Humans

The most common race among the inner kingdom of Meridia. Generally living about 65-80 years, humans are oft looked upon by the longer-lived species as hot-headed and self-centered, for all their intelligence; unable to consider the bigger picture or long-range consequences, they can be passionate, creative, courageous, greedy, and indirectly self-destructive. Humans come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and colors, and can carry widely differing attitudes, skills, and predilections. Of all the races, humans seem to possess the greatest capacity for adaptation or change, both as individuals and collectives, and have thusly spread across the planet since their genesis.

Descendants of Drendal
Many local humans claim they can trace their lineage back to the days of the Drendal Empire in the Age of Frostveil, a cruel human-dominant civilization whose dark remains still litter the land today. While the Empire fell at the end of the Age of Frostveil, the commonfolk who occupied its territories remained, and mingled with the surrounding races to eventually establish the kingdom of Meridia - a nation led by humans, but far more tolerant of most of the other races of the continent.

The Nomad Tribes
When the Drendal Empire fell, most of the humans clung together and maintained a shadow of their former civilization. Many others disembarked from the collective, for one reason or another, and formed wandering tribes that spread to the outer reaches of the known territories. These tribes took to a more survivalist mentality, living off of the land and the adjusting to the wild savagery of the natural world.

The Gor’har Tribe
A rustic and hardy people, the Gor’har felt that a return to humans’ roots was necessary after the wickedness and cold-heartedness of the Drendall Empire. Following the teachings of an animist that had survived the Cold Dark, the Gor’har adopted a culture of venerating the animals of nature in life, and being invoked by their own scions in death. These ancestral spirits could be called back for aid or council, usually having incorporated the creatures the ancestor had venerated in life into their own essences. This tradition yielded a clan that applied their more savage and animalistic traits towards their survival, tight-knit and highly honoring the value of family, present and past.

Foreign Humans
Humans obviously spanned a larger area than modern-day Meridia long ago, for as civilizations and societies have begun to reconnect in the current Age of Mending, Meridian humans have met others of their kind hailing from distant lands far and wide. These men and women bear relatively slight variances from their Meridian brethren that a human might easily notice - traits like stature, skin pigmentation, hair color and consistency - but other races may have difficulty discerning such details.