Humans in D&D Cosmology

[Grytorm]

Humans are odd in D&D. Because most known people are humans they are often depicted as vary generic. I am a tad curious about what sort of ways have Humans been incorporated into various campaign settings mythologies be they professional or homebrew.

[Nightmarenny]

I like to portray humans similar to star trek. As more explorative than other races. Instead of(or as well as) the center of society they live on the edge, filling any niche the other races can't, of don't.

My latest campaign is set in a world before any sort of central society. Humans are one of few who can live a multiply. They also are very frontier-y and cowbowish.

[McSmack]

I wouldn't say humans are generic. I like to think of humans as the most diverse of the standard races. The fact is, we're the real race, and so most of know how crazy and varied our societies can be. Thousands of different cultures, languages, religions, traditions. We're everything.

Dwarves, elves, gnomes, they're make believe. Constructs created inside our fertile, yet limited minds. The idea of creating a cultural identity as varied and diverse as our own, for a race that only exists in our heads is damned near impossible. So we end up with races that have cultures similar to our own albeit on different end of the scale. These cultural identities are influenced by our own cultural point of view and the historical basis for those races.
Dwarves and elves have their origins primarily in the old Norse sagas. Gnomes and Halflings are probably Celtic in origin or influenced by those traditions at least.

Another reason that is given for the other races lack of diversity is their lifespans. Most of the other common races have lifespans measured in centuries. While a medieval human was lucky to reach 40. This means that cultural change and trends would move much much faster in a human society than in those of longer lived races.

Can you imagine if we applied all our different cultures to dwarves for instance? Try coming up with the dwarven equivalent to the Aboriginal humans or Australia or French dwarves (shudder).

Besides the sourcebooks would be HUGE!

[Honest Tiefling]

I actually prefer my humans to be versatile, but not diverse. Sure, their members are a lot of different classes, but I generally make one initial human culture. I'll make a little note on the map 'here be humans' in case someone feels like rolling up a human. If a player comes up to me and tries to pitch an intriguing culture, I'd likely add it in.

I just often don't feel like making a bunch of human cultures on top of several races. I feel that it is very hard to make the humans similar enough to have a racial identity while not overshadowing the weirdness and exotic-ness of other races. Especially when the other races come in degrees of being alien and different then humans, as human roleplayers can only roleplay so far from a human.

[TroubleBrewing]

Try coming up with the dwarven equivalent to the Aboriginal humans or Australia or French dwarves (shudder).

The world has luckily provided us with such an example. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toulouse_Lautrec)

And he drank like a Dwarf, too!

[Katana_Geldar]

In my groups campaign setting, humans are the new race and they see them selves as superior. They have conquered a substantial swathe of the continent, mostly at the expense of the elves who are still at war with them.

Basically, elves want to keep the trees, humans want to cut them down and use them as well as the land they occupy. We've also had them distrustful of magic, they're reliant on the creations of their own minds and hand which is why you see few human wizards.

We've had the comparison that if humans were the Americans, the Elves were the Brits and the Dwarves are the Aussies who sit in their mountain kingdoms and laugh at both sides. :smallbiggrin:

[Psyren]

Races of Destiny seems to take a "Mass Effect" view to humanity. We are the most diverse race, which is simultaneously our greatest strength and our greatest weakness.

Two quotes from that game sum humanity up in my opinion:

Samara - "If you have three humans in a room, you will have six opinions."
Mordin - Temperament, intelligence, biotic {magic} ability. Can look at {other races} and make reasonable guess; humans too variable to judge."

The strength of our diversity is that we can produce the best of any given profession.
The weakness is that we can seldom agree on anything for long as a species.

[Tvtyrant]

I fluff the Prime Material as the joining point of the ethereal and the astral, and humans were one of the species/tribes that got split up amongst the spheres.

Basically spheres are chunks of the ethereal, and the Phlo is the chunks of the Astral. The species/tribes lived in groups of a few thousand that were split up and placed into different spheres, which explains why they exists all over the place.

[Malimar]

In my campaign setting, the "adaptable and versatile" hat is worn by the mongrelfolk, who are numerous enough to constitute a nation in their own right. The humans are mostly limited to generic fantasy counterpart cultures.

[supermonkeyjoe]

I think humans, with a combination of their bonus feat, extra skillpoints and shorter lifespan are the ones who get it done, what "it" is depends on the individual. Whereas other races are naturally better adapted to their niche, Humans can adapt to most things. While elves and dwarves may live long lives they'll take a long time to take action, humans don't have the luxury of extended lifespans and are rash and impulsive (or would be viewed so by older races)

[Yora]

My homebrew setting is about the earliest civilizations found in the backstories of most generic fantasy settings. In it, the elves and lizardfolk are the two great humanoid civilizations. Humans are a race of tribal nomads that live in the large open planes away from the coast on which the setting is centred. When things like trade routes and merchant caravans became established, the people of the setting made contact with these human nomads and first started trade relationships, by buying goods from very far away lands, that the nomads had traded from other nomadic groups. As the nomadic clans travel a lot, but still have a very complex society with lots of exchange between the clans, they can get goods from places that are way to far for elven or lizardfolk merchants to go there themselves. Later the other races required mercenaries for their internal wars, and the human tribes served that role very well, because they were used to live traveling the wilderness, and had no loyalties or friendships with the other groups in the elven lands. Over time, many of those mercenaries settled down permanently. They are still one of the minor races, but the largest of those.
That said, they have a very clear niche, which is "nomadic plains barbarians".

Cosmologically, humans aren't any special at all. They are just likes gnomes, halflings, or orcs.

[chainer1216]

in my setting i've flipped things around a bit and have humans and halflings as the oldest of the races and the others were created from them, made for specific purposes. Elves for making finery and lore keeping, dwarves for building, halforcs (demi-orcs in my world) for fighting (mostly gladiatorial) and gnomes for jesters.

humans have been around the longest, so theyre already the most varied already, but then added to it that the other races were created with a specific purpose in mind, so that stunts theyre growth a bit.

[Feytalist]

Humans tend not to have a "niche" or place in most settings; that's probably why they've got the jack-of-all-trades hat.

Races of Faerun describes the difference between "sub-race" and "ethnicity" quite nicely, I thought. After all, aquatic elves and high elves are essentially two different species, with drow being a whole other wheel of cheese. And while there might be some superficial difference between a "Nordic"-type human and a "Far-Eastern"-type human, the difference is not enough physically to distinguish the two mechanically.

Though that does bring up the idea of statting each ethnic background as a whole new sub-race, with differing ability adjustments, racial abilities and preferred classes, thus doing away with the idea of humans as being "generic".

[Eldan]

Humans are weird: they can reproduce with anything. In my settings, at least, almost all of the half-whatevers are human on one side. Same goes for Planetouched. Sure, elves can live in the Abyss. They are still elves. Humans do the same, and two generations later, they are all Tieflings, because the just mutate to suit their surroundings.

[Feytalist]

And then you get Enor, who is explicitly a half-dragon/half-ogre. (Half-genie.)

[Asheram]

Humans are weird: they can reproduce with anything.

It does make some weird sense if you go after the "Broken mold" mythos in Races of destiny, where the human were the first creature to be made with the intent of actually having a civilization and all the other races were based on him. (actually quite funny. Page 22)

[Eldan]

And then you Enor, who is explicitly a half-dragon/half-ogre. (Half-genie.)

True, others may handle it differently. But I said it was how I handle it, and that there were exceptions. Sure, half-somethings that are not half-human occur, but most of those are magically created, and half-humans vastly outnumber them.

[Feytalist]

This might actually have something to do with the other races' physiology. If you regularly live to be 300, you're not going to want to conceive on a regular basis. Ans since the world (most worlds) are not overrun with dwarves, we have to assume that's what happens. The chances of other races conceiving half-anythings are a lot lower than for humans.

That still does not explain why there aren't many many more half-orc/half-X's out there, because apparently they breed even more than humans. Must be because they're so fugly.

See? Real world science does have an impact on D&D. :smallamused:

Let the catgirl killing commence.

[Eldan]

Phh. We discussed that one before. By that logic, the orc-human-elf continuum is a single ring species.

[Feytalist]

Phh. We discussed that one before. By that logic, the orc-human-elf continuum is a single ring species.

Heh, fair enough. Alough, makes sense, yes? :smalltongue:

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I can't speak for any real homebrew settings, but Pathfinder certainly had some interesting ideas:

Humans in Pathfinder used to primarily hail from the Atlantis Expy, Azlant, and according to rumors, they'd been raised up to their lofty status by the machinations of the aboleths. Some humans broke away from Azlant and formed the corrupt empire of Thassilon, which relied on giant slaves and rune magic based on the Seven Deadly Sins.

Ultimately, the aboleths got sick of humans thinking they were top dog, and decided to call down a meteor to wipe them out. This event, called Earthfall, was the single worst disaster to ever hit the world of Golarion, and it achieved its goal of destroying Azlant. But the Azlanti people survived, most notable among them the man named Aroden. Aroden founded the city of Absalom, which today is the one of the largest and most successful city-states on Golarion, sort of like Waterdeep or Sharn in other campaign settings. Aroden then did something even more incredible. He dragged the meteor that had caused Earthfall out of the ocean, and its power made him a god. This stone, called the Starstone, was placed in a cathedral in the center of Absalom, and Aroden was now the first mortal to ascend to godhood.

Aroden was basically humanity's god in the same way Torag is for the dwarves (although humans don't believe Aroden created them since Aroden used to be mortal himself). After him, three other mortals were able to use the Starstone to become gods. First was the assassin Norgorber, who deliberately suppresses any information about his life prior to godhood. Then there was the mercenary, Cayden Cailean, who took the challenge to reach the Starstone as part of a drunken dare, and to this day still doesn't remember how he managed to do it. The last, and youngest of Golarion's current gods, was the paladin Iomedae, who served the herald of Aroden, Arazni, and became Aroden's new herald when Arazni was slain by the lich known as the Whispering Tyrant. Later, Iomedae would inherit Aroden's faithful when he too died. Aroden's death was a shattering blow to the pride of humanity, who believed he'd return to the world one day and rule as an immortal god-king. Instead, his death caused a permanent hurricane to show up in the south, a rip in reality in the north that became the beachhead of a demonic invasion, drove the empire that worshiped him most prominently into a civil war that resulted in it falling under the rule of Asmodeus worshippers, and calling the very concept of prophecy into question.

In Golarion's mythology then, humans are a race of survivors, having outlasted the aboleths' attempt to kill them and/or re-enslave them, having the most ascended mortals as gods compared with the other races (Halflings have a few, and there's one gnome who ascended to godhood, though she was unique because she was also the first svirfneblin, and races like elves and dwarves don't have ascended gods of their own). Aroden's death also showed that gods can die, and has now basically discredited any prophecies still out there. Far from being generic, humanity has probably made the largest mark on Golarion's history compared with other races.

[Grommen]

Archpaladin Zousha - Nice history. I really love their game world.

Don't forget the elven response to Earthfall. They packed up and went to another planet. The few elves, not fortunate to make it, went deep underground and just before becoming extinct in the deep Underdark Darklands they found a demon for a friend. I think we all know how that all turned out.

The humans on Golarion went on to found another great empire known as Cheliax, Much like the plague they spread thought the lands. From what I can see it dominated nearly the entire continent at one time. It's not the empire that is Cheliax today. They found religion, and ah well...it works for them. Anyway Cheliax peeked and and is in decline. But it's culture (kinda a European/Italian thing) influences a great many of the smaller kingdoms.

As a result of all the humans on Golarion are a bit arrogant, stuffy, and hard headed. The ones that don't live in the sphere of influence of Cheliax tend to knot like being bossed around, and simply wish to be left alone.

And they are a diverse lot, mostly due to the fact that they were left with the world for nearly 10,000 years. They survived wile most other races hid underground or had not made it to the surface.

Another reason why Orks and humans don't like each other. When the Orks came out of their hole, they found humans. Humans were squishy, soft, and had no defence against the orks. Golarion has a lot of half Orks for this reason.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Had I mentioned some of that other stuff, the post probably would have become an entire essay! :smalltongue:

Actually though, Cheliax wasn't QUITE the continent-spanning power, even at the height of their glory. That recognition goes to Taldor, a nation formed by the Aztlanti refugees. They conquered the lands that would later become Cheliax and various other nations, like Andoran, Brevoy, Galt, etc. Taldor initially enjoyed being Aroden's chosen people until their decadence proved to be too much for him and caused him to look elsewhere. Furthermore, Taldor fell apart rather quickly. When faced with a military threat from Qadira, a satrapy of the Padishah Empire of Kelesh (a predominately human empire, again, but this one more Arabian), Taldor could do nothing to prevent Cheliax from seceding in what's now called the Even-Tongued Conquest, after the first ruler of Cheliax, Aspex the Even-Tongued. While Cheliax became a powerful and far-reaching nation in its own right, it never reached Taldor's size, and now that the civil war that put the Thrice-Damned House of Thrune in power is over, they have even less as places like Andoran and Galt revolted.

Granted, we don't really know all that much about the humans of other continents. We really only know about Avistan and northern Garund. We haven't really seen what's in Garund south of Geb and the Mwangi Expanse, and of the Padishah Empire of Kelesh and the Kingdoms of Vudra, we only see Qadira and Jalmeray respectively. And we know nothing of the different lands of Tian Xia. Those are all human-dominated as far as I know, and they're very different from the common humans, whose history is mostly shaped by the legacy of Aroden and the Azlanti.

[GallóglachMaxim]

In my campaign setting humans (and halflings, to a lesser degree) were created to match the rapid population growth of the orcs.* They appear in large numbers, part army part colony, and reinforce the elves, dwarves and lammasu. Post-upheaval, they spread out and steal bits of other cultures or invent their own. Mostly as an excuse to binge on fantasy counterpart cultures. Or imagine what people from certain cultures would do with the resources (magic, mostly) in a world that runs on rule zero.

Humans in the 'contemporary' timeline (about 700 years later) are distinguished from the other races by bloody-minded determination to achieve whatever they set their minds to. Small amounts of younger sibling complex, so they need to be able to beat the older races at something in order for it to matter.

* whose fertility levels and aggression are directly linked to availability of food, making them a perfect pawn for more powerful creatures.