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Humanoid race up for discussion

SMAndy85

Minstrel
I've been working on a world for the past half a year, and I believe I've finalised the first race of humanoids on my world. For the most part, all the intelligent species on my world are human with a flavour, which is environment based evolution at work.

With a huge generalisation, the Elsvidd are tall and lean humans, with pale red skin. Their place of origin is towards the hotter edge of the band of habitable land on their tide-locked world, under a red sun. They have evolved the red skin to reflect some of the infra-red light that the sun generates, allowing them greater resistance to the heat of the world around them.

Once upon a time, they were nomadic, but have since settled into towns and cities, of which these are currently unnamed.

They mostly wear animal skins - their land is home to many variants of lizard like creatures, so the hides make for decent armour for their warriors. Bare skin is not much of a problem for them, as most warriors are agile, and keep distance until they are ready, learning from fights against large land lizards. As for weapons, lizard claws have made for good spear tips until they began working bronze, as their land is rich in tin and copper, along with a few other metals that create regional alloys. Their primary weapons are axes and spears, making use of the hardness of bronze to hold an edge, but also bowing to its liability to break if the blades are too long. They accept the value of imperial currency, but also have their own currency made up of lizard claws, valued by weight. These are becoming less favourable as time goes on, purely because imperial currency is easier, and use is spreading.

Their society favours strength, but not only physical strength. People earn the right to be followed, and those that fail to survive are deemed not good enough to be followed, so a high King or Queen that is killed in battle is not mourned, except by the clan they belong to, for they were not strong enough. Underhanded tactics are very frowned upon, so assassination and poison are not valid claims to have defeated a King or Queen.

The throne is passed down to someone of the current King/Queen's choice. yes, this may be their offspring, but if the current king/queen knows that they are not strong or smart enough to survive, they are likely to choose someone else to succeed them, if for no other reason than to protect their offspring.

Those that are not physically strong enough to defend themselves will keep loyal huskarls around to act as bodyguards and champions, letting them fight challengers. There have been several times in history when a huskarl was chosen poorly, and they killed their king for doing something deemed to be a poor choice for the people.

Anyone can own land, and anyone can lead a clan. The Family unit is not seen in this culture. Instead, pledges of fealty are made to someone who leads a clan, and they take on that clan name. This is the closest they have to marriage. Relationships are kept known, to limit the chances of inbreeding, but other than this, any relations are allowed, and encouraged for the purposes of keeping up the strength of the people.

These people primarily follow the God of Light, Ellios, who is seen to be the red sun that hangs in the sky perpetually. He chooses the fate of the worst criminals, as the people throw the offender off a cliff to the waters below, which are full of blow holes close to the cliff face. Should Ellios see the person as innocent, they will be launched by these blowholes back to safety atop the cliff. Otherwise, they will drown. A harsh punishment system, true. None have been known to be innocent in this way, but some have managed to make their way to other points where they can regain the land, and have been seen innocent through survival. Ellios' judgment is the test of choice for anyone found guilty of underhanded assassinations and poisoning, as well as murder, and other nasty crimes. Theft is dealt with by imprisonment for a duration in keeping with the value of the stolen items.

What does everyone think?
 

Corwynn

Troubadour
Mostly this seems good. I do have one small nitpick though.

If these people are evolved to their environment, they would have dark skin instead of pale skin. It's not sunlight itself that causes sunburns, but ultraviolet radiation emitted from the sun. Melanin, which darkens skin, better protects against UV radiation; yet at the same time, dark surfaces absorb more light. If it was just about light, then the skin tones on our world would be reversed. There's no reason they can't have red skin, but if they do, it won't have anything to do with deflecting a certain wavelength of light. Personally, I think blood red skin would suit their aesthetic better, wouldn't you agree?
 

SMAndy85

Minstrel
I would agree with you completely if it wasn't for the red dwarf star these people live around. A red dwarf gives off more infra red, and very little ultra violet. I may make the skin darker per your suggestion, though. The name I gave them is meant to translate as "god scorched", and the god in question is the god of the sun.

Thanks for your input :)
 

Annoyingkid

Banned
A red dwarf gives off more infra red, and very little ultra violet. I may make the skin darker per your suggestion, though

Why? So they can absorb more heat?
Just on heat reflecting power alone, red doesn't have any advantage over white, and humans can already be white. But you can still have red by saying there's some red melanin like chemical which instead of resisting UV radiation, resists heat somehow.
 

SMAndy85

Minstrel
Why? So they can absorb more heat?
Just on heat reflecting power alone, red doesn't have any advantage over white, and humans can already be white. But you can still have red by saying there's some red melanin like chemical which instead of resisting UV radiation, resists heat somehow.

They were created with the basis that when you see something as red, it is reflecting that wavelength of light. I am aware that this isn't how melanin works when it comes to dark skin and protecting against UV rays, but I imagined that a version of melanin that protects against infrared light would be different. That's a totally aesthetic choice, since nothing like that exists in the real world.
 

shangrila

Inkling
Nobody settles in towns and cities without naming them. That's a massive oversight.

If you don't want to name each individual town in your fictional world, that's fine. But the idea that people would just leave them blank is absurd.
 

Gurkhal

Auror
Since I don't know what kind of role they'll play in your story I can't say for sure if they're good or not.

But I didn't really like them. I felt they were to similar to humans to warrent them as an extra race as opposed to humans doing pretty much the same things.The only thing that I can see that separates them from normal humans is red skin and some heat resistance, which I feel is to little to justify adding them as an extra non-human race.
 
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