. Adaptable as a whole, in the same way you keep getting the flu every year, individually then tend to be quite conservative of things that affect them directly.
Humans generally will think of saving their buttocks, and what it's attached too, before all else. There are exceptions, but they just serve bring the general consensus into greater focus. Almost any act, no matter how vile, has been done by a human at some point in history, and then attempted to be justified in some way. Many of their greatest achievements were completely accidental, as were the events that changed their world.
And they are made of meat. But don't try it, it's quite stringy.