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About Humans

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Here's an interesting exercise. At least, it was for me.

I was writing some background material: About Dwarves, About Elves. It occurred to me that I did not have an essay entitled About Humans. The full essay is too long for a forum, but here's the short version.

Politics: humans are city builders. They like kingdoms, but the also like republics, but regardless of the general political form, they build cities.

Economics: humans love money. They invent new kinds, they hoard it, and seem somehow always to spend more than they actually have.

Society: humans are fundamentally social creatures. Hermits can be found, as can isolated family units, but for the most part humans will band together whenever they can. See above, Cities.

Culture: the stereotype of humans is that they are violent, greedy and aggressive, and all this is true enough. At the same time, they revere art more than either elves or dwarves. They are also great philosophers, dedicating vast resources to the study of arcane subjects. Perhaps for this reason, though not this reason alone, they are relentless inventors.

Religion: where other peoples are content with a single pantheon, or even a single deity, humans are religious omnivores. They collect gods as if they were collecting berries. They have a score of pantheons, not to mention various gods almighty. Not content with this, they happily appropriate gods from other peoples. Some humans even endeavor to prove that all gods are in fact the same.

Magic: some humans are the most powerful magicians in the world. Most of the rest range from inept to outright dangerous. They dabble in every craft, but master none of them. Perhaps because there was a time in their past when they knew not magic, humans are frequently obsessed with it.


OK, it's sketchy and superficial, but it was for me interesting to see if I could sum up my species in as few words as I was spending on other species.
 
Interesting. Humans tend to be used to represent gray areas, either moderation between two extremes or both extremes combined. Their builds and skills are often between that of elves and dwarves; not too lean, not too stocky, kinda strong, kinda agile, and both practical and intellectual. My elves fulfill this middle role, at least physically. The average human is slightly stockier and stronger than a modern human, closer to our prehistoric ancestors, and a lean agile pyrokinetic race takes the usual place of the "graceful" elves. Humans are a savannah animal evolved from a forest animal. We began walking upright to see over the grass while our increased meat intake promoted brain growth. Being an omnivore species on the food chain close to hyenas, we started migrating in family bands of about 100 individuals for protection. Extremely territorial and protective of the band, humans both form pair bonds and practice polyamory, coparenting freely.
 
Reproductive age is about 13, and breastfeeding ends at 4, which is consequently the average span beween pregnancies. Larger groups in a smaller territory can be tolerated to a certain extent when necessary, but the population often becomes unhealthy the more these limits are pushed. Disputes over resources become common, and certain adaptations have developed to combat this, but all has pros and cons. Horticulture or agriculture has been adopted by some grassland humans; large-scale grain production encourages population growth, but the lack of meat weakens the individual body and mind. Regardless of diet or habitat, free time is spent exploring the world with their opposable thumbs. Arts of all kinds, visual, musical, practical, physical, are held sacred. Many plants, minerals, and other animals are also valued for medicinal, spiritual, and aesthetic properties. Psychoactive plants have been used since the missing link, and they don't seem to be going away anytime soon.
 

Ban

Troglodytic Trouvère
Article Team
That's a nice list slip.

I generally do not try to simplify humans. To me different races are a way to explore specific aspects of humans, or specific non-human aspects. Dwarves can represent human greed, but also will power and strength. Hobbits represent the content farmer-type, who cares not for the intrigues of the cityfolk. Humans are simply humans, they do not represent anything because they are the subject of representation.
 
In most fantasy, it seem to me that the strongest human quality is potential/the ability to adapt. It might just be because there's a lot of stereotypical dwarves and elves out there that humans just get to fill in the blanks, but I've noticed a lot of stories that have humans poised to take the center stage.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Coming up with a list of defining characteristics for humans gave me a new perspective on how I come up with defining characteristics for other peoples, mainly by making evident how misleading the list is. If I were to show it to some non-human, I would feel like it did not do humans justice. I then resolved to try to make my characterization of dwarves et alia do justice to each of those peoples.
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
This thread reminds me very strongly of the 'Men' entries in the old AD&D 'Monstrous Compendiums.' (Not included in the more current versions.) Old entry in the binder version goes on for four pages and gives capsule descriptions of everybody from cavemen to bandits to merchants to pilgrims (and quite a few more).
 
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