Humans¶
Humans are the most numerous of Terrun's peoples and the most divided among themselves. The old archive counts thirteen human peoples on the southern continent, from the island clans of the Aesean to the horse-nomads of the Naher, and three of them already extinct. In the Fifth Age four of those peoples make up more than four-fifths of everyone living around the Broken Sea, every human people is a citizen race of the Sancturi Imperium, and humans rule most of the Riven kingdoms and the Divine Nations besides.
Origins¶
Humans descend from the Innus, the fertile offshoot of the Ventari that the first humanoids' sages made without the gift of magic. The phylogeny of the old archive is blunt about how close the two peoples are: "Most Innus evolved directly into Humans (and they appear to be virtually identical in appearance), though Innus lifespans were almost 3x longer than the average Human lifespan." The Compendium adds that the Innus were "physically larger and stronger than the Ventari, but without the innate magical talents", and that a few Innus settlements still stand on other continents.
The same descent makes humans kin to the Orcs and the ogres, both of them shaped from Innus stock for war and labour, and the 2015 regional notes go further and derive the Elves from the Innus as well. The three accounts of humanoid descent do not agree with one another; the Lineages of the Humanoid Races sets them side by side. Halflings are "apparently a natural mutation of Humans" and are treated below.
The human peoples¶
The Compendium of the Earlier Ages lists the human peoples of the southern continent with the lands they held and their share of the human population at the time of writing. The shares are those of the Age of Magic; the Fifth Age figures that follow are very different.
| People | Lands held | Share of humans |
|---|---|---|
| Aesean | Northern islands | 2% |
| Aquitan | Scattered nomads | under 1% |
| Curci | North | 10% |
| Danari | South-west and west | 17% |
| Gildan | Extinct (west) | none |
| Huur | Fornastal Sea and the Thyssal Empire | 22% |
| Kamnara | South | 9% |
| Korun | North | 6% |
| Muazi | Extinct (south) | none |
| Naher | West | 21% |
| Pict | A few city-states in the north | under 1% |
| Tsule | North-east | 11% |
| Uizur | Scattered; a few cities and towns in the Thyssal Empire | 1% |
Six human peoples have pages of their own:
- Aesean: seafaring island clans of the Storm Coast, clan-ruled, ancestor-revering, decimated in the Shattering.
- Curci: the dark-haired musicians of the north, whose bards are welcome across the continent; the largest human people inside the Imperium.
- Danari: craftsmen and shipbuilders from the island of Danara with a trace of elven blood; the most populous human people of the Fifth Age.
- Korun: tribal hill-folk of Kajattan, scattered by conquest, who hold honour above life.
- Naher: horse-clan nomads of Faragond, bound each to a single Ghosthorn horse from childhood.
- Riftborn: human children remade by warlock ritual into something part demon, who walk the Rift as no one else can.
Fifth Age numbers¶
The Sanctuary Age Timeline counts the peoples of the Broken Sea in 704 SM, three centuries after the Age of the Dark Sun left some 35,000 humanoid survivors in the whole region. Only four human peoples appear in it, and they account for roughly 10.5 million of 12.7 million souls. The full table is on the Demographics page.
| People | Survivors, 0 SM | Population, 704 SM | In the Imperium | In the Kingdoms | In the Wilds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Curcian | 3,700 | 3,920,000 | 2,100,000 | 1,400,000 | 420,000 |
| Danari | 4,500 | 4,760,000 | 1,850,000 | 2,600,000 | 310,000 |
| Huur | 300 | 160,000 | 125,000 | 35,000 | none |
| Naher | 3,100 | 1,640,000 | 420,000 | 590,000 | 630,000 |
| Halflings | 400 | 13,000 | 3,600 | 9,000 | 400 |
Gap
The sources give no Fifth Age population for the Aesean, Korun, Kamnara, Tsule or Uizur, and no figure for any human people outside the Broken Sea. The Compendium's own entries for the Aquitan, Gildan, Huur, Kamnara, Muazi, Pict, Tsule and Uizur are headings with little or nothing beneath them; what is known of those peoples is gathered below.
Lesser peoples¶
Aquitan¶
The Aquitanians once held a kingdom in what is now Qom. They were wiped out during the Draconic Ascension, and the survivors were absorbed into the Korun, the Kamnara and the Huur. By the Compendium's count fewer than one human in a hundred was still Aquitan, "scattered gypsies and nomads". Their works outlast them: the Sancturi campaigns of the Fifth Age turn up ancient Aquitanian temples repurposed as a farmers' market in the capital of Brusau, a deeply buried Aquitanian complex in the mountains north of Alghert, and a defiled Aquitanian temple of Seth'Arax with a Hall of the Progenitors and a Dread Gate, where a black "Dread Metal" the explorers called Aquitanian Divine Black Metal was found. The Fourth Age metallurgists remember the ancient Aquitanian city of Ptolemaris, buried with its mines when the land around it became the Dragon Wastes, and still call the finest Aurumite alloy Aquitanian Steel. The Jungles of Aquitania keep the name.
Gildan¶
The Westmarches once belonged to the Gildans. During the Demonic Apocalypse "their people and way of life were exterminated", and they are considered extinct.
Huur¶
The Huur come from the island of Huurgath on the Storm Coast but had spread to the mainland well before the Shattering, dominating the whole Fornastal Sea. After the Shattering the Thyssal Empire rose out of their early kingdoms and came to dominate the eastern half of the continent; the Compendium makes them the largest human people of its day, more than a fifth of all humans. They are described as "a very efficient and scholarly people, with strong government". In 704 SM only 160,000 Huur remain around the Broken Sea, almost all of them inside the Imperium, descended from 300 survivors of the Dark Sun. Ruins of Huun work, with Tsule and Korun, mark the islands of the Riker's Edge Chain in the Rift, which are drawn from north-eastern Astia; the spelling Huun is taken as the same people.
Kamnara¶
The Kamnara hold the south in the Compendium's reckoning, nine humans in a hundred. Several thousand years before the Age of Magic they conquered the Korun homeland of Kajattan and scattered its people, and they took in part of the Aquitanian remnant.
Gap
Nothing is recorded of Kamnara appearance, society or faith.
Muazi¶
The Muazi built a kingdom in what is now Dragonfall. They were wiped out during the Demonic Apocalypse and are extinct.
Picts¶
Before the Shattering the Picts "roamed west central Astia" and were counted barbarians by their neighbours. Afterwards they forged a thriving civilization in the north, in the jungles that bear their name, the Pictish Jungles. A recent war, by the Compendium's day, had left that civilization "on the brink of complete collapse, their people diminishing with every passing year"; they held only a few city-states and a very small part of the jungle.
Gap
The sources do not name the war that broke the Picts or say whether any survived the Dark Sun.
Tsule¶
The Tsule are a people of the north-east, eleven humans in a hundred by the Compendium. Their ruins stand with Huun and Korun work on the Riker's Edge Chain of the Rift.
Gap
Nothing else is recorded of them.
Uizur¶
The Uizur are scattered, with a few cities and towns of their own inside the Thyssal Empire, about one human in a hundred.
Gap
Nothing else is recorded of them.
Thracians¶
The Thracians of Thrace on the Storm Coast "are survivors". Their kingdom is a fraction of what it was before the Dark Sun, "but their King proudly claims that the line of succession is unbroken, which makes them the only known regal dynasty to have survived the Age of the Dark Sun". No safe land route joins Thrace to anywhere else; some seaborne trade reaches the West, including Rhovun and the Broken Sea. The Dark Sun brought the Thracians and the Aesean together, and the two are now a single nation. The Compendium knew the kingdom as the largest of the Curci realms, "almost constantly covered in mist".
Wild Men¶
The tribal humans of the wild lands are called Wild Men, barbarians, or hill folk by the settled peoples, and the Fifth Age race lists set them beside the Riftborn as the two branches of humanity worth naming apart. The Wild Men of Moarte "organize by tribe and live in small hunter/gatherer villages", and have answered the raids of the Draconians by digging their dwellings underground and becoming proficient archers and spear-throwers. Nomadic humans share the wilds of Rhovun with the orc clans, and primitive hill folk live among the ghosts of Halath. In the Fifth Age a Wildman horsemaster and caravan driver, Jaekul, rode with the delegation in the Into the Rift campaign.
Norvedil¶
The Norvedil are migratory river folk. Their settlements are temporary and seasonal, their housing built on boats, and they are ruled by River Dukes under a River King or Queen. On waterways they control outside kingdom territory, as in Rovarion, they charge tolls for safe passage.
Rovers¶
The Rovers are migratory humans who travel the wilds in large groups and come to the kingdoms to trade, and are "often seen as untrustworthy and thieves". A Rover clan is "a group bonded by shared values and experiences and not necessarily blood"; clans occasionally take in kindred spirits. Because they cross the continent's most dangerous country they rely heavily on witches against the Hollowing, which only confirms to many that they are evil. They are barely tolerated, and armies have been sent to move them off when they camp too near a kingdom's lands. They are commonest in what was northern Dalmar, Faragond and Ghoresh, lands now called Rovarion, and Rovers from western Astia briefly enter the Dragonruin beyond the Cloudwall to scavenge.
Halflings¶
Halflings are, in the phylogeny's words, "apparently a natural mutation of Humans". Four hundred of them survived the Dark Sun; in 704 SM there are 13,000 around the Broken Sea, 3,600 of them in the Imperium and 9,000 in the kingdoms. They are among the mixed population of Uthein, and the Divine Nations of the later Fifth Age are nations of humans, Wood Elves, Hill Dwarves, Halflings and Oesterkull.
Gap
No source describes halfling appearance, society or homeland.
Language¶
Every human people speaks its own dialect of Common: the Aesean sub-dialect keeps words of Old Aesean, the Naher have their own runic script, and the Korun are "overwhelmingly illiterate". Naming customs differ from people to people and are collected on the Names page.
Humans in the Fifth Age¶
In the Sancturi Imperium "citizen races of the Sancturi include all human subraces, as well as some dwarves and oesterkull", every citizen belonging to a House and tattooed on the wrist with its sigil; humans are also among the common slaves, tattooed on the face with the symbol of the House that owns them. Across the Broken Sea humans are the native population of Alghert with dwarves and Wood Elves, the bulk of Miydal, part of the melting pot of Uthein, and the whole of Athagilion.
After the fall of the Imperium, the Divine Nations and the Kingdom of Lorsythe are human realms devoted to the Divine and sworn to "the eradication of evil in all its forms", which in their reckoning includes the old gods, magic-users and the Rift-folk. In Proturas humans fill the companies the Marlezai hire, the farms of the High Vale and the ranks of the Proturan Brigades, and in the Rift they share the refugee towns with the Riftborn.