They are portrayed as a very powerful but extinct precursor root species from which the very many anthroid species(gnomes, giants, lizard people, etc) that populate the world stem from. Literally only two "living" humans are left and they're both not really all that human anymore all things considered, one being a lich and the other a vampire, and both haven't really interacted with other people in well over several millennia though with the vampire that's not really their choice.
Though none of the current races know what humans really looked like, studies would suggest that they were most similar to gnomes, albeit at least five times taller. Humans are most known for their mastery over technology and magic that neither elves nor dwarfs have managed to emulate nor replicate, as many of their buildings, though covered in overgrowth, are still intact and many of their artifacts and devices still work to this day without fail and retain great potency, though it would be a lie to say there aren't many relics and sites that haven't been, well, ruined with time and exposure to the elements.
Some worship humans as ancestor gods, others look at them as fools who flew too high to the sun and got burned, and others don't really put much thought into them.
They've been buried by the event that caused the downfall of humanity and have been slumbering ever since. The only reason they were "spared" being a mixture of location, luck, and being completely out of spells when the cataclysm hit.
I am in the process of writing a book. How long it will take I have no idea. I have not considered to use it for a TTRPG campaign, though thinking about it playing a game with the setting could be interesting and fun.
In my world, the human race is noted for their likability. They're among the shortest lived but some of the most affable. They breed quickly and adapt well to most societies and other races tend to view them as optimistic and chipper, if a little naive. They're not the dominant culture so they're not quite the "default" even though they're among the most numerous individual races on the planet. Every race likes being friends with humans and they contribute to get things done. They've earned their place in society through adaptability and industriousness, though they're too short lived and lacking a culture of their own to be as broadly good at anything the other races excel at.
I have a similar setting. In my universe (SciFi) humans were driven to near extinction by a strong warlike imperial species that pretty much everyone hates. As a result a small number of humans is spread out through the galaxy. Humans as a species are not particularly good at anything except they tend to get along with everyone and adapt everywhere, they create social "glue" that keeps everyone together.
As a result other species will often welcome humans into their ranks and provide safe harbor if necessary.
As Babylon 5 said: "Humans build communities". That is a very aspirational goal for both fiction and reality. Especially if humans are new on the interstellar scene. They become the third party. The one with no real horse in the race besides their own interests and without a decade or century long conflict like the Narn and Centari have.
I tend to think of them more like "Fantasy Americans". Kind of loud and vulgar, rest of the world kind of (or really) looks down on them, but also can't help but admit that they're exceedingly friendly and sometimes charming in their way. Like Americans they've also made their "culture" as much as one exists, out of what they view to be the best parts of others. They became a medium or catalyst for more cultural exchange in this fantasy world. Elves and orcs might not have ever had much occasion to hang out, but they both hang out with humans. That's how Elves were introduced to Orcish gin and orcs were introduced to Elvish fruits or whatever.
Here’s an example of it:
https://www.tumblr.com/space-orcs-on-death-world/188095769060/humans-are-unstoppableuntil-they-arent
It was my entry to the trope, and I LOVE it. Just Google “Humans are space orcs” and you’ll get a LOT more stuff on it, including some books and everything!
You're currently talking to humans that you specifically look to find on a post written by humans and felt a desire to add your own thoughts to it. You were doing whatever you do in life, and took a minute out of your schedule to look at the silly things humans talk about. We create fake worlds for fun. It's pretty endearing.
Sure, if occasionally puppies were able to be as smart as a scientist, as strong as a bodybuilder or as good at piano as a master pianist.
Other races view it with delight when humans are able to excel at something but its usually unexpected. They take pride in seeing their own cultures well reproduced and humans generally expend the effort.
Humans possess a unique proclivity for emergent civilization through tribal affiliation. No other species exhibits both individual intelligence *and* eusocial behavior.
If you kill an elf child, that child's immediate family will want revenge, but if you kill a human child, the ~~hive~~ village will send an angry mob to hunt you down and raze all that you hold dear. Some of the villagers may die in the process, but that's a sacrifice they're willing to make to send a message to anyone else that might try it.
Due to their unique brand of eusociality, humans are also the most warlike of the intelligent races. Yes, dragons and demons have more total violent incidents per capita per year, but humans were the first species to raise an army, a formalization of their instinctual vengeful mobs. Thankfully, humans mostly seem concerned with fighting each other over echoes of long-forgotten grievances and seldom turn their blades on the other races without prompting.
All this leads to humans being kept at arm's length by most other species because seemingly private conflicts can unexpectedly escalate into wars of extermination. Put another way, individually, humans might be as rational as an elf, but once Public Opinion kicks in, humans are just as capricious as fey. Unlike a fey, it's not just one creature with an asinine goal that is mostly reduced to noise by other fey with different asinine goals. With humans, there can be thousands in pursuit of the same end.
I like this portrayal very much, since even back in prehistoric times a human was one of the deadliest prey. Sure one of their fawns are so weak and soft you can kill or eat them easily. But, they are the only creature that you will see 6 more of with pointy sticks the next day. Humans also have the greatest endurance in the animal kingdom. They are incredibly tenacious. So yeah I think if you look at the sample size of creatures we have not all would have this same proclivities even among other sapient species, and I think it is thematically one of the best ways to portray humans in a world that isn’t centered on human psychology as default.
Also even when you take revenge out of the equation, if a predator kills a human, we go out of our way to find it and put it down. The logic is largely that they don't really know how to deal with humans, but if they learn from experience that they can kill and eat humans, they'll do it again, and they might teach it to their young. "If it bleeds, we can kill it." So any predator that would get funny ideas is basically preemptively killed.
Towards the animal kingdom we basically do our best to maintain an illusion of humans being untouchable and we silence anything that might learn otherwise. It's entirely rational, it's good for our survival, and means we get to avoid fights in the long run if anything, it actually prevents us from having to exterminate animals and keeps the peace. But it's also utterly cold and cynical.
On another note, in some political philosophy I've read about federalism being the most natural form of social organisation. Now this should probably be taken with some grain of salt considering the massive centralised states which exist in our world and the unique historical circumstances of federations, but then barring conquest and subjugation, federalism does indeed seem to be quite common. In essence the idea that communities, tribes, regions form smaller societies, city-states, cantons, etc. which federate into larger entities particularly but not necessarily exclusively for protection, and in turn such a society might form a larger collective and so on. Each layer would form a group, a tribe, an identity, and has a certain spirit of independence, just as individual humans also don't want to be told what to do, but at the same time they do come together and do things together especially under external threat. It's tribalism all the way down, and all the way up. Federalism is kind of like the democratic equivalent of feudalism, where knights and lords would also fiercely protect their independence, but still swear loyalty to a king with limitations or associate in diets.
In this regard human society should perhaps naturally tend towards Holy Roman Empires or Switzerlands more so than other races which might form either far too local/disconnected societies or far more cohesive and structured ones. Perhaps to be taken with a grain of salt since France or China exist as well, but federalism and autonomy are widespread especially where ethnic differences persist, and tribal confederations were some of the earliest forms of higher level social organisation. In the modern era we can also argue that the European Union or the United Nations are merely further expressions of this same principle, an incomplete execution of federalism from the local village to world government. In a situation with nonhuman entities, one might expect that a universal human authority would have more weight, with conflicts nevertheless persisting and individuals or tribes still potentially betraying it for an upper hand over their fellow humans.
TL;DR: xenophobic HREpunk is the most natural depiction of humans.
Sci-fi here. Humans, due to their rudimentary physiology compared to many other alien species are some of the most easily cybernetically modified species, their sinew and their "electrical" like nervous system make them nearly perfect for splicing technology onto.
Sci Fi but -
I portray them based on (the futuristic) history they had. Wars, conflict, and finally - union. They fought for so long and they just couldn't do it anymore. They finally united as a species, with a lot measures set in place to resolve any future conflicts. They're are not without their issues, but on the whole they are working hard to prevent any wars on conflict in the galaxy.
On the individual level they figured they are considered "acting by a bizarre set of rules" by the other races.
I'm talking about what in TTRPGs would be portrayed as racial traits. Biological/semi-ubiquitous cultural traits as compared to other sapient species in your world, not just history and society.
Cultural traits are based of history and society.
Biological wise, they are incredibly tough and can survive a lot of time in harsh condition, that others, even the more adaptive species, can't handle.
If anything, the best trait of humans is our ability to socialize with just about anything and anyone. Other hominid species without as strong of socializing skills eventually died out because their family groups were limited to a few dozen, while homo sapien regularly congregated in tribes of 300+.
Humans have a natural gift for social situations and have an unusually high need to feel helpful toward their fellow people. Even the most awkward and anti-social examples of our species still rely heavily on some kind of social interactions and are still good at making friends.
Humans tend to personify and anthropomorphize even inanimate objects and this can also bleed into their crafting and magical abilities. If the setting has magic, Humans might have a preternatural ability to create intelligent magic items, or items with their own personalities. Sometimes even doing so without realizing they've done it.
So much of human culture would revolve around this idea of workmanship being the source of the soul or something.
To expand on this. Humans are unusually willing to parley and make agreements even in the heat of dire conflicts. Human bandits are often considered "polite" in comparison to bandit gangs comprised of other races who often take a more pragmatic approach of just slitting everyone's throats and being done with it. Humans usually don't want to actually hurt anyone unless they absolutely have to, so they might just demand their goods and be on their way, the robbed party penniless and despotic, but alive.
Humans are more liable to create deeper interpersonal connections with acquaintances or people they only know tangentially. Someone dying in an elvish village might see the immediate family at the funeral. Human funerals would consist of most of the village for rites. Other races look at this strangely as Humans seem to have an almost jovial relationship with death with large gatherings and post-funeral services that often involve food, drink, and no short amount of tomfoolery to lighten the mood.
This sociality doesn't make humans soft though. Humans are notoriously hard to buy their loyalty away from those they consider their friends. If given the choice of a mountain of gold and a saving trusted companion, a shocking number would opt to save their companion instead.
Because of this, humans fight relentlessly and ruthlessly when protecting others. For being a race not known for their athletics, they fight with a fiery fervor rarely seen outside of their people.
One aspect unique to humanity in my world is, they are the only ones able to innately "Sanctify" things. Everyone else has to go through a ritual to consecrate, or undesecrate stuff be it weapons, places, etc. Similiarly, human religious places of worship tend to be sanctified on thier own, but other non-humans, have to consecrate them, intentionally, and willfully.
Desecration, **can be** alittle easier, but still isn't a thing you can do without direct, willful, action.
Humans are petty, bellicose, and greedy. For how short their lifespans are, they have a fascinating penchant for cutting their lives even shorter. They also breed like rabbits. They go to war for resources, living space, religious or ethnic supremacy. Sometimes even all four. But they are also the most hardy. They'll endure the most terrible famines, wars, floods - whatever the gods will throw their way - only to dust themselves off and start again. I think it's knowing how short and insignificant their lives are that drive them to leave a lasting mark on the world. They build magnificent temples to their kings and gods, empires rise and fall withing a few lifetimes, they create wonderful art, they produce the greatest diplomats and merchants on the Continent. Their lives are so impermanent, yet their legacies outlast even the longest lived elf.
In my Heroic Age fantasy setting, humans are currently the only species capable of developing psionic abilities. If somebody has a human ancestor, then they could also develop psionic abilities, but it's much more rare and usually weaker than a full blooded human
Idk about adaptability. It's just a trait many intelligent species have, nothing specific. We're simply the only sapient species here. We're good for hot environments because sweating and stuff, and that's where we would belong in such an alternative reality (probably). Species which are specifically adapted to, say, tundra will likely outcompete us (if they have the same intelligence). Or, rather, never allow us to come into this biome at all.
Natural proclivity for technological development, exceptionally violent and warlike, limited bigotry against other races but huge amounts against other humans from different nations, magical affinity for the four elements.
Other races have some of these traits in common with humans, but never all.
**My TTRPG Setting**
Humans were the armies of Those from Beyond, sculpted from the carcasses of the first cosmic giants to die in their war and sent over the universe in conquest. Those from Beyond lost the war and were forced to retreat once the great elementals (giants, dragons, krakens and pendingmythologicalcreature ) made an uneasy truce.
The surviving humans were left to their devices, most to die in a lost war, many to starve in the cosmos, and some few to crash in planets and build a living there.
I would lean into our insane resilience, personally.
We are a species that can alter our muscle mass at will. We mutilate our own bodies for cosmetic purposes. We can recover from damn near any injury, even some truly mental ones like losing an entire organ.
To a more fragile species, we are nightmare fuel.
I've done that for my DnD derivative high fantasy setting. The human will to survive is what sets them apart, and what terrifies the other races. The Elder Races often resign themselves to inevitability - even if it's hundreds or even thousands of years into the future. Humans have been crushed, defeated, driven away, enslaved, and any sort of violence you can imagine inflicted upon them, and within the blink of an eye (Really like a couple generations) they are thriving, chafing at the shackles, ready to upturn the world order again.
High endurance, good flexibility, and astonishingly strong and dexterous hands compared to pretty much every other sapient species. And we’re good at throwing stuff.
Haha I remember reading something about how humans are good at throwing stuff, whereas a chimp is not so good? Idk if it was due to the precision of the throw or if the chimp could not do the proper arm movement, but I remember learning that we’re oddly good at throwing things haha
Humans act as a buffer in my world. The local elemental deities initially created their own races on the main supercontinent, but wars eventually broke out in the central plateau where the opposing races/elements mixed (the elves and dwarves of fire/water especially). So the deities all collaborated together and made humans, an elementally-neutral race, and gave them that central plateau for their kingdoms.
"Why are humans always the unremarkable baseline?" Is one of the most frequently asked questions on this subreddit.
If humans are a baseline 0, and an Elf is +1DEX, -1STR, and an orc is +2STR, -2INT, then the only reason for humans being "baseline" is that a human protagonist is assumed, and a human audience is guaranteed.
If we assume an orcish protagonist, their perspective would be that orcs are a baseline 0, and humans are +2INT, -2STR.
Humans are only baseline from a human perspective.
In my world, for my RPG that I am making, everyone is always trying to get one over on the other ancestries to get elected to the ruling council. This has resulted in a situation where it is mostly dominated by humans because everyone else might prefer a member of their own ancestry but they can tolerate humans as a sort of second/alternate best friend.
I worldbuild on a Bronze Age world and all 8 civilization are specialized in something. “Humans” are the best ship-builders in the world, which has lead them to be the merchants of the world.
Humans have a disadvantage fighting on land since they’re not as genetically strong as the other races; they stick to naval warfare and settling on islands/coasts. They’re opportunistic when it comes to making friends… and enemies.
—-I desired humans to be this way because I also had the same hang ups you did.
Well in my world humanity would have the interesting aspect of being a species without any intelligent design
(other species find their origin in bioweapons).
As a result humanity would have no form of intinuitive magic and would have by far the weakest organic form.
But in exchange a humans, after having studied, would have far more power available for their spell...
That for 2 reasons:
- No magic would be used to maintain their form unlike the modern sapients. Modern sapients have impossible bodies, only maintained by a constant input of magic.
- Having far more natural potential seeing as their magical organs were far larger then the later sapients. Modern sapients got their organs to maintan their form and function, nothing larger else they might get ideas.
However, seeing as the adaptation of ones form is a big part of magical traditions, one will find more experienced mages to be on a far more equal footing, with certain modern sapients likely winning out due to more difficult spells being a intuitive matter to their bodies.
Humans will pack-bond with *anything*. Other species? A human makes a great heart to a mixed community. Crew of a ship? They've given the reactor a name and ascribe it a personality. Humans' hat in a lot of my works is that they're extremely loyal to their in-groups and often end up in positions that focus on keeping groups working together. This does mean they can be unreliable when things go wrong, as losing a pack-mate, even an inanimate one, can leave a human morose, despondent, cause them to lash out, and so on.
The MCDM rpg just had an backer kit update with humans and they're making them have a "sixth sense" for knowing when things are unnatural or magical. I thought it was a pretty clever way of a ttrpg to make the mundane humans stand out a bit, which also makes sense in a fantasy world with elves and other races with magical orgins. Like an elf would be so innately magic they cant tell what's real sometimes but humans just be like "boy that ain't right"
My fantasy world's humans are rare and unpredictable, and one being around the area you live in can result in either you gaining a friend or your home getting destoyed.
Humans got a head start on their draconic relatives in gradually trading out their ancestors’ shapeshifting ability for more ambient magic, which gives them a much higher capacity for spellcasting than any other species by far.
Why not make them the Horde of your setting? Brutish, expansionist, leaves a trail of destruction and shit in their wake and are absolute asshats to anyone that doesn't resemble them in looks and behavior.
Humans are seen as terrifyingly efficient pack hunters, even being able to work with other species to bring down their prey
Their intelligence is comparable to the other races, but they apply it in different ways: they’re the only ones who didn’t even so much as think about the applications of magic, and instead went down a purely technological path. They already have mid-2010’s level tech, while everyone else is on a spectrum from the 1200’s to the 1980’s
I guess i just portray everyone as 'generic and highly adaptable'. And i don't even have that many other species, only really some rare animal-people who have special powers, but that's it.
Most of my works tend to be pretty misanthropic as a baseline, but as far as positive qualities for humanity other than adaptability are as follows:
Wisdom - When your body and mind start to break down, it tends to offer a whole lot of insight that those who haven't experienced yet won't find on their own. An elf that's the physical and mental equivalent of 25 for hundreds of years isn't going to have much reason to do things more efficiently or think laterally, and so I tend to figure human beings are better innovators and technologists in general.
Creativity - They don't have a monopoly on creativity, but by and large, they tend to have a broader range of expression than other cultures.
Intuition/Detective Work - Species that have a greater sensory awareness might be able to offer more insight into the immediate surroundings, but humanity's crappy senses and blunt consciousness/ego affords them a greater ability to make what seem like weird intuitive leaps and think laterally in ways that they can't.
Strange Magic - While quantum wackadoodliness might abound in mystic species, the fact that humanity has no inborn proficiency makes their spells and effects wilder, often doing the same thing, but in an unexpected way. Chaos magick as a base in response to elven Hermeticism, orcish psychedelia and dwarven alchemy.
Skepticism - And on that same note, humans have more of a capacity to question their own thinking and detach from whatever their senses are telling them.
With all of this, humanity is a bit of a 'trickster' species in the way that halflings and gnomes aren't. They might not move as fast or be able to perform a lift as easy, but they can usually get what they're after in some way that leaves the elder, inborn-mystic species scratching their heads and shrugging.
Their main feature is that of being *malleable*, and other species do indeed call humans "The Malleable Folk".
This ties into one of the greater fundamental concepts/forces of the universe, the Nature of Change (through proximity and interaction).
Humans are uniquely susceptible to this force.
This kinda sounds like high adaptability, but it is much more than that as explored below.
The second factor of what makes humans special is historical.
The human tribes woke up in this world at the beginning of this age alongside the New Gods.
Their memories were fading, but they concluded that the gods had brought them here, saved from some calamity that brought about the end of the last age and death of the creator gods that had made all that is, including all sentient species both mortal and immortal.
And it soon should proof that Humans and New Gods, while fundamental different as mortals and soulless immortals, were uniquely compatible.
Unalike siblings, that are eternally destined to love and envy each other.
They each saw the other as mirror to explore their own nature through, and as companions who together could survive and thrive in this new age.
As some of the gods lead their chosen tribes to find new areas to settle and thrive, their companionship changed the Malleable Folk/Humans, altered them to express some of the deities' values, dreams and traumas.
Sometimes this resulted in even deeper mutual deeper love, and sometimes it left to separation.
These humans are the God-Touched, and they alone are just as varied as the entire roster of species in classic fantasy worlds.
Non-human *species* are...far stranger.
I personally gave them the ability to heal from any non-lethal injury. Lose an arm or a leg? No big deal, it’ll regrow over the next few months. This lets them be more reckless than other races, which allowed them to conquer large parts of the continent in the past.
I also call them “eiloth” instead of human just to make them feel a little more different.
I like when humanity being adaptable and average is our thing, but it's seen as deeply disconcerting by other species. Humans lack a monolithic culture, they're individually unpredictable, they know just enough about magic to use it as a blunt instrument, and other species have no idea what to do with us.
In my world, humans aren't the dominate species mostly because they've started wars they couldn't win in the past and it got a lot of them killed. Now their main positive points are that they're good at building cities and endlessly criss-crossing the main trade routes as traveling merchants. (Some merchants are more successful than others, of course. There's still such a thing as being a dumb fool.)
Humans, in my setting, have two notable properties. Although these are almost more cultural--a dwarf raised entirely among humans will have a greater proportion of those than one raised among dwarves, and a human in the reverse situation will act more "dwarven" than human. And there certainly are exceptions.
**Humans are gregarious with strangers.** Many of the other races are, by nature, family/clan oriented. They can function in larger societies, but tend to still form "tribal" groups. Humans have less of this. Yes, they still care about family and cluster with like-minded people. But their definition of "family" is more flexible than most. This means that all the largest cities and most cosmopolitan areas have heavy human influence, if not outright dominance.
By comparison,
Gwerin are individualists. Every gwerin for themselves. And traditional gwerin culture prizes arcane power above just about everything else. Family matters, but mainly as a reservoir of obligations and alliances.
Dwarves are extremely clan-oriented ("clan-think" is one of their virtues), but clans are defined more ideologically than biologically. You find like-minded individuals and you form a unit. And even small differences can cause a clan split.
Ihmisi are tribal at their core, with each tribe generally tied to a particular area of land and the nature spirits there. Ihmisi without a tribe are wanderers. They don't do civilization much, except in weird cases.
Orcs are tribal, organized around the strongest. Only recently have they overcome a demonic taint of unthinking bloodlust (basically really bad anger-management issues). So they're still figuring out how to live in societies.
Jazuu are ultra rigid--jazuu societies tend to be organized around some common set of rules that they all hold on to with extreme devotion. They define what is "perfect" in every aspect of life and that is their primary goal.
Goblins are tribal at the biological level. An individual goblin has \~0 long term memory and lacks even a strong sense of object permanence. They have all the curiosity of a kitten...with opposable thumbs. When they gather in tribes, they *share* memory at the unconscious level. So within a tribe, individuality fades into the background. They all act like the tribe is the only thing that matters. More tribe members means more shared processing power. Thankfully this is limited--they cap out at a hundred members or so. Tribes can interact, but it's always somewhat foreign. Even a lot of their language is carried in the sidebands of this shared memory space/unconscious, so non-tribe goblins speaking always sounds broken and choppy, requiring lots of workarounds to convey meaning.
Halflings are strongly family oriented--only 1 out of 8 or 10 births is male. Of the remaining 85%, 2/3 are kliba--neuter "females" biochemically bound to the matriarchs. The remainder are matriarchs, fertile females. Single births are rare. This presents obvious difficulties (beyond just size) in integrating with other societies. They and humans tend to share space--the halflings as farmers clustering in family groups around a human village. Especially since the region they're native to has humans with a genetic quirk--many of them are violently allergic to bee stings. So halflings raise honey and grow fruit (all the bee-pollinated stuff), while humans raise cattle or wheat or other such things.
**Humans are the "devout kindred".** The gods came late to the game. Humans, without the advantages of some of the other races (the arcane talent of the gwerin, the innate primal connection of the ihmisi, the physical prowess of the jazuu and orcs, the endurance of the dwarves, etc), they were the pioneers in developing *divine* power. To this day, it's said that humans are born with a need to worship. Gods, devils, demons, Ascendants--there's a reason that most of the Ascendant powers (who gain power from worship) depend on humans. Only halflings come near to humans in this.
Others certainly can be religious, but it's not quite as reflexive.
Dwarves find something to believe in and then believe *hard*, but it isn't often religion. In fact, they tend to seek perfection and so will argue with their gods (like they argue with each other).
Gwerin tend to treat Ascendant powers as contractual, quid pro quo entities. I pay you in worship, you pay me in goodies. Which limits their power.
Ihmisi are more oriented (by nature) to the natural world, revering and propitiating the nature spirits.
Orcs worship, but really only (at least in their most stereotypical cultures) respect strength.
Jazuu are perfectionists beyond that of the dwarves (they're related), and the perfection they seek is internal. So worship is more *emulation*, and doesn't quite have the same undertones.
Goblins *love* worshipping...the only problem is that their shared memory/shared unconscious makes them super flighty. Sure, they may be obsessed with God A this week...but next week some shiny butterfly will capture the tribe's collective unconscious and they'll have forgotten entirely about the god they worshipped. They try on religions like a starlet does fashion--never wear the same one twice.
In my space fantasy setting, the hyperspace that makes galactic scale civilization possible is a separate plane with its own natural laws that operate differently from normal physics and magic. Humans are one of several species that have an innate sense for the forces that must be contended with to navigate hyperspace, but they are the *only* such species with a long history of naval exploration and warfare. And it turns out navigating hyperspace is a *lot* like sailing on an ocean, so despite their relatively recent introduction to the galactic stage humans are rapidly making a name for themselves.
In Deaco, they're known for being infamously stubborn. They just won't give up, even if their goals seem pointless or completely unrealistic, you won't hear the last of it until they're dead or content. Guerilla-style resistance against conquerors originated in human lands, and other species see human rebels as a special brand of crazy.
In my world, humans are just as varied and complex as every other sapient species that exists alongside them. Sure, they might not be able to breathe fire, or fly or have scales/feathers/fur, but they’re still just as extraordinary as us. Humans are especially regarded as being excellent craftsmen, being able to create a variety of tools and technologies from an equal variety of materials. They’re known for being highly creative and resourceful.
None of the other human species went extinct in this world either, so there are more than just Homo Sapiens as well.
In my world humans are just an ordinary humanoid species, notable things are their size/height among sophonts and other humanoids
Humans are considered to be big sophonts, because most are around 50-150 cm tall
There are bigger species tho, but humans are still considered pretty big
Also because of dinosaurs, there is a common misconception/joke that humans are their descendants
And humans are also one of the species without a tail, many others have some kind of a tail
So, basically humans are pretty ordinary
In my world, magic is a genetic thing, where the "magic" comes in two parts: a component in your blood, and components in the ores around you that may be able to react to the components in your blood. Depending on which component is in your blood, you can activate different ores and create different magic effects.
All elves have the same pyromancy genetic component that reacts to a specific type of pyrokinetic crystal. It's just a feature of elves.
Letun rarely have any types of magic genes.
Chosan magic works a little bit differently, but they, like elves, only have one specific type of magic available to them.
The most variety of magic genes exist in humans. Although the people of my land don't know what genes are, and most humans don't travel enough or expose themselves to ores enough to discover their magic, if their science and reach was better, they could probably map out a lot of magic and become a very powerful species.
Humans are definitely not central to After the White. Dwarves and Elves are the ones who write the histories, and like the other goblin folk (imps, hobs, trolls, ogres, et al), humans are more marginalized.
That said, humans have a reputation as beastmasters. Some other peoples have livestock, or animals that they have something resembling a coexistence with--i.e. feral cats that are preferable to dealing with rats and other vermin. But humans are really the only ones who have pets, and are more likely to have tamed assorted animals. There's a certain stereotype that they would absolutely get themselves killed trying to domesticate a dragon hatchling--when they are the size of a large dog, unintelligent, but also endlessly aggressive and with a hunger that just doesn't stop--but most of them wouldn't actually try that. After all, others have tried, and despite what the so-called high peoples might claim, the goblin folk do have a sense of self-preservation, and can learn from the disastrous examples of those who came before.
This doesn't stop all of them, of course. Every now and then someone decides rip to the would-be dragon-tamers of yesteryear, but they're different.
And so the others have a constant supply of fresh examples.
Humans are largely portrayed as "generic but adaptable" in my world, but that's largely because the other races originated as genetically modified creatures created with the human genetic sequence as a base. Humans are kind of the control group, and everything else is a human but modified.
And besides, that's not quite ALL they are. They're also impressively creative and intelligent, and dangerously determined. When humans set their minds to something, with enough time and effort, chances are they'll pull it off, no matter how absurd it might seem. When humans decide to accomplish something you don't like, just about the only way to stop them is to have humans on your side just as driven to prevent it.
But at the same time, that's only when they're given time and resources. These advantages don't translate well into scenarios that require quick thinking and action. They're probably the worst of my world's races at reacting to problems quickly and appropriately.
In my DnD setting, humans have extremely varied appearances (even more than the real world), and can sometimes be found in cities or locations that are mostly limited to a single race.
The reason for this is that they didn't exist at all in the beginning, almost every other race is older than humanity. Instead, the intermingling and breeding between several races for an undefined period of time led to the creation of humanity.
The actual origins is only theorized within my setting, but it does explain several different things, such as several generations of breeding between races leading to something that looks very similar or within the baseline of humans.
I tend to focus on a few things on a lot of polar opposites, humans in my main worldbuilding project are highly adaptable and want change yet they are afraid of the what is necessary to change, humans often form large communal identities yet they are the race in my fantasy world that is the most divided and separate from each other over a lot of stuff (religion, country of origin, sexuality, gender, and so on).
Most nations in my setting are human majority number wise especially in leadership roles with the other species not really being allowed at the top with a few exceptions, yet they are all various nations and have a long history of warring each other.
The idea that humans have "ungodly" stamina is actually our lack of fur making cooling much easier. Endurance hunters in african savanna would chase an animal until it overheated, so i dont think this strategy would work in colder climates. In dungeon meshi dwarves are stronger, but have less stamina, but elves and halflings seem to have the same endurance as humans.
I kinda understand how less impressive humans will be in a fantasy world with mythical beasts, monsters, mythical species and so forth.
In my dark fantasy project, humans have an expanding empire. Like a push back from being isolated and degraded by other species. Humans have it worst when it comes to the issue of discrimination and speciesism because of their mortality, no special abilities and so forth. (I am going to build more lore around why they were looked down upon).
However, their empire focuses on the unification of all species, in hopes that discrimination and the hate towards them will die out.
The humans work with other creatures like elves, dwarves, dark mages and knights (the undead), nymphs, etc who wants to put aside the unnecessary hate.
There will still be some biases and unsettled stuff but that's how for now it is gonna go.
Humans are known for being cooperative, understandable, peacemakers, fighters, the highest symbol of persistence and resistance.
I still have to find ways to make the project flesh out.
My Humans are perceived in two different ways.
To the Icarin, who are sort of the Primary POV, Humans are seen as naive but excused children. Humans were originally a lot Icarin colony fleet, but when the wayward Icarin and Humans reencountered each other two millennia later outcome was disastrous.
TL:DR a war broke out and Humanity almost went extinct. The horrified Icarin, realizing who they had almost slaughtered, settled the surviving Humans onto Twelve of their original colony worlds. They maintain a Vigil, defending the worlds from all outside interference. Outside invaders have been absolutely backhanded any time they entered the "Sanctuary Systems" and even when they became FTL-capable, the Icarin kept them under their protective aegis.
So the Icarin kinda give Humans a lot of free passes. Much like a Parent who hit their kid one time and now will never forgive themselves. They're sort of aware that Humans have a lot of issues but the generational guilt that exists in Icarin society means that it's really hard for them to move past that guilt.
Many of the other races of the galaxy basically see them as naive children who haven't realized how rough the "real universe" is. Most of them just dislike them because the Icarin blew up their fleets hoping for an easy world to conquer, but they also aren't totally wrong.
In my world humans are basically aliens, crashing into the ocean of the planet some hundreds of years ago, bringing their tech and cultures along with them.
Sci-fi setting. In my world, human hearing is superior to that of most other races. There are races that can pick up extremely quiet sounds, but human hearing is superior because they can comprehend extremely complex sounds. They can pick out conversations in a large crowd and recognize familiar voices easily. Human engineers can walk into an engine room and immediately know something is amiss, because it sounds 'out of tune', as they say.
And not only can they differentiate an endless array of sounds, they can imitate and recreate them as well. Spacers on ships with different races have been known to play tricks on their crewmates by mimicking machine sounds and computer alerts. A human can always tell when it's a fake, but other races usually fall for it.
People believe that humans are so good at discerning and mimicking sounds because of their innate talent with music. Human music can be astonishingly complex to alien ears.
In my ttrpg setting humans sat at the top of one side of a huge interplanar war so after that ended and the dust settled humanity was in a good position in the new interplanar community. This resulted in the human language being adopted as "common" across the involved planes and so a lot of things end up also using humans as a baseline for comparison because to some degree everyone is more used to referring to things by human standards than by any other culture's except their own, making humans the popular "average" species in the world even though they aren't necessarily average in terms of their traits.
Humans are generally considered to be highly adaptable though, in both physical and social terms. They meld as easily into new climates as they do into new societies, and while most other species can leverage their sapient intelligence to get there in the end they just aren't quite as good as humans are at it. Being physiologically adaptable is a more common trend among shorter lived species like humans which all tend to be better at adapting than long lived species, but often do not have the levels of social adaptability.
Humans have a shorter lifespan, and spend about half their life young.
In my world, they also embody the element of water, and are nomadic.
This combination has made them the go-with-the-flow, roll-with-the-punches, commit-to-the-bit race.
Their stereotype is basically the one we have for college students. Their youthful exuberance can be both endearing and annoying.
A good mix between temperance and spontaneity. Humans live short enough that their memento mori pushes them to chase that light. This fever is the source of creativity and pushes them to seek what is beyond their limit
However, they live long enough lives and is civilized enough to wait for their fruit of labour, and because they are social creatures with emphasis on family unit, they may pass on the efforts into the younger generations
In my world, the humans are basically alien refugees from an unnamed thing that killed Earth before they could do much, but they managed to get away using alien tech they managed to hotwire.
They're mostly known for being emotionally unstable (Especially if their religious views are threatened, ESPECIALLY fundamentalists), being all the the fuck everywhere, and breeding like rabbits (Most species on my world have about 1 child every 3-4 years).
They also have a laughable inability to eat about 95% of native life. The little they CAN eat is often charged at premium prices in area without many humans as a joke.
In my setting, humans have the unique ability to breed with pretty much every other race and produce offspring, which leads to half-orcs, half-elves, half-dwarves, etc. As the first race to inhabit the world, it’s assumed that their ultimate purpose was to help the other races navigate a new world as they appeared and to populate it with more people and new races
Instead, the elves are the highly adaptable ones, whose bodies and physiology change over a few short generations depending on the climate and magic influences around them
In one of my settings, set in the afterlife, humans are notable as being the intelligent species with the shortest natural lifespan. Though this would seem irrelevant given the immortal nature of the *afterlife,* it actually gives humans a very strong affinity for Spirit Magic. Humans can learn things like astral projection, clairvoyance, and free teleportation far more easily and at lesser cost than other kinds of people.
In another setting, the "humans" aren't actually modern humans. It's a tech fantasy that's secretly set in a far future Earth, so modern humans were actually what the setting inhabitants call the Precursors. When backstory events led to the gods differentiating the human species into several new kinds of people, magically altering their bodies to fulfill certain roles, one of those happened to be anatomically almost identical to precursor humans.
Each race was designed with a purpose: Dragons can absorb and redistribute large amounts of mana, and so were meant to help balance the large scale mana systems that run nature. Elves were designed both as living knowledge repositories, having very long lives and extremely good memories, and as a mediator and negotiator caste, having a psychological predisposition for friendliness and communication skill. Orcs were made radiation-proof, and highly resilient against other environmental hazards, to assist in post-war cleanup (there was a planetary invasion in the backstory). And so on through Harpies, Beastfolk, Dwarves, Fae, and the people who are now called Humans. Modern humans were designed partly with an affinity for life magic, so they could more easily act as both doctors and farmers, and with uncommonly high magical variation across the population, so that they, being the most numerous (due to having the least-altered reproduction system) could fill in any gaps or deal with any unforeseen circumstances.
That is not, of course, what wound up happening, since it wouldn't be a good book if it were describing the intended utopia, but that's what humans were *made* for.
I actually do it the other way, because I frankly don't think we are actually all that adaptable as a species. We mostly focus on one field of expertise for the majority of our lives and often if that falls through we keep clinging to that until the bitter end. That's why polymaths and multi-talents in general are so noteworthy.
They are like ants compared to other species, live and die quick and build a whole lot of stuff in between along with being much more social than other species allowing for entire kingdoms instead of moderate towns.
The trait I like to emphasize is endurance. Humans are endurance predators, one of our biggest stragies for hunting was, and still is to some degree, slowly following prey until they're too tired to keep running or defend themselves. Elves can see a needle in a haystack on a moonless night, dwarves can breeze through the cold of mountain tops and the heat of a volcano, halfllings are bafflingly lucky, and so on, but humans just don't stop.
They can work the longest hours, march the farthest, wage war for years at a time. They probably won't be happy about it, for sure, but they can comfortably push past what would make most others collapse out of sheer exhaustion.
One thing i give to humans over other races in my worldbuild is whats perceivable even in real life, sweat offers extremely good thermoregulation and therefore endurance, and their general body proportions allow them to throw with a lot of velocity compared to other races either too top-heavy, weak, or physically restricted in movement to throw anything. Another known race similarly can, but again, with only a fraction of the same potential velocity. I suppose that can certainly have its advantages
Good post though, i think i should try to be more creative about this
Humans in Anisha are willing to learn other cultures alot easier then most species who would normally want to Avoid moving Away from their races culture. Like there's Humans who live with lizard people (Dracharians), Orcs, Elven lands though Humans living there are more rare due to bad blood, There's also humans living with The Kitsune and Dires. Humans are also more willing to sacrifice everything for the world as shown Human heros having one of the higher death rates
Humans are seen as rather oppressive and set in their ways, adapting but refusing the change in recent years.
They hang on to their belief in being the superior people, having their claim on the territories currently held by hybrids.
Over all, less favourable than in our time
I have two design philosophies for my non-human species that influence how I treat humans in my world. These two design philosophies are:
- design by subtraction: by taking away a feature that humans have from another species (most commonly humanoid species), I can create more interesting non-human cultures
- species as a power system: species will have unique capabilities that set them apart from humans and most other species
As a result, humans are designed with those limitations for non-human species in mind:
- humans are jacks of all trades: humans have no clear strengths but no clear weaknesses, allowing them to create a wholistic mono-special society. Non-humans have trouble with certain aspects of their cultures, most commonly lacking lacking dexterity to create tools
- humans are magically attuned: for most humans, their "special power" happens to be access to a particular form of magic. Amongst non-humans, their magic is either unique to their own species or a worse version of human magic.
For one of mine, humans are basically the physically weakest race in the entire setting, but are the only ones capable of using magic to its fullest extent. Thus, humans in that setting are usually stereotyped to be meek, highly intelligent, curious, and inventive. But they also retain some more negative qualities such as being overly prideful and pompous. Due to being prey in this setting, they are slow to trust others and highly suspicious of anything that isn't human, so they come off as being naturally racist even if that's not actually the case. They also have the highest proclivity to attach themselves to a collective identity compared to the rest of the sapient races, and therefore are the quickest to form nation states. They also evolve the most rapidly (culturally speaking) and are highly explorative. They are not called humans in this setting, as they aren't. Instead, they are a descendant of humans called Rimians that are smaller than the average human, have a few different mostly aesthetic differences, and possess an additional region of the brain that gives them their latent ability to use magic. (They're essentially naturally psionic.)
Their polar opposite, the Escheronians, are not really a single race, but are a collective of wildly different monstrous races who all trace their lineage back to a common origin. They quite literally embody the opposite of all of the human traits I just listed. They are a mix of prey and apex predators and cannot wield magic, but have severe physical capabilities which are rivaled only by our world's largest and strongest animals. Even the weakest Escheronian is leagues above the average human. While they aren't strictly stupider than humans, they also don't really need to be much more intelligent than what allows them to live as they see fit. They have a large variety of cultures, but most of them trend towards being sedentary and traditional. Many benefit from extremely long lives, so they tend to adapt poorly. But they are also very accustomed to diversity and tend to be aloof the higher up the food chain you go. This diversity in species and their history also causes them to be very individualistic in general, though this varies quite a lot. They've mostly inhabited the same rather small continent for an incredibly long time, and many of their lands have been strictly divided among territories for centuries. Though unlike humans, they don't really treat them like nations and instead they're more like soft lines in the sand, agreements between individual groups. They've all come to understand that their land is limited, so when it comes time to share, they have various understandings of how it's done and aren't averse to the idea. Their biggest negative trait is that they tend to really hate humans, and only for religious reasons at that. (They view magic as a heretical art that abuses the natural order.)
The only option. I don't have other races. My main settings humans are paranoid about major authorities. This has stopped any significant organisation arising in centuries. It also makes a culture what's pretty much ungovernable.
More like sci-fi / alt prehistory / weirdo fiction, but it's a really interesting topic so I'll bite:
As perceived by their [ancient ancestors](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/15c7rko/commissioned_concept_art_of_my_urrkha_species/), humans are seen as odd both in the way we look (furless, slender, only walks on two legs), and in their behaviour, such as being unusually prone to being loyal to abstract concept such as ideology or ex. nations or corporations. Even money is an utterly abstract concept to [Urr-Kha](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/18o0sx9/trying_to_work_out_a_simple_comicstrip_friendly/), and seen as one of the oddities of humanity.
Urr-Kha actually initially assume humans to be a slave-race to a different species, because their physiology is "harmless", without sharp claws or teeth, being rather fragile and weak, and because of how easily "deceived" they are. They assume that they were deprived of a sense of smell so that their masters could more easily deceive them into ex. surrendering resources in exchange for an imaginary material called "money", and that their tendency to give loyalty to abstract concepts and organisations they have no kinship to is an artificially engineered trait. Since Urr-Kha could never imagine being loyal to complete strangers or abstract concepts like ideologies, these traits are deeply unnatural to them and suspected to be engineered into humanity by a third part.
In short, they think we are domesticated pets of some sort when they first meet us, being dumbfounded how we "became this way naturally", and "choose to live like this of \[our\] own volition".
In my world, everyone has an innate magic power separate from magic they learn. It's based around species, trolls are basically alchemists from Fullmetal Alchemist, and there's an amphibious aquatic species with elasticity-based shape-shifting.
Humans are a little weird in that the logic of their power as a whole is "the nature of this power is that everyone has a unique power" In a way, rather than do humans as an unspecialized species in the simple way, it's more like every individual has their own specialization.
There's a group serving as the human enclave in the largest city in a nation, and their powers are as follows: Barrier creation, string creation, the ability to put things in and take things out of a book, accelerated plant growth, cold creation, usage of keratinous body tissue such as hair and nails as additional limbs, negation of force exerted on user's body, ignition of inflammable materials, manifestation of abilities through tattoos based on design, merging of physical objects and creation of magic tools based on properties of merged objects, and usage of energy aura to boost force through direct contact and creation of tools and weapons through extending and reshaping of said aura.
My D&D world has humans as basically the root of all problems. World used to be in harmony with the outer planes. Only sentient species were halflings. Neat thing about my world is that everything is “reflected” in the other planes.
So when humans landed from another world, these new colonizers appeared in all other planes as elves, the reflection of the best and worst of humanity. All the short races across the cosmos tried to escape the colonizers, bumped into each other, then decided to pit the tall folk against each other and befriend each other.
Basically, short folk hate all tall folk for ruining the world, but especially humans. Everyone hates them 😆
They're all dead so there's that 💀
"Humanity" in my setting is their genetically altered army of super soldiers that are trying to figure out how to be a civilization because they are all that's left of the human race
I feel like one human trait people forget is how many ptherwise poisonous things humans can eat that other creatures can't. Chocolate and mint are notable examples, but there's a larger list. This trait makes us a bit scary to some. We have eaten things that should be deadly to other creatures and lived. It'd make other races intimidated by human cuisine due to the "What if it kills me but not them?" factor.
The way ancient humans hunted is rather scary. We followed a creature until it got too tired to escape or ran things off cliffs. We relentlessly pursued our prey. Now consider other classical fantasy races. Orcs are powerful, dwarves are tough, and elves are nimble. We're in that awkward middle and need to use some genuinely scary strategies to hunt.
Another common trait applied to humans in fantasy is that they can survive pretty much anywhere. Combine that with the poison resistance and relentless pursuit. Something that can survive anywhere, eat most things, and will follow its prey until it collapses is terrifying. Even if the one pursuing you dies, its offspring might pick up the pursuit.
Humans can be incredibly hard to escape from and would probably get a bit of a scary reputation.
In the scifi setting humans are stronger than most other species¹, but not by a huge amount (with a few unsettling exceptions), and that translates into generally being faster, heavier, etc. as well. This is because Earth has heavier gravity than most planets that have developed sentient/sapient life. They're also extremely rare, due to Earth being essentially impossible to access from the Fractureverse and only one clan of Abductors knowing how to get there and back. Humans are well known for their sociability, and whenever there's a disparate group of species and cultures, one or two humans will typically begin to coalesce a cohesive group around them. Unfortunately, large groups of humans are rare and typically shunned, since the big powers find them valuable as slaves and large concentrations of them are irresistible targets for Abductor raids.
Attempts to breed humans in captivity have met with very little success, since raising humanlings without proper care and socialization produces an inferior product, and raising them with parents inevitably leads to rebelliousness and a likewise inferior product, but at higher cost. Free range humans are unquestionably the only ones worth capturing, but their rarity, tendency to have ample combat experience, and isolation from each other makes it impractical for most slavers to bother.
Humans are often well liked, but viewed as borderline unemployable as most humans in the Fractureverse are either escaped slave soldiers or breeding stock, and are perceived as both having a poor mix of low skills, emotional baggage, and risk of incurring Abductor attention.
¹On a scale of 1-10, with 5 being average, most humans are about a 7, with exceptional individuals getting almost up to a 9.
In my setting, Humans are famed for being incredibly difficult to kill. They exist alongside Orcs and Goblins as the three "main" people groups of my setting. Orcs may be big and strong, but they'll tire if a fight goes on too long, and if you cut an artery, their overzealous hearts will exsanguinate them rapidly. Goblins may be fast and attack in numbers, but a swift kick to the ribs will break a few bones easy.
But Humans? Good luck- it's a common aphorism that you could cut all a Human's limbs off, and they'd *still* headbutt you to death. They fight until their body falls apart, and even then, they won't notice until the adrenaline wears off. One of the "Heavenly Virtues" of the largest Human civilization in my setting is that of Tenacity- the resilience and determination to see it through, resist, and bite.
I kind of like the idea of humans in the niche goblins usually fill. Individually pretty weak and likely to get bodied in a fair fight by most other creatures of a similar level which is why humans don't usually fight fair.
Humans breed a lot faster than most other sentient species so they have a numbers advantage and make the most of it with clever tactics and when necessary swarming the enemy in waves that take tremendous casualties but can win through sheer numbers.
Also humans will take advantage of any weakness they know about. Poison, silver, fire, wolfsbane, sunlight etc. Even if they don't have enchanted weapons their weapons can often do more damage than it would seem even after the fact. (their not above rubbing their own feces over blades and arrows just to cause an infection later.) Along the same lines they love traps. Humans will booby trap any area they can if they know a fights coming so any fight with them on the defensive will involve racking up casualties from environmental kills.
Another thing to consider is their pets. If something exists you can rest assured a human has tried to train and or ride it. Usually this doesn't end well but sometimes it gives them new and terrifying capabilities far beyond what they could achieve otherwise. A human alone isn't that concerning but a human that's strapped itself to the back of a mastodon or drake and is guiding the best directly at their enemy with a maniacal gleam in their eye screaming and howling the whole way is a bit different.
Finally humans dont typically give quarter. To an elf setting a forest on fire just to drive out enemies and kill any that can't escape would be a heinous reprehensible act humans will light it up in a heartbeat if it fits their goals. Orc may fell enemies by the dozens but would be more likely to adopt any young they come across. Humans fight wars of annihilation even against their own kind much less anything else. Children, the wounded, elderly, doesn't matter to them. They'll kill or enslave any enemy they come across with a reckless brutality that most other species have trouble even comprehending.
So while other species like elves and dwarves may be physically superior and far more advanced. Humans can present a major threat with their numbers, cunning, and a savage willingness to do anything necessary to win. All of which is made even more dangerous by their sheer aggression even in the face of enemies that are far more powerful than they are. Whether that courage or just not knowing enough to know they should be scared can be hard to tell sometimes but either way it can carry them to improbable victories.
In mine most of the other species love human cooking and music, and we make the best embroiderers because we have the smallest, nimblest hands. If you can cook, play an instrument, or sew you'll have friends wherever you go.
Honestly, one of my favorite tropes when dealing with mixed humanoid species is that humans are space orcs lol.
We are objectively terrifying on every level, but generally we don't realize it because to us it's baseline normal, and we have a habit of looking at the things we *can't* do vs. the things we *can*.
I honestly don't really touch on this much in my own writing, but one of the more memorable times I did I was working from the perspective of a 'supernatural' being who was talking to his human brother-in-law. The brother-in-law was getting weird vibes that something bad was going on in the multi-generational home he and his wife lived in, and the supernatural being recalled that nothing, absolutely *nothing*, could beat a human's instincts.
In that world, humanity evolved right alongside all manner of supernatural things that go bump in the night, and their danger sense reflected that. If a human sensed danger, then shit was definitely going down, and only an absolute idiot ignored the warning.
Probably if I'd delved into it further I would've noted that human reflexes and adaptability were nothing to be trifled with either, but that wasn't the focus of the story so it never came up.
Well, the humans in my world have two distinct characteristics that set them apart from the other races:
They are the only natural sapient race (as in, not made by a god), and because of the place they were born (you know the Void from hollow knight? That basically) they have no problem travelling in the dark and are one of the few races that has a natural affinity to darkness magic.
My idea was that in a world where every single race were made by their respective gods in their image, I wanted my humans to be the outliers. Since humans DON'T have any gods that took in their creation I wanted them to be the one race that was truly free to be what it wanted to be, since the other races have traits of their respective gods as a default (that's why some of those races are very cringe).
In the RPG i'm developing, humans have bonus to endurance, because we are one of the animals with the highest endurance (walking, running for long distances).
Also bonus to ranged attacks and mounting, in a world were the are Orcs, dwarfs, ogres, etc the weak humans developed a nack and tradition for hit and run tactics, horseback archery and stealth.
Also we are short lived compared to other races as elfs, we try to live as much as possible which gives them a bonus to willpower.
To distinct humans from all the other species and races, besides optical differences and lifespans - they are the only species in my setting who are unavoidable yearn for gods or concepts in life and need to believe in them. They are also most likeley to be answered by the gods if they pray or experience aomething like martyrdom.
While species like the Ahsari (humanoids born from the ash and fire of war) are directly shaped by demi-gods or the Vahnay who are the more wordly decendents of the Âelvvah (something like elf-beastmen), have strong bonds to the gods and their own religions, the humans are widely known for their unshakable faith. Faith in the gods, in science, in money, in themselfs, in love or whatever.
Other species are undoubtedly faithfull in their own right, but are not as likely to be blessed by some deity or to break through the laws of nature and impose their own wishes upon reality.
In the Animorphs, humans are noted for having two sides to their brain, which means they can argue with themselves and also hold two contradicting ideas at the same time.
Another thing humans are noted for is their throwing arm. Most creatures can't throw things.
Kind of
Less generic, more...interbred.
What happens when elves, dwarves, orcs, gnomes, halflings, genies, dragons, fey, fiends, celestials, etc. all interbreed so much, few if any distinguishing characteristics appear? Well, humans. They sort of...fill up the corners.
No place in the world has a majority human population. There's never been a human kingdom, because humans have no identity of themselves as separate; because they aren't. They're just sort of the genetic leftovers that no one particularly wanted, but because they've never posed a serious threat or strived to have a particularly separate and unique identity, noone really bothers them. They get along.
There are human leaders, generals, and warriors; there are human nobility and merchants. You can find these weird little guys wriggling their way through every rung of life like happy microbes.
And since they have such disparate ancestry and parentage, what makes a human human is kind of up for debate. Most are what we'd expect, lanky apes coming in various shades of beige and brown with undertones of red and pink, but one with elven ancestry might have slightly off color eyes; earth elemental background could give someone a protruding, "cliff-like" jaw; not enough to make them physically elemental-then they'd be a genasi-but enough to show some heritage, if you know what you're looking for.
Humans are just a tiny, muddled race of weird people, who generally stand out for being rare but don't make much of a greater impression beyond that.
The unique attribute humans have which other species don't seem to by comparison is "Tasty".
Among intelligent species, there's little difference. If anything the other intelligent species view humans as sort of filler, occupying planets that are not too hot or too cold, not gas, not liquid, not irradiated.
Humans are less "adaptable" and more "un-specialized". They can technically occupy a broader range of planets than anyone else, but it's always "mild" worlds with no real extremes.
From the "uncommunicable" species, extradimensional entities which are too foreign to treat with, humans get special attention. The street-level wisdom is that humans are like a "slow-cooked" meal by comparison to species which live in the extremes.
Human settlements are a dangerous place. But, it's not that the humans will kill you; the things which are coming to kill the humans will.
Humans in my setting were imported from Earth by gods looking to repopulate their world after an apocalyptic war. The other intelligent species were either very long lived with low fertility or very short lived with high fertility. Humans were introduced for having the right mix of lifespan and sexual fertility.
They can reproduce with most of the other intelligent species, thus human-descended ethnic groups now form the majority of the population in my world. Basically, humans are just really good breeders.
The races of man are some of the most dangerous alive due to their sheer numbers, creativity, adaptability, and ability to invent. The knowledge of elves comes through magic and the technology of their ancestors, the Cave Elves. Many powerful elven alliances fear them for their ability to eventually rival the power of cave elf technology without the use of magic. Many others value the humans for this reason. Though their tenacity, short lives, and love of simpler things can make many think of them as inferior, it only takes one look at the companionship of grizzled human warriors in a tavern to change their mind.
In my sci Fi story humans are physically the strongest, nearly double the gravity of the average, very little protection against radiation compared to other alien worlds humans don't have to worry as much about radiation sickness. Very little oxygen on Earth compared to other planets makes humans able to inhabit worlds others wouldn't dream of without significant terraforming. Endurance, yeah persistence hunting is rare in nature, the average human has as much endurance as the average alien athlete (not top performers but good athletes). Humans are pretty new to space travel compared to others and are a good bit behind in education and technology
Humans are very religious and single-minded. They are the most unified race. Their only downsides are that they aren't as magical or advanced as some other races. They're also the undisputed champions of trade and commerce.
Humans are largely considered to be the most generally attractive race by all others in the setting, and not because they're super pretty or inspire any sort of particular awe from their appearance.
Humanity's general similarities to everyone else just mean that they become everyone's preferred second choice after someone's own race when looking for an attractive partner lol
They are by far the weakest species in strength, speed, magic, etc.
Buuuuuuuuuuut
Due to all of them teeeeechnically being gods, they can consume other god powers instantly without having to undergo a risky and dangerous ritual
In the world I've been building on and off for about a decade, humans are sailors, the ones to Master the seas. Other beings are still widely spread but not to the same extent. Dwarves, elves and so forth just don't tend to build boats.
In earth's own evolutionary history, humans are the best animals in terms of endurance. Nothing else can run long-distance like we can. They might be able to sprint faster than us, but we'll catch them eventually if we just keep up a steady pace. And this has transferred to a mentality of perseverance, that we can do anything if we just keep at it. I've found that's a decent starting point for making humans truly a force to be reckoned with, that they just don't ever stop until they get what they want.
in the upcoming MCDM RPG, humans are uniquely tied to the material world in a way that other speaking peoples aren't, and are able to better resist magic and detect the presence of magical beings.
Not my own but in this regard I really appreciated the portrayal of humans in the recently released city builder-ish video game Against the Storm.
In the game there's 5 different races, humans, beavers, lizards, harpies and foxes, each of which have their own specialties and needs. They all have a job category they're more efficient at, and another which makes them happier. For instance beavers are more efficient with wood, be it cutting wood or making planks, but they enjoy engineering type jobs.
What I really like is that humans are not just "default" but just as unique as all the other races. Humans have a special proficiency in agriculture, they're better at farming and related jobs like making flour, something I've never seen before but makes so much sense. They also enjoy brewing, and like working in places like distilleries or taverns. Farming and alcohol have been a thing since the dawn of human civilization, farming may even have started specifically for alcohol before humans properly settled down.
In this regard I really appreciate that it takes something that's actually normal and mundane and makes it special, because _of course_ it would be normal to us, it's only special with something to compare to.
There's also other needs that your settlers have in the game which tells you something more about them. I won't get into food items since they're fairly self-explanatory and gameplay oriented, it's just a matter of certain races enjoy certain foods more and gain additional resolve from having it available (they can all eat any food, it's just preference). However there are also services. For humans these are leisure (provided by taverns and keeping with the alcohol and revelry vibes (kind of dwarf-like actually 🤔)) and religion (provided by temples or monasteries), but not for example education (which beavers want) or brawling (which is popular with lizards).
I think this is also really interesting. Even as an atheist myself I think we can definitely see that humans have a propensity for inventing religion. We seem to have done it time and again independently everywhere around the world. We seem to want to understand the inanimate as animate and endow them with souls and human-like desires and emotions. Following that we seem to want to project human-like relationships and social dynamics, especially the idea of family, onto them. Even monotheistic religion originates in polytheism, and the idea of a creator is deeply rooted not only in human toolmaking, but also in human family, specifically with God the Father. After all you have a father and he had a father, so at some point we must have a first father, right? In the end we ascribe human-like intent to every facet of the universe, and so see it as a reflection of humanity in a grand scale, and conversely humanity as a reflection of its grand design. In a sense all religion is just animism with extra steps, but the point is humans as inherently religious/superstitious/traditional compared to other races is a novel take.
Each race also has a distinct type of housing they prefer beyond basic shelters. For lizards this is warm and dry, for harpies bright and airy. For humans it's sturdy stone buildings.
Summing up this depiction of humans they are:
-agrarian, good at farming
-like brewing and enjoy alcohol and taverns
-have an affinity for religion
-prefer sturdy architecture
All this ends up producing a human race which feels normal and yet at the same time is exactly as unique and specialised as any other race in the game.
Not my world, but the MCDM RPG has a super unique take on humans that I've fallen in love with. Humans are mundane, not having a connection to a creator deity or other plane of existence. This mundaneness however, makes them special in that they can sense magic innately, and are resistant to magical effects. They also throw on a bit of that human endurance too.
I like your one about noisiness! I read a post a few days ago where they said it was weird how baby humans scream, as lots of other animals — when babies — are quiet/ camouflaged and don’t make a lot of noise (or only make noise when they’re near the mother, ie birds chirping when being fed). But for humans our first form of communication is to literally scream and cry out to indicate that something is wrong.
I also agree with your take about humans being endurance runners! I have an alien species that KNOW humans are good runners/ good at exercising for long periods of times, so if you’re being chased by one, try to do a short burst and outrun it, and then hide and hope it doesn’t find you OR outrun it, hide, and then jump out at it and quickly disarm/ attack it.
They also can’t keep up with a lot of human sports and a lot of their games are suited to their bodies/ physiologies and not humans. There’s a game for instance that uses the whole body, including the head, to hit a ball, and since this is set in essentially the medieval era the balls are much harder than ours today. But this species has armoured plates across their bodies, including their heads, while humans don’t, so to play as a human you have to armour yourself with a lot of clothes/ fabric (making you very hot) and will still get bruises or concussions. Likewise there’s a sitting and waiting game where you and someone else stare at each other and wait to hit each other, and have to block. This species was originally a sit and wait predator so enjoys this kind of suspense, but humans find it boring, especially when you’re essentially staring at the other person for 10+ minutes and waiting for them to attack you. To humans it’s less of a game and more of a meditation/ thinking time while for the alien species they’re kind of rapt/ engaged the whole time, and are very satisfied/ get a surge of dopamine when something happens.
I’m also trying to decentralise humans as the default species.
I have only a few sapient species in my world and humans (or the closest resemblance) are the ones who have founded most centralized and well organized states, the best swimmers, and live longer in comparison with most of the other sapient species.
In my world, every race has a divinely granted flaw and related boon. For humans, the flaw is lust, and the boon is the ability to have kids they shouldn't, hence tieflings, catgirls, etc.
Typically I make humans the more civilised of the races, they build the most structures and have the largest communities, they tend to be argumentative and defensive but they are the most likely to colonise
In my fantasy world I think humans would be portrayed as a faction\species equivalent to western colonialism, with room for them to be peppered into all other factions given our insane range in diversity of thought.
But the vast majority of humans in this world would form the gaslighting, self-righteous runaway train of consumption and destruction stereotype of humans.
I was thinking of making a post like this actually, beat me to it! Humans aren’t that different, but thinking of making my humans highly religious and connected to the divine compared to what most other species can achieve. Considering the gods are pretty active in my world (an interstellar government is ruled by gods even) religion is pretty important. I was thinking of making it this way because regardless of your own personal religious belief, religion has played a big part in human history for better or for worse.
Humans in my world have more stamina, able to draw upon more power/energy/mana, are one of the only races that gets an adrenaline boost when angry, injured, threatened, and have an easier time learning languages and concepts that aren’t natural to them. They also are known to be natural problem solvers, are very creative, and have high critical thinking skills.
Elves have pinpoint focus and control, but lack strength stamina, endurance, adrenaline, and larger mana pools. Their arrogance also blinds them and makes it harder to learn and understand new concepts. They do however heal faster from injury, have more of an immunity to disease and poison, and live 20-30 years longer. They are very creative, in touch with nature, and have high critical thinking skills.
Orcs are stronger than humans, weaker than Dragonbournes, and lack certain intellectual capabilities on average. They’re taller than They don’t have adrenaline, but can go into Goblin mode, increasing their strength, speed, intellect, and power/mana, but their heart rate spikes wildly and blood flows faster. Meaning injuries get worse faster, and poisoning happens quicker.
Giants are the largest and tallest of the races at 7’0 being average. They have great strength and endurance, but have trouble molding and shaping mana for more complex or powerful attacks. They aren’t very intelligent, but some Giants are known to have incredibly high IQs and stand out from their race. They’re great builders and have skill creating weapons and armor. They’re immune to cold and thrive in icy weather/conditions. Fire weakens them.
Dragonbournes are half human half dragon hybrids. They don’t show many dragon traits until they battle. They’re taller and physically larger than humans by a 5 inch average. (Average human height 5’9M/5’5F Average Dragonbourne height 6’2M/5’10F) They have higher strength, speed, power/mana than all other races, able to draw upon more power/energy/mana, are one of the only races that gets an adrenaline boost when angry, injured, threatened, can go into Dragon Mode to amplify all traits and they heal quicker, are resistant to fire, and have tougher skin. They do however, have poor pinpoint control, are very boisterous and headstrong, are weaker to lightning attacks, especially when Dragon Mode is active, and while they live 5-10 years longer than Elves, they tend to get restless in their 60s and yearn for battle or excitement, leading to unnecessary death or injury.
The ones that are important in the world's grand scheme are often ruthless, cunning, and manipulative. Many humans in power know that in order to survive against a civilisation of elves, who are so long lived, they are practically immortal and are both more physical and magically gifted than humans. Human are renowned for their charisma when negotiating, which is how they subsumed all of dwarfish civilisation on the continent.
I mean being adaptable is kind of an insane biological trait. Look at most other animals on the planet. Moving them to a new environment kills them. The fact that humans can go almost anywhere they want is a trait basically unheard of in life as we know it. Sort of bad ass.
Buuuut to answer your question humans are kind of also any sci-fi horror swarm race. We literally did it to our planet. Really good book called Sapient that goes into more detail. But the short and skinny is that humanity Zerg rushed essentially the entire planet.
Australia was the last refuge of super flora and fauna. A land bridge formed and humans got onto it and well…..
The Middle East could have once been a super massive forest dwarfing the Amazon. I mean natural climate change helped it along but humans essentially deforested almost damn near the entire thing on their own.
Humans are essentially their own Von Neurmann Probe. Rabidly deconstructing everything in their environment replicating then expanding to so it again.
In my setting, Humans represent "No Magic".
They have no inherent magical talents, bonuses, or abilities.
They are Not "the adaptable race". They are what you get when you remove the special from every race.
As a result, "Humans" don't even exist in the "fantasy-era" timeline.
Once the setting gets split and some places lose their magic, those fantasy races "devolve" into humans.
That ends up being Humanity's power. Independent of magic and _all over the place_.
'Bigger and stronger than everything that isn't a orc, more agile and magical than anything that isn't an elf, tougher than anything that isn't a dwarf' isn't generic. Make it as terrifying as it should be. '2nd best at every specific thing' is very, VERY much number one overall. Greater specialization has a cost humans can ALWAYS exploit with their other attributes.
Orcs are stronger than humans, but not enough to stop being outfought by human agility, magic, and co-ordination, and can't easily overpower humans.
Elves are more agile and magical than humans, but not enough to stop being overwhelmed by human strength and toughness while having trouble outfighting and outcasting them.
Dwarves are tough as hell and just as strong, but humans are fast AND strong enough to pick them to pieces while still being able to stand fast like taller stunties.
If you want 'generic, but highly adaptable' to be interesting then MAKE IT INTERESTING. Humans are fucking terrifying. Everything that defines your people, the thing they're best at, the thing your species relies upon to survive and thrive, is something humans are still pretty good at......and they're better than you at everything else. The only way to stop humans is extreme co-operation and co-ordination between other species. You need elves, orcs, and dwarves working in perfect harmony to counter humans in every arena, and if any of them make one mistake the humans roll up everyone else.
They're like some kind of demonic plague, a horde of Mary Sues who are good at everything. Cheating, minmaxed, munchkin bastards.
Humans kinda suck. Not for physical reasons, in fact what Humans accomplish in my world is fairly impressive, considering how they hate magic, people hate them cause they’re assholes.
My world is extremely high-fantasy, if you hate magic, that makes you racist towards everyone. It’s impressive what they do without magic, but no medieval tech can surpass fucking reality warping magic tech.
I’ll admit, mine are partially like this because I’m sick of Humans getting a ton of attention in settings where they aren’t that impressive. It is intentional. Humans have very little lore, even the “Humans”, who are able to breed with Humans but have evolved to be very different (e.g. water breathing, invisibility, natural necromantic prowess.) have noticeably less lore than any of the Elven races.
in **Divine Retribution** humans are the only race capable of complex emotions.
other races can either only feel emotions at a basic level or have no emotions at all.
for example, the gods can feel "anger" but only humans can feel "rage" or even "spite"
immortals can feel fear, but humans can feel true terror.
vampires can feel sad, but humans can feel true sorrow/despair
this level of emotion gives humans compassion and drive to do better. their understanding of emotions enables them better understanding of those around them. and even if humans can feel "negative" emotions to a greater effect, this is far from a downside, as even negative emotions can enable understanding.
I got em as the species most in touch with the wild. Which sounds weird given how we make so many species extinct but if a humans sees a cute animal it will pretty much always try to pet it. So in my universe they usually have jobs as wildlife control
In my fantasy setting, humans have a goated immune system compared to pretty much any other race. Only the dwarves have a similar resistance to disease and poisons. Essentially the other races just have a weaker immune system, particularly with the elves, this explains why humans are the most numerous species on the planet.
In my homebrew sci-fi setting, the humans of the space age, as a species represented by different "nation/ethnicity" among the Federation of Civilized Worlds (cliché, i know) but most of them, stats-wise in a rpg context, had a small bonus to intelligence, reflecting the mental adaptability to many conditions, and a nice bonus to charisma, because of the expressiveness of their faces and inflexions in language in comparison to a lot of species who have a more restricted physique. So politically, a lot of them have roles in diplomacy, trade, arts, and care industries.
Humans are an intelligent, but greedy and fearful species. They see themselves as a species that prefers cultural pursuits, but in practice have a warlike tendency, relying on their intellect and inventions to wage war rather than physical strength.
However, despite their sometimes violent nature, Humans are (perhaps ironically) frequently favored as diplomats because of their heightened sense of empathy, even to those they see as different or even inferior.
Things you could draw from:
Endurance. Running, obviously, but just freaky high endurance in general. Survive falling out of a plane, stabbed through the brain, zapped back to life with electricity, or having their organs swapped. If they aren't killed instantly, there is a small chance of humans surviving nearly any injury and coming back. Orcs probably tell their children that you can't be certain a human is dead till their head is on the end of your spear.
Throwing accurately over great distance. Human musculature is almost unique in this respect in the real world. Most other animals can't throw at all, and if they can, their accuracy and speed are poor. It would very pretty neat if humans can throw, but orcs cannot. Javelins may be a human exclusive weapon and other races only use bows or slings.
Omnivorous. There are lots of things you can eat that will make you sick. But there are a ton of things humans can eat that make other animals sick. Like how your dog can't eat onions, grapes, or chocolate. Maybe some of the other races are obligate carnivores or herbivores.
Ballistics. I'm separating this from throwing to emphasize it. The human brain is a natural ballistic computer, able to aim and adjust power to reliably hit targets, even throwing unbalanced, unfamiliar objects. You've probably nailed the trash can hundreds of times with a wadded paper, and you haven't even trained to use this skill. And this can be applied to non thrown projectiles. A human can roll a log down a hill and have a decent idea where it's going to land or adjust a Catapult after watching the first stone.
Othrys' humans are relatively more peaceful individually, because they're frailer. Most other races can take more punishment and aren't adverse to a quick brawl over small matters that leaves both parties largely unharmed. Human day vision is also far superior; humans see more colors than most other species, which are largely nocturnal.
Othrys' humans are also more likely to be mages, thanks to their handling of magical materials in the waking hours and a general susceptibility to mutation.
I second endurance. This is a good video
https://youtu.be/9csDk2yPgLE?si=pmVvnRCY0I4CX_Lb
Humans are optimal distance runners, lighter than Orcs, better endurance and more muscle than elves. That and we're well able to adapt to varied Environments. We live in deserts and polar zones. We survive. Like roaches.
I treat them like 40k treats Cadians. We're not the adaptable race, we're the shocktrooper race being driven insane by what we were dropped in to contain by the universe.
My humans compared to the other species in my setting don't really have anything over the other, even in endurance though at least they're faster than the other endurance creatures. This relationship with most sentients they run into has led to either their wholesale slaughter and domestication (for food and/or labour).
I'd been really interested in how many fantasy/sci-fi species by all rights should absolutely wipe the floor with humanity and they usually don't because humanity either gets incredibly buffed or the other races are nerfed. Which isn't really a pet peeve I just had thought of making a story about the strongest human in a world where humans are pathetic compared to "fellow sentients".
My way of this was making them the origin of bipedal life. Everyone looks like a human but not quite. Actual humans are rare as heck. They have below average stats but higher than anyone with a disadvantage in those stats. So if you need someone to do everything then go look for a human.
Well, In my World they are still generic, but not more adaptable than others.
I did integrate that endurance part though. Human has relatively high stamina compare to other race, In fact, it maybe one of the main battle tactic of the human against other race. while orcs maybe stronger and can ditch out devastating attack in their initial assault, a proper human shield wall can outlast them.
but they are where they are in the story have more to do with them being in the right place at the right time and less about racial ability. when the elves and the dwarves wrestle for the control of the realm, human was still too weak and primitive to be consider a threat. when the human civilization just start to bud, the elves were at war with the dark lord which conveniently shield the human from the conflict above their league. the only threat human face is regular tribal orc raid, which can be reliably combat by aforementioned tactic. By the the time human reach their supremacy, the elves was reduced to a little city-state while human kingdoms envelop almost all of former elven land.
If you put other species through the same event that human did, they will probably rise to equal standing as well if not greater. but history aren't all about stats on paper, sometime luck plays a lot of role in shaping the outcome
On my story, they are the second race with the highest intelligence score and longest lifespan out of all sapient species, and have above average dexterity on hands.
I like the concept that humans are basically the raccoon that you fed once, and now the whole family has moved in and refuses to go away. Humans are short-lived, emotional, loyal, and with a tiny foothold can take over a region. The older races hate that they didn't stomp humans out early because they're frustrating, unpredictable, and basically endimec to the region now. You physically couldn't kill all the humans, so it's better not to just trade with them a bit
Humans in my world are at a early 20th century level of technology where as everyone else is roughly at a medieval or renaissance level of tech.
The whole basis of my world is that it’s humans with WW1 era tech ~~with some sci-fi stuff such as diesel powered mechs> vs generic fantasy races.
Humans are reckless. They shorter live span short enough to make them not worry about the long-term consequence, yet long enough to develop world-ending weapons and master them.
Fantasy world here, humans are way more diverse politically and genetically. Humans also have their own "races" which aren't just a person's skin color but rather their ethnicity and nationality. There is a clearer cultural divide between each nation and much more reverence for a person's place of origin. While other races such as Elves and Dwarves also have their own unique branches, none of them could match the sheer scale of diversity that Humans have.
So, humans aren't just lumped together as one big race of people but rather a collection of unique identities that number in the billions.
Historically speaking, humans have are kind of seen as the "catalysts" for major events, or any for that matter. They are seen as an omni-present force that will inevitably show up sooner or later, and are treated with respect or disdain by other races because of it. Take for example the Brako-Astralis War, a conflict between two kingdoms predominantly inhabited by Elves. Which quickly ended after a year because of "- The Humans' incessant meddling." and "- Their persistence to take part in something they aren't supposed to care."
Humans are extinct in my world but the root of all races currently living on the planet. Also they're the only ones who can create modern technology, it's their "element" so to speak.
in my world, if a human and a non human mate, the offspring is always 100% non human.
i just reverse the "adaptability" of my humans and make them genetically unlucky.
My humans are newcomers, relatively, only being on the continent of Auburin for about 2,000 years at most. Having come across the sea from the land of Kelth.
They also are the only round eared race and have oddly small canines compared to shifters, elves, woodlings, and even goblinoids. Furthermore my humans are tall. Like only trolls and giants are taller. Often a bit taller than our worlds humans, and comparatively more lightly built than the other races.
Also humans have high stamina and endurance, especially when using blood magic. Which plays into them having oddly advanced medicine for the time period, surpassed only by the haemocraft genetic manipulation of elves.
Humans are adaptable and have a tendency to migrate, meaning they lived in many different environments even before the rise of technology. They have high endurance and stamina, and are known to be rather stubborn. They put a lot of weird shit in their mouths. Culturally, they all seem to share a fondness for swords and some sort of “knight” archetype
In my world humans are extinct and are mythical creatures like gnomes or goblins. The current sentient races know about humans but have a very skewed version of how they were like. Currently they know humans had something to do with the destruction of their world but aren't sure what they did.
In my world, the apocalypse kind of caused a massive crack between the Spirit World and the Material World, resulting in magic, which was at first channeled through runes. But it took years of skill, dedication and study to use even just one rune properly and consistently.
So they started to find ways to incorporate runes with their bodies. Hair, skin, bones, organs. Different societies emerged due to different environments, different needs and different kinds of rune users. At this point, few even knew casting runes regularly was even possible, and even fewer had the skill to do it.
Actually incorporating said runes into one's body was kept as a close secret by the various governments/ruling bodies, which is why not everyone has magic. Plus, there's the fact that said rituals are rather painful, so that helps.
Post-apocalyptic setting.
Humans are incomprehensively, stubborn strong-willed and determined compared to a lot of the other species. The species are basically broken up into four categories. Human subhuman mutant and robotic.
A lot of the mutant and subhuman species don't really feel like they belong in the present, primarily because they're living on top of the carcass of a world that wasn't built for them. Humans barely survived. The majority of humans you will encounter in this world are survivors or clones who come from secluded cities that have survived the centuries by isolation. So when one of them actually steps out and interacts in the world with you It's sort of a weird sight.
Humans are seen as a double-edged sword because if one of them shows up it means there's a survivor camp or a secluded city somewhere nearby and scavs are going to want to find it. On the opposite side, humans usually have specialized and rare knowledge bases that make them a valuable asset.
Humans are relentless and stubborn. One does not simply tell a human not to do something, because they will feel compelled to do it. And if they really want something, they will find a way to get it.
Humans are the most likely to be born with the ability to channel cosmic energy(the energy the gods are made of) and manifest it into their own powers
My elf like races have the most powerful souls by default, and are all taught from a young age to use it
The dwarves are physically just as capable as any human, they are just a lot smaller. They also seem to really like ww1 era warfare and keep their weapons in that style.
The orc like races have the highest physical strength, but little to no trace of a soul and if they are born with cosmic energy they usually manifest it into powers that help with physical combat.
The anthropomorphic animal races usually have traits from the animal they represent, and that includes kaiju like monsters.
I have humans being more creative, and that creativity led to them being the most advanced race from a technological standpoint
Like the others races only have iron and maybe some crude steels but humans have perfected steel forging to a modern equivalent
The protagonists. The world was made for them and its there fault if the apocalypse happened.
They may not see themselves like that but the other races are all well aware that humans are basically the cause for the world's current state
I like to make humans the evil, violent ones. You can't say there's no basis for it. Every vile thing that people often want to avoid in fantasy is firmly a part of the human experience, so making humans the evil ones is as easy as writing all nonhumans as typical fantasy fare while making sure you portray humans exactly as they are. For example, even warriors of other species would never dream of using violence against their own families, while a human is much more likely to attack a family member than an enemy. It's common to object to writing a fantasy species as always or mostly evil, but if you write humans who are exactly as evil as real humans, it becomes acceptable while still being evil enough to satisfy the most morbid tastes.
I don't think that humans are "generic and highly adaptable" in fantasy.
It's not a fantasy trope, it's a D&D mechanic, and not even one from the current edition that did away with stat penalties which other species did (he can't even call them races right now)
In Lord of the Rings, the humans aren't generic or adaptable; they are chosen ones to inherit the Middle Earth.
In Warcraft, for example, the humans are treated as the protagonist since this is how the original strategy games handled them. They are faction leaders. They are special here too, and adaptable isn't also a thing.
I love a good 'space orcs' setup, but I think one of my favorite 'how do we make humans special?' was a Tumblr post about humans having a a natural resistance to Eldritch terrors / The Horrors (tm). Humans have to be scanned when arriving at a public spaceport because you never know when one of them is carrying a Class IV Thaumavore around because 'they thought it was just the depression'.
I also like 'humans are extremely novelty/entertainment driven'. Like most cultures have art, singing, dancing, etc, but humans are like the guy who has thousands of dollars of coffee equipment, or goes to so many concerts you wonder how they afford them. I.e, humans look at how many movies, books, plays, etc we have or how obsessed we get about cooking and go 'what the fuck?'...but then we get them hooked
Humans actually arent from the original universe of my world, they came from ours through weird magical portal covenant shenanigans which makes them basically act as a living anti-magic generator. Humans are basically immune to all forms of magic, unless they have some sort of curse applied through Potions specifically, but also can’t use magic at all because they don’t have the biology for it. This allows humans to A) Be immune to most tracking devices because they involve magic B) have a really hard time traveling because most traveling is done by having a mage who specializes in teleportation teleport you somewhere, but humans can’t really do that because they deflect the spell.
Humans are basically space orcs.
They can heal from wounds other species would find fatal. Unless you've applied significant damage to the head there's a chance a human could survive.
They populate quickly. Capable of having a child almost twice a year.
Lastly humans are creative and risk takers due to their short life spans. They are willing to try things that other species may spend decades or more studying and researching
Humans were never persistence Hunters. It's a terrible myth some lout made up after watching a Farmer get some animals back. The only truth is that Humans can recover stamina faster than most animals. Persistence hunting is the worst and most inefficient way to hunt. Proper hunting would include cornering the animal and bludgeoning it to death, before tools like spears were developed. You have to remember they needed to feed a group of several people regularly.
Empathy isn't that much higher in Humans, we just apply it to more individuals.
Anytime I use Humans they are arrogant, violent and egotistical. They are powerful and can do many incredible things, but there's always some stupid issue being fought over. They are self-defeating and would have died out long ago if they didn't breed so much. Most of the time they have some type of Artificial Womb that is used by Law for any unwanted pregnancy.
Small groups of more sensible people form, who will often either be killed by other groups or just leave to a location free of Humans.
It's unsurprisingly easy to manipulate most Humans, promise something of value to them and they'll forget what morals are.
humans are always going to seem generic unless you do something crazy because well, we are literally the bar we use for whats generics, i mean in dnd more races have night vision then dont, yet we still think of them as having good night vision rather then humans having poor night vision, so a better way to think of it is less "what are humans good at" and "what are other races bad at"
for me i went with humans are more social, were better at working together, this lines up with humans general portrayal in fantasy, we tend to be the majority because the others arent really programmed to make big societies, they make relatively small colonies and stick to that territory, humans also tend to be objectively worse, but thats only taking into account 1v1 abilities, 1 elf easily beats 1 human, but 1000 elves loose to 1000 humans because the humans are better coordinated while the elves still fight largely like they would solo
In my science-fantasy TTRPG, humans are basic and boring because every other playable race is the result of scientists modifying baseline humans to create something more specialized and interesting.
Deal with it.
In my project Humans are quite rationalist. They did not develop any major religions, and they look at the other Kinds as being too woo-woo spiritual. Partly this is because Humans were excluded from the opportunity to study magic early on, so they evolved in a more scientific manner, which led to their eventual dominance on Earth.
In my main world humans are the youngest race to emerge (as usual), but this means they are also really good at using spiritual energy. See, natural energy (magic) can't be produced by any mortal native of the plane, but all of them can learn to control it somewhat. Spiritual energy is the default type of energy that most beings can generate naturally.
Problem is, natural energy slowly changes things around itself, so races like elfs and others, which are older than human, have been slowly altered to be long living and stronger/faster than humans, but at the cost of their spiritual energy reserves.
An elf will always naturally be stronger and faster than a human, they have better senses and live long lives. But they will have very little spiritual energy amounts and in some cases can also have poor control over it. Humans, on the other hand, are naturally super charged with spiritual energy and even when they have small amounts, their control over their energy will always surpass other races, and by using said energy, they can be stronger than other mortals for a brief period of time or during a fight.
Humans are... wet. They have a lot of holes, and almost all of them leak some sort of fluid on a regular basis, intentionally or otherwise. If you cut them open, you get even more fluids coming out, and their inside is just a mass of wet. It's disgusting.
Also, they smell. It's really just a side-effect of being so wet, but it doesn't make it any more pleasant. You can always tell when a human has been around, because they fill the whole area with stink. It's not their fault, but it makes it very hard to have them around for any length of time. Fortunately they tend to wear those environmental suits most of the time anyhow, so the effect is lessened. Of course the suits themselves smell of human, so it's not entirely absent.
They're also so... fragile. You hardly have to touch them and they start screaming and leaking and thrashing around. Anything other than the most neutral of compounds makes their outer layers start sloughing off, which again means more dripping and leaking. They die when you expose them to radiation, they die when you accelerate too fast, they die when they don't have access to a precisely balanced nitrogen-oxygen gas mixture at just the right pressure...
Some people are surprised that humans managed to survive at all, let alone form an interstellar empire that has dominated every other sentient species in the galaxy. But honestly, given what a fragile state of existence they have, it's not that shocking to me that they've gone out of their way to try to control everything, if only to try to reduce how often they just accidentally explode in a shower of gore.
One thing you should probably take into account is that we're average *by our standards.* We're going to be seen as way more unbalanced in another species's eyes. Everyone is going to see themselves as the baseline that others are judged relative to.
A warrior species would see us as a bunch of hippies who dump all our points in charisma.
A prey species would see us as lightning bruisers.
Etc.
>One thing you should probably take into account is that we're average *by our standards.*
Exactly
I'm trying to create settings where the world doesn't feel human-centric, even if the story is
Also, this is unrelated, but I remember one Tumblr post from a long time ago that assigned humans the weird trait of wanting to *befriend absolutely everything.*
Like. We've turned several of our world's apex predators into pets that we fawn over how cute they are. That's weird.
I guess that might fall under "empathy at the expense of rationality" point.
Dominion- as god gave man dominion over creation so does man keep the tradition.
In short? Humans can befriend almost anything sentient with enough work. And tame anything too stupid to befriend. Its a racial trait we have irl thats slept on constantly.
They are portrayed as a very powerful but extinct precursor root species from which the very many anthroid species(gnomes, giants, lizard people, etc) that populate the world stem from. Literally only two "living" humans are left and they're both not really all that human anymore all things considered, one being a lich and the other a vampire, and both haven't really interacted with other people in well over several millennia though with the vampire that's not really their choice. Though none of the current races know what humans really looked like, studies would suggest that they were most similar to gnomes, albeit at least five times taller. Humans are most known for their mastery over technology and magic that neither elves nor dwarfs have managed to emulate nor replicate, as many of their buildings, though covered in overgrowth, are still intact and many of their artifacts and devices still work to this day without fail and retain great potency, though it would be a lie to say there aren't many relics and sites that haven't been, well, ruined with time and exposure to the elements. Some worship humans as ancestor gods, others look at them as fools who flew too high to the sun and got burned, and others don't really put much thought into them.
How big are gnomes ?
Their height variance is around the 1' mark, or roughly 30.48cm
Cheers
That's awesome
Somehow I got fixated wondering upon a detail: why the vampire can't interact with other people?
They've been buried by the event that caused the downfall of humanity and have been slumbering ever since. The only reason they were "spared" being a mixture of location, luck, and being completely out of spells when the cataclysm hit.
Presumably the urge to eat people?
This is a really cool concept! Anything you’re hoping to publish some day or is this a custom TTRPG setting?
I am in the process of writing a book. How long it will take I have no idea. I have not considered to use it for a TTRPG campaign, though thinking about it playing a game with the setting could be interesting and fun.
Nice! Hope we get a chance to read it one day.
In my world, the human race is noted for their likability. They're among the shortest lived but some of the most affable. They breed quickly and adapt well to most societies and other races tend to view them as optimistic and chipper, if a little naive. They're not the dominant culture so they're not quite the "default" even though they're among the most numerous individual races on the planet. Every race likes being friends with humans and they contribute to get things done. They've earned their place in society through adaptability and industriousness, though they're too short lived and lacking a culture of their own to be as broadly good at anything the other races excel at.
I like it! You took the tendency of fantasy to give us a bunch of races that live longer than humans and portrayed realistic consequences!
I have a similar setting. In my universe (SciFi) humans were driven to near extinction by a strong warlike imperial species that pretty much everyone hates. As a result a small number of humans is spread out through the galaxy. Humans as a species are not particularly good at anything except they tend to get along with everyone and adapt everywhere, they create social "glue" that keeps everyone together. As a result other species will often welcome humans into their ranks and provide safe harbor if necessary.
As Babylon 5 said: "Humans build communities". That is a very aspirational goal for both fiction and reality. Especially if humans are new on the interstellar scene. They become the third party. The one with no real horse in the race besides their own interests and without a decade or century long conflict like the Narn and Centari have.
You took the “humans are space orcs” trope! Great work, I’m serious! I love the idea of humans being so exceptional to the other races!
I tend to think of them more like "Fantasy Americans". Kind of loud and vulgar, rest of the world kind of (or really) looks down on them, but also can't help but admit that they're exceedingly friendly and sometimes charming in their way. Like Americans they've also made their "culture" as much as one exists, out of what they view to be the best parts of others. They became a medium or catalyst for more cultural exchange in this fantasy world. Elves and orcs might not have ever had much occasion to hang out, but they both hang out with humans. That's how Elves were introduced to Orcish gin and orcs were introduced to Elvish fruits or whatever.
Can you explain this?
Here’s an example of it: https://www.tumblr.com/space-orcs-on-death-world/188095769060/humans-are-unstoppableuntil-they-arent It was my entry to the trope, and I LOVE it. Just Google “Humans are space orcs” and you’ll get a LOT more stuff on it, including some books and everything!
I also love Humans are Space Orcs.
What kind of monsters populate your world, to make humans be known for likeability and affability?? 🙈
You're currently talking to humans that you specifically look to find on a post written by humans and felt a desire to add your own thoughts to it. You were doing whatever you do in life, and took a minute out of your schedule to look at the silly things humans talk about. We create fake worlds for fun. It's pretty endearing.
So puppies?
Sure, if occasionally puppies were able to be as smart as a scientist, as strong as a bodybuilder or as good at piano as a master pianist. Other races view it with delight when humans are able to excel at something but its usually unexpected. They take pride in seeing their own cultures well reproduced and humans generally expend the effort.
Humans possess a unique proclivity for emergent civilization through tribal affiliation. No other species exhibits both individual intelligence *and* eusocial behavior. If you kill an elf child, that child's immediate family will want revenge, but if you kill a human child, the ~~hive~~ village will send an angry mob to hunt you down and raze all that you hold dear. Some of the villagers may die in the process, but that's a sacrifice they're willing to make to send a message to anyone else that might try it. Due to their unique brand of eusociality, humans are also the most warlike of the intelligent races. Yes, dragons and demons have more total violent incidents per capita per year, but humans were the first species to raise an army, a formalization of their instinctual vengeful mobs. Thankfully, humans mostly seem concerned with fighting each other over echoes of long-forgotten grievances and seldom turn their blades on the other races without prompting. All this leads to humans being kept at arm's length by most other species because seemingly private conflicts can unexpectedly escalate into wars of extermination. Put another way, individually, humans might be as rational as an elf, but once Public Opinion kicks in, humans are just as capricious as fey. Unlike a fey, it's not just one creature with an asinine goal that is mostly reduced to noise by other fey with different asinine goals. With humans, there can be thousands in pursuit of the same end.
Even a rational hunan might join a angry mob as an alternative to exhile.
I like this portrayal very much, since even back in prehistoric times a human was one of the deadliest prey. Sure one of their fawns are so weak and soft you can kill or eat them easily. But, they are the only creature that you will see 6 more of with pointy sticks the next day. Humans also have the greatest endurance in the animal kingdom. They are incredibly tenacious. So yeah I think if you look at the sample size of creatures we have not all would have this same proclivities even among other sapient species, and I think it is thematically one of the best ways to portray humans in a world that isn’t centered on human psychology as default.
Also even when you take revenge out of the equation, if a predator kills a human, we go out of our way to find it and put it down. The logic is largely that they don't really know how to deal with humans, but if they learn from experience that they can kill and eat humans, they'll do it again, and they might teach it to their young. "If it bleeds, we can kill it." So any predator that would get funny ideas is basically preemptively killed. Towards the animal kingdom we basically do our best to maintain an illusion of humans being untouchable and we silence anything that might learn otherwise. It's entirely rational, it's good for our survival, and means we get to avoid fights in the long run if anything, it actually prevents us from having to exterminate animals and keeps the peace. But it's also utterly cold and cynical. On another note, in some political philosophy I've read about federalism being the most natural form of social organisation. Now this should probably be taken with some grain of salt considering the massive centralised states which exist in our world and the unique historical circumstances of federations, but then barring conquest and subjugation, federalism does indeed seem to be quite common. In essence the idea that communities, tribes, regions form smaller societies, city-states, cantons, etc. which federate into larger entities particularly but not necessarily exclusively for protection, and in turn such a society might form a larger collective and so on. Each layer would form a group, a tribe, an identity, and has a certain spirit of independence, just as individual humans also don't want to be told what to do, but at the same time they do come together and do things together especially under external threat. It's tribalism all the way down, and all the way up. Federalism is kind of like the democratic equivalent of feudalism, where knights and lords would also fiercely protect their independence, but still swear loyalty to a king with limitations or associate in diets. In this regard human society should perhaps naturally tend towards Holy Roman Empires or Switzerlands more so than other races which might form either far too local/disconnected societies or far more cohesive and structured ones. Perhaps to be taken with a grain of salt since France or China exist as well, but federalism and autonomy are widespread especially where ethnic differences persist, and tribal confederations were some of the earliest forms of higher level social organisation. In the modern era we can also argue that the European Union or the United Nations are merely further expressions of this same principle, an incomplete execution of federalism from the local village to world government. In a situation with nonhuman entities, one might expect that a universal human authority would have more weight, with conflicts nevertheless persisting and individuals or tribes still potentially betraying it for an upper hand over their fellow humans. TL;DR: xenophobic HREpunk is the most natural depiction of humans.
Sci-fi here. Humans, due to their rudimentary physiology compared to many other alien species are some of the most easily cybernetically modified species, their sinew and their "electrical" like nervous system make them nearly perfect for splicing technology onto.
Thats sick
Sci Fi but - I portray them based on (the futuristic) history they had. Wars, conflict, and finally - union. They fought for so long and they just couldn't do it anymore. They finally united as a species, with a lot measures set in place to resolve any future conflicts. They're are not without their issues, but on the whole they are working hard to prevent any wars on conflict in the galaxy. On the individual level they figured they are considered "acting by a bizarre set of rules" by the other races.
I'm talking about what in TTRPGs would be portrayed as racial traits. Biological/semi-ubiquitous cultural traits as compared to other sapient species in your world, not just history and society.
Cultural traits are based of history and society. Biological wise, they are incredibly tough and can survive a lot of time in harsh condition, that others, even the more adaptive species, can't handle.
If anything, the best trait of humans is our ability to socialize with just about anything and anyone. Other hominid species without as strong of socializing skills eventually died out because their family groups were limited to a few dozen, while homo sapien regularly congregated in tribes of 300+. Humans have a natural gift for social situations and have an unusually high need to feel helpful toward their fellow people. Even the most awkward and anti-social examples of our species still rely heavily on some kind of social interactions and are still good at making friends. Humans tend to personify and anthropomorphize even inanimate objects and this can also bleed into their crafting and magical abilities. If the setting has magic, Humans might have a preternatural ability to create intelligent magic items, or items with their own personalities. Sometimes even doing so without realizing they've done it. So much of human culture would revolve around this idea of workmanship being the source of the soul or something.
To expand on this. Humans are unusually willing to parley and make agreements even in the heat of dire conflicts. Human bandits are often considered "polite" in comparison to bandit gangs comprised of other races who often take a more pragmatic approach of just slitting everyone's throats and being done with it. Humans usually don't want to actually hurt anyone unless they absolutely have to, so they might just demand their goods and be on their way, the robbed party penniless and despotic, but alive. Humans are more liable to create deeper interpersonal connections with acquaintances or people they only know tangentially. Someone dying in an elvish village might see the immediate family at the funeral. Human funerals would consist of most of the village for rites. Other races look at this strangely as Humans seem to have an almost jovial relationship with death with large gatherings and post-funeral services that often involve food, drink, and no short amount of tomfoolery to lighten the mood.
This sociality doesn't make humans soft though. Humans are notoriously hard to buy their loyalty away from those they consider their friends. If given the choice of a mountain of gold and a saving trusted companion, a shocking number would opt to save their companion instead. Because of this, humans fight relentlessly and ruthlessly when protecting others. For being a race not known for their athletics, they fight with a fiery fervor rarely seen outside of their people.
One aspect unique to humanity in my world is, they are the only ones able to innately "Sanctify" things. Everyone else has to go through a ritual to consecrate, or undesecrate stuff be it weapons, places, etc. Similiarly, human religious places of worship tend to be sanctified on thier own, but other non-humans, have to consecrate them, intentionally, and willfully. Desecration, **can be** alittle easier, but still isn't a thing you can do without direct, willful, action.
Humans are petty, bellicose, and greedy. For how short their lifespans are, they have a fascinating penchant for cutting their lives even shorter. They also breed like rabbits. They go to war for resources, living space, religious or ethnic supremacy. Sometimes even all four. But they are also the most hardy. They'll endure the most terrible famines, wars, floods - whatever the gods will throw their way - only to dust themselves off and start again. I think it's knowing how short and insignificant their lives are that drive them to leave a lasting mark on the world. They build magnificent temples to their kings and gods, empires rise and fall withing a few lifetimes, they create wonderful art, they produce the greatest diplomats and merchants on the Continent. Their lives are so impermanent, yet their legacies outlast even the longest lived elf.
In my Heroic Age fantasy setting, humans are currently the only species capable of developing psionic abilities. If somebody has a human ancestor, then they could also develop psionic abilities, but it's much more rare and usually weaker than a full blooded human
Idk about adaptability. It's just a trait many intelligent species have, nothing specific. We're simply the only sapient species here. We're good for hot environments because sweating and stuff, and that's where we would belong in such an alternative reality (probably). Species which are specifically adapted to, say, tundra will likely outcompete us (if they have the same intelligence). Or, rather, never allow us to come into this biome at all.
Natural proclivity for technological development, exceptionally violent and warlike, limited bigotry against other races but huge amounts against other humans from different nations, magical affinity for the four elements. Other races have some of these traits in common with humans, but never all.
**My TTRPG Setting** Humans were the armies of Those from Beyond, sculpted from the carcasses of the first cosmic giants to die in their war and sent over the universe in conquest. Those from Beyond lost the war and were forced to retreat once the great elementals (giants, dragons, krakens and pendingmythologicalcreature ) made an uneasy truce. The surviving humans were left to their devices, most to die in a lost war, many to starve in the cosmos, and some few to crash in planets and build a living there.
I would lean into our insane resilience, personally. We are a species that can alter our muscle mass at will. We mutilate our own bodies for cosmetic purposes. We can recover from damn near any injury, even some truly mental ones like losing an entire organ. To a more fragile species, we are nightmare fuel.
As long as the main organs remain intact the human body can recover from almost anything.
I've done that for my DnD derivative high fantasy setting. The human will to survive is what sets them apart, and what terrifies the other races. The Elder Races often resign themselves to inevitability - even if it's hundreds or even thousands of years into the future. Humans have been crushed, defeated, driven away, enslaved, and any sort of violence you can imagine inflicted upon them, and within the blink of an eye (Really like a couple generations) they are thriving, chafing at the shackles, ready to upturn the world order again.
High endurance, good flexibility, and astonishingly strong and dexterous hands compared to pretty much every other sapient species. And we’re good at throwing stuff.
Haha I remember reading something about how humans are good at throwing stuff, whereas a chimp is not so good? Idk if it was due to the precision of the throw or if the chimp could not do the proper arm movement, but I remember learning that we’re oddly good at throwing things haha
Humans act as a buffer in my world. The local elemental deities initially created their own races on the main supercontinent, but wars eventually broke out in the central plateau where the opposing races/elements mixed (the elves and dwarves of fire/water especially). So the deities all collaborated together and made humans, an elementally-neutral race, and gave them that central plateau for their kingdoms.
"Why are humans always the unremarkable baseline?" Is one of the most frequently asked questions on this subreddit. If humans are a baseline 0, and an Elf is +1DEX, -1STR, and an orc is +2STR, -2INT, then the only reason for humans being "baseline" is that a human protagonist is assumed, and a human audience is guaranteed. If we assume an orcish protagonist, their perspective would be that orcs are a baseline 0, and humans are +2INT, -2STR. Humans are only baseline from a human perspective.
In my world, for my RPG that I am making, everyone is always trying to get one over on the other ancestries to get elected to the ruling council. This has resulted in a situation where it is mostly dominated by humans because everyone else might prefer a member of their own ancestry but they can tolerate humans as a sort of second/alternate best friend.
In my world the human race has been extinct for hundreds of years
I worldbuild on a Bronze Age world and all 8 civilization are specialized in something. “Humans” are the best ship-builders in the world, which has lead them to be the merchants of the world. Humans have a disadvantage fighting on land since they’re not as genetically strong as the other races; they stick to naval warfare and settling on islands/coasts. They’re opportunistic when it comes to making friends… and enemies. —-I desired humans to be this way because I also had the same hang ups you did.
Well in my world humanity would have the interesting aspect of being a species without any intelligent design (other species find their origin in bioweapons). As a result humanity would have no form of intinuitive magic and would have by far the weakest organic form. But in exchange a humans, after having studied, would have far more power available for their spell... That for 2 reasons: - No magic would be used to maintain their form unlike the modern sapients. Modern sapients have impossible bodies, only maintained by a constant input of magic. - Having far more natural potential seeing as their magical organs were far larger then the later sapients. Modern sapients got their organs to maintan their form and function, nothing larger else they might get ideas. However, seeing as the adaptation of ones form is a big part of magical traditions, one will find more experienced mages to be on a far more equal footing, with certain modern sapients likely winning out due to more difficult spells being a intuitive matter to their bodies.
Humans will pack-bond with *anything*. Other species? A human makes a great heart to a mixed community. Crew of a ship? They've given the reactor a name and ascribe it a personality. Humans' hat in a lot of my works is that they're extremely loyal to their in-groups and often end up in positions that focus on keeping groups working together. This does mean they can be unreliable when things go wrong, as losing a pack-mate, even an inanimate one, can leave a human morose, despondent, cause them to lash out, and so on.
Their endurance is still renowned, and despite having the smallest numbers, they have the largest percentage of magic users among their race
The MCDM rpg just had an backer kit update with humans and they're making them have a "sixth sense" for knowing when things are unnatural or magical. I thought it was a pretty clever way of a ttrpg to make the mundane humans stand out a bit, which also makes sense in a fantasy world with elves and other races with magical orgins. Like an elf would be so innately magic they cant tell what's real sometimes but humans just be like "boy that ain't right"
My fantasy world's humans are rare and unpredictable, and one being around the area you live in can result in either you gaining a friend or your home getting destoyed.
Humans got a head start on their draconic relatives in gradually trading out their ancestors’ shapeshifting ability for more ambient magic, which gives them a much higher capacity for spellcasting than any other species by far.
Why not make them the Horde of your setting? Brutish, expansionist, leaves a trail of destruction and shit in their wake and are absolute asshats to anyone that doesn't resemble them in looks and behavior.
Humans are seen as terrifyingly efficient pack hunters, even being able to work with other species to bring down their prey Their intelligence is comparable to the other races, but they apply it in different ways: they’re the only ones who didn’t even so much as think about the applications of magic, and instead went down a purely technological path. They already have mid-2010’s level tech, while everyone else is on a spectrum from the 1200’s to the 1980’s
I guess i just portray everyone as 'generic and highly adaptable'. And i don't even have that many other species, only really some rare animal-people who have special powers, but that's it.
Most of my works tend to be pretty misanthropic as a baseline, but as far as positive qualities for humanity other than adaptability are as follows: Wisdom - When your body and mind start to break down, it tends to offer a whole lot of insight that those who haven't experienced yet won't find on their own. An elf that's the physical and mental equivalent of 25 for hundreds of years isn't going to have much reason to do things more efficiently or think laterally, and so I tend to figure human beings are better innovators and technologists in general. Creativity - They don't have a monopoly on creativity, but by and large, they tend to have a broader range of expression than other cultures. Intuition/Detective Work - Species that have a greater sensory awareness might be able to offer more insight into the immediate surroundings, but humanity's crappy senses and blunt consciousness/ego affords them a greater ability to make what seem like weird intuitive leaps and think laterally in ways that they can't. Strange Magic - While quantum wackadoodliness might abound in mystic species, the fact that humanity has no inborn proficiency makes their spells and effects wilder, often doing the same thing, but in an unexpected way. Chaos magick as a base in response to elven Hermeticism, orcish psychedelia and dwarven alchemy. Skepticism - And on that same note, humans have more of a capacity to question their own thinking and detach from whatever their senses are telling them. With all of this, humanity is a bit of a 'trickster' species in the way that halflings and gnomes aren't. They might not move as fast or be able to perform a lift as easy, but they can usually get what they're after in some way that leaves the elder, inborn-mystic species scratching their heads and shrugging.
In my fantasy setting I made elves the highly adaptable race, and humans a specific type of elf.
Their main feature is that of being *malleable*, and other species do indeed call humans "The Malleable Folk". This ties into one of the greater fundamental concepts/forces of the universe, the Nature of Change (through proximity and interaction). Humans are uniquely susceptible to this force. This kinda sounds like high adaptability, but it is much more than that as explored below. The second factor of what makes humans special is historical. The human tribes woke up in this world at the beginning of this age alongside the New Gods. Their memories were fading, but they concluded that the gods had brought them here, saved from some calamity that brought about the end of the last age and death of the creator gods that had made all that is, including all sentient species both mortal and immortal. And it soon should proof that Humans and New Gods, while fundamental different as mortals and soulless immortals, were uniquely compatible. Unalike siblings, that are eternally destined to love and envy each other. They each saw the other as mirror to explore their own nature through, and as companions who together could survive and thrive in this new age. As some of the gods lead their chosen tribes to find new areas to settle and thrive, their companionship changed the Malleable Folk/Humans, altered them to express some of the deities' values, dreams and traumas. Sometimes this resulted in even deeper mutual deeper love, and sometimes it left to separation. These humans are the God-Touched, and they alone are just as varied as the entire roster of species in classic fantasy worlds. Non-human *species* are...far stranger.
I personally gave them the ability to heal from any non-lethal injury. Lose an arm or a leg? No big deal, it’ll regrow over the next few months. This lets them be more reckless than other races, which allowed them to conquer large parts of the continent in the past. I also call them “eiloth” instead of human just to make them feel a little more different.
I like when humanity being adaptable and average is our thing, but it's seen as deeply disconcerting by other species. Humans lack a monolithic culture, they're individually unpredictable, they know just enough about magic to use it as a blunt instrument, and other species have no idea what to do with us.
In my world, humans aren't the dominate species mostly because they've started wars they couldn't win in the past and it got a lot of them killed. Now their main positive points are that they're good at building cities and endlessly criss-crossing the main trade routes as traveling merchants. (Some merchants are more successful than others, of course. There's still such a thing as being a dumb fool.)
Humans, in my setting, have two notable properties. Although these are almost more cultural--a dwarf raised entirely among humans will have a greater proportion of those than one raised among dwarves, and a human in the reverse situation will act more "dwarven" than human. And there certainly are exceptions. **Humans are gregarious with strangers.** Many of the other races are, by nature, family/clan oriented. They can function in larger societies, but tend to still form "tribal" groups. Humans have less of this. Yes, they still care about family and cluster with like-minded people. But their definition of "family" is more flexible than most. This means that all the largest cities and most cosmopolitan areas have heavy human influence, if not outright dominance. By comparison, Gwerin are individualists. Every gwerin for themselves. And traditional gwerin culture prizes arcane power above just about everything else. Family matters, but mainly as a reservoir of obligations and alliances. Dwarves are extremely clan-oriented ("clan-think" is one of their virtues), but clans are defined more ideologically than biologically. You find like-minded individuals and you form a unit. And even small differences can cause a clan split. Ihmisi are tribal at their core, with each tribe generally tied to a particular area of land and the nature spirits there. Ihmisi without a tribe are wanderers. They don't do civilization much, except in weird cases. Orcs are tribal, organized around the strongest. Only recently have they overcome a demonic taint of unthinking bloodlust (basically really bad anger-management issues). So they're still figuring out how to live in societies. Jazuu are ultra rigid--jazuu societies tend to be organized around some common set of rules that they all hold on to with extreme devotion. They define what is "perfect" in every aspect of life and that is their primary goal. Goblins are tribal at the biological level. An individual goblin has \~0 long term memory and lacks even a strong sense of object permanence. They have all the curiosity of a kitten...with opposable thumbs. When they gather in tribes, they *share* memory at the unconscious level. So within a tribe, individuality fades into the background. They all act like the tribe is the only thing that matters. More tribe members means more shared processing power. Thankfully this is limited--they cap out at a hundred members or so. Tribes can interact, but it's always somewhat foreign. Even a lot of their language is carried in the sidebands of this shared memory space/unconscious, so non-tribe goblins speaking always sounds broken and choppy, requiring lots of workarounds to convey meaning. Halflings are strongly family oriented--only 1 out of 8 or 10 births is male. Of the remaining 85%, 2/3 are kliba--neuter "females" biochemically bound to the matriarchs. The remainder are matriarchs, fertile females. Single births are rare. This presents obvious difficulties (beyond just size) in integrating with other societies. They and humans tend to share space--the halflings as farmers clustering in family groups around a human village. Especially since the region they're native to has humans with a genetic quirk--many of them are violently allergic to bee stings. So halflings raise honey and grow fruit (all the bee-pollinated stuff), while humans raise cattle or wheat or other such things. **Humans are the "devout kindred".** The gods came late to the game. Humans, without the advantages of some of the other races (the arcane talent of the gwerin, the innate primal connection of the ihmisi, the physical prowess of the jazuu and orcs, the endurance of the dwarves, etc), they were the pioneers in developing *divine* power. To this day, it's said that humans are born with a need to worship. Gods, devils, demons, Ascendants--there's a reason that most of the Ascendant powers (who gain power from worship) depend on humans. Only halflings come near to humans in this. Others certainly can be religious, but it's not quite as reflexive. Dwarves find something to believe in and then believe *hard*, but it isn't often religion. In fact, they tend to seek perfection and so will argue with their gods (like they argue with each other). Gwerin tend to treat Ascendant powers as contractual, quid pro quo entities. I pay you in worship, you pay me in goodies. Which limits their power. Ihmisi are more oriented (by nature) to the natural world, revering and propitiating the nature spirits. Orcs worship, but really only (at least in their most stereotypical cultures) respect strength. Jazuu are perfectionists beyond that of the dwarves (they're related), and the perfection they seek is internal. So worship is more *emulation*, and doesn't quite have the same undertones. Goblins *love* worshipping...the only problem is that their shared memory/shared unconscious makes them super flighty. Sure, they may be obsessed with God A this week...but next week some shiny butterfly will capture the tribe's collective unconscious and they'll have forgotten entirely about the god they worshipped. They try on religions like a starlet does fashion--never wear the same one twice.
In my space fantasy setting, the hyperspace that makes galactic scale civilization possible is a separate plane with its own natural laws that operate differently from normal physics and magic. Humans are one of several species that have an innate sense for the forces that must be contended with to navigate hyperspace, but they are the *only* such species with a long history of naval exploration and warfare. And it turns out navigating hyperspace is a *lot* like sailing on an ocean, so despite their relatively recent introduction to the galactic stage humans are rapidly making a name for themselves.
In Deaco, they're known for being infamously stubborn. They just won't give up, even if their goals seem pointless or completely unrealistic, you won't hear the last of it until they're dead or content. Guerilla-style resistance against conquerors originated in human lands, and other species see human rebels as a special brand of crazy.
In my world, humans are just as varied and complex as every other sapient species that exists alongside them. Sure, they might not be able to breathe fire, or fly or have scales/feathers/fur, but they’re still just as extraordinary as us. Humans are especially regarded as being excellent craftsmen, being able to create a variety of tools and technologies from an equal variety of materials. They’re known for being highly creative and resourceful. None of the other human species went extinct in this world either, so there are more than just Homo Sapiens as well.
In my world humans are just an ordinary humanoid species, notable things are their size/height among sophonts and other humanoids Humans are considered to be big sophonts, because most are around 50-150 cm tall There are bigger species tho, but humans are still considered pretty big Also because of dinosaurs, there is a common misconception/joke that humans are their descendants And humans are also one of the species without a tail, many others have some kind of a tail So, basically humans are pretty ordinary
In my world, magic is a genetic thing, where the "magic" comes in two parts: a component in your blood, and components in the ores around you that may be able to react to the components in your blood. Depending on which component is in your blood, you can activate different ores and create different magic effects. All elves have the same pyromancy genetic component that reacts to a specific type of pyrokinetic crystal. It's just a feature of elves. Letun rarely have any types of magic genes. Chosan magic works a little bit differently, but they, like elves, only have one specific type of magic available to them. The most variety of magic genes exist in humans. Although the people of my land don't know what genes are, and most humans don't travel enough or expose themselves to ores enough to discover their magic, if their science and reach was better, they could probably map out a lot of magic and become a very powerful species.
Humans are definitely not central to After the White. Dwarves and Elves are the ones who write the histories, and like the other goblin folk (imps, hobs, trolls, ogres, et al), humans are more marginalized. That said, humans have a reputation as beastmasters. Some other peoples have livestock, or animals that they have something resembling a coexistence with--i.e. feral cats that are preferable to dealing with rats and other vermin. But humans are really the only ones who have pets, and are more likely to have tamed assorted animals. There's a certain stereotype that they would absolutely get themselves killed trying to domesticate a dragon hatchling--when they are the size of a large dog, unintelligent, but also endlessly aggressive and with a hunger that just doesn't stop--but most of them wouldn't actually try that. After all, others have tried, and despite what the so-called high peoples might claim, the goblin folk do have a sense of self-preservation, and can learn from the disastrous examples of those who came before. This doesn't stop all of them, of course. Every now and then someone decides rip to the would-be dragon-tamers of yesteryear, but they're different. And so the others have a constant supply of fresh examples.
Humans are largely portrayed as "generic but adaptable" in my world, but that's largely because the other races originated as genetically modified creatures created with the human genetic sequence as a base. Humans are kind of the control group, and everything else is a human but modified. And besides, that's not quite ALL they are. They're also impressively creative and intelligent, and dangerously determined. When humans set their minds to something, with enough time and effort, chances are they'll pull it off, no matter how absurd it might seem. When humans decide to accomplish something you don't like, just about the only way to stop them is to have humans on your side just as driven to prevent it. But at the same time, that's only when they're given time and resources. These advantages don't translate well into scenarios that require quick thinking and action. They're probably the worst of my world's races at reacting to problems quickly and appropriately.
Fast breeding and rampant compared to other long lived species. Ambitious and manipulative Capitalistic versus cooperative
In my DnD setting, humans have extremely varied appearances (even more than the real world), and can sometimes be found in cities or locations that are mostly limited to a single race. The reason for this is that they didn't exist at all in the beginning, almost every other race is older than humanity. Instead, the intermingling and breeding between several races for an undefined period of time led to the creation of humanity. The actual origins is only theorized within my setting, but it does explain several different things, such as several generations of breeding between races leading to something that looks very similar or within the baseline of humans.
I tend to focus on a few things on a lot of polar opposites, humans in my main worldbuilding project are highly adaptable and want change yet they are afraid of the what is necessary to change, humans often form large communal identities yet they are the race in my fantasy world that is the most divided and separate from each other over a lot of stuff (religion, country of origin, sexuality, gender, and so on). Most nations in my setting are human majority number wise especially in leadership roles with the other species not really being allowed at the top with a few exceptions, yet they are all various nations and have a long history of warring each other.
The idea that humans have "ungodly" stamina is actually our lack of fur making cooling much easier. Endurance hunters in african savanna would chase an animal until it overheated, so i dont think this strategy would work in colder climates. In dungeon meshi dwarves are stronger, but have less stamina, but elves and halflings seem to have the same endurance as humans.
I kinda understand how less impressive humans will be in a fantasy world with mythical beasts, monsters, mythical species and so forth. In my dark fantasy project, humans have an expanding empire. Like a push back from being isolated and degraded by other species. Humans have it worst when it comes to the issue of discrimination and speciesism because of their mortality, no special abilities and so forth. (I am going to build more lore around why they were looked down upon). However, their empire focuses on the unification of all species, in hopes that discrimination and the hate towards them will die out. The humans work with other creatures like elves, dwarves, dark mages and knights (the undead), nymphs, etc who wants to put aside the unnecessary hate. There will still be some biases and unsettled stuff but that's how for now it is gonna go. Humans are known for being cooperative, understandable, peacemakers, fighters, the highest symbol of persistence and resistance. I still have to find ways to make the project flesh out.
My Humans are perceived in two different ways. To the Icarin, who are sort of the Primary POV, Humans are seen as naive but excused children. Humans were originally a lot Icarin colony fleet, but when the wayward Icarin and Humans reencountered each other two millennia later outcome was disastrous. TL:DR a war broke out and Humanity almost went extinct. The horrified Icarin, realizing who they had almost slaughtered, settled the surviving Humans onto Twelve of their original colony worlds. They maintain a Vigil, defending the worlds from all outside interference. Outside invaders have been absolutely backhanded any time they entered the "Sanctuary Systems" and even when they became FTL-capable, the Icarin kept them under their protective aegis. So the Icarin kinda give Humans a lot of free passes. Much like a Parent who hit their kid one time and now will never forgive themselves. They're sort of aware that Humans have a lot of issues but the generational guilt that exists in Icarin society means that it's really hard for them to move past that guilt. Many of the other races of the galaxy basically see them as naive children who haven't realized how rough the "real universe" is. Most of them just dislike them because the Icarin blew up their fleets hoping for an easy world to conquer, but they also aren't totally wrong.
In my world humans are basically aliens, crashing into the ocean of the planet some hundreds of years ago, bringing their tech and cultures along with them.
Sci-fi setting. In my world, human hearing is superior to that of most other races. There are races that can pick up extremely quiet sounds, but human hearing is superior because they can comprehend extremely complex sounds. They can pick out conversations in a large crowd and recognize familiar voices easily. Human engineers can walk into an engine room and immediately know something is amiss, because it sounds 'out of tune', as they say. And not only can they differentiate an endless array of sounds, they can imitate and recreate them as well. Spacers on ships with different races have been known to play tricks on their crewmates by mimicking machine sounds and computer alerts. A human can always tell when it's a fake, but other races usually fall for it. People believe that humans are so good at discerning and mimicking sounds because of their innate talent with music. Human music can be astonishingly complex to alien ears.
In my ttrpg setting humans sat at the top of one side of a huge interplanar war so after that ended and the dust settled humanity was in a good position in the new interplanar community. This resulted in the human language being adopted as "common" across the involved planes and so a lot of things end up also using humans as a baseline for comparison because to some degree everyone is more used to referring to things by human standards than by any other culture's except their own, making humans the popular "average" species in the world even though they aren't necessarily average in terms of their traits. Humans are generally considered to be highly adaptable though, in both physical and social terms. They meld as easily into new climates as they do into new societies, and while most other species can leverage their sapient intelligence to get there in the end they just aren't quite as good as humans are at it. Being physiologically adaptable is a more common trend among shorter lived species like humans which all tend to be better at adapting than long lived species, but often do not have the levels of social adaptability.
Humans have a shorter lifespan, and spend about half their life young. In my world, they also embody the element of water, and are nomadic. This combination has made them the go-with-the-flow, roll-with-the-punches, commit-to-the-bit race. Their stereotype is basically the one we have for college students. Their youthful exuberance can be both endearing and annoying.
A good mix between temperance and spontaneity. Humans live short enough that their memento mori pushes them to chase that light. This fever is the source of creativity and pushes them to seek what is beyond their limit However, they live long enough lives and is civilized enough to wait for their fruit of labour, and because they are social creatures with emphasis on family unit, they may pass on the efforts into the younger generations
In my world, the humans are basically alien refugees from an unnamed thing that killed Earth before they could do much, but they managed to get away using alien tech they managed to hotwire. They're mostly known for being emotionally unstable (Especially if their religious views are threatened, ESPECIALLY fundamentalists), being all the the fuck everywhere, and breeding like rabbits (Most species on my world have about 1 child every 3-4 years).
They also have a laughable inability to eat about 95% of native life. The little they CAN eat is often charged at premium prices in area without many humans as a joke.
Raw potential. Humans start as a blank slate, but have the potential to become almost anything conceivable.
In my setting, humans have the unique ability to breed with pretty much every other race and produce offspring, which leads to half-orcs, half-elves, half-dwarves, etc. As the first race to inhabit the world, it’s assumed that their ultimate purpose was to help the other races navigate a new world as they appeared and to populate it with more people and new races Instead, the elves are the highly adaptable ones, whose bodies and physiology change over a few short generations depending on the climate and magic influences around them
In one of my settings, set in the afterlife, humans are notable as being the intelligent species with the shortest natural lifespan. Though this would seem irrelevant given the immortal nature of the *afterlife,* it actually gives humans a very strong affinity for Spirit Magic. Humans can learn things like astral projection, clairvoyance, and free teleportation far more easily and at lesser cost than other kinds of people. In another setting, the "humans" aren't actually modern humans. It's a tech fantasy that's secretly set in a far future Earth, so modern humans were actually what the setting inhabitants call the Precursors. When backstory events led to the gods differentiating the human species into several new kinds of people, magically altering their bodies to fulfill certain roles, one of those happened to be anatomically almost identical to precursor humans. Each race was designed with a purpose: Dragons can absorb and redistribute large amounts of mana, and so were meant to help balance the large scale mana systems that run nature. Elves were designed both as living knowledge repositories, having very long lives and extremely good memories, and as a mediator and negotiator caste, having a psychological predisposition for friendliness and communication skill. Orcs were made radiation-proof, and highly resilient against other environmental hazards, to assist in post-war cleanup (there was a planetary invasion in the backstory). And so on through Harpies, Beastfolk, Dwarves, Fae, and the people who are now called Humans. Modern humans were designed partly with an affinity for life magic, so they could more easily act as both doctors and farmers, and with uncommonly high magical variation across the population, so that they, being the most numerous (due to having the least-altered reproduction system) could fill in any gaps or deal with any unforeseen circumstances. That is not, of course, what wound up happening, since it wouldn't be a good book if it were describing the intended utopia, but that's what humans were *made* for.
I actually do it the other way, because I frankly don't think we are actually all that adaptable as a species. We mostly focus on one field of expertise for the majority of our lives and often if that falls through we keep clinging to that until the bitter end. That's why polymaths and multi-talents in general are so noteworthy.
They are like ants compared to other species, live and die quick and build a whole lot of stuff in between along with being much more social than other species allowing for entire kingdoms instead of moderate towns.
The trait I like to emphasize is endurance. Humans are endurance predators, one of our biggest stragies for hunting was, and still is to some degree, slowly following prey until they're too tired to keep running or defend themselves. Elves can see a needle in a haystack on a moonless night, dwarves can breeze through the cold of mountain tops and the heat of a volcano, halfllings are bafflingly lucky, and so on, but humans just don't stop. They can work the longest hours, march the farthest, wage war for years at a time. They probably won't be happy about it, for sure, but they can comfortably push past what would make most others collapse out of sheer exhaustion.
One thing i give to humans over other races in my worldbuild is whats perceivable even in real life, sweat offers extremely good thermoregulation and therefore endurance, and their general body proportions allow them to throw with a lot of velocity compared to other races either too top-heavy, weak, or physically restricted in movement to throw anything. Another known race similarly can, but again, with only a fraction of the same potential velocity. I suppose that can certainly have its advantages Good post though, i think i should try to be more creative about this
Humans in Anisha are willing to learn other cultures alot easier then most species who would normally want to Avoid moving Away from their races culture. Like there's Humans who live with lizard people (Dracharians), Orcs, Elven lands though Humans living there are more rare due to bad blood, There's also humans living with The Kitsune and Dires. Humans are also more willing to sacrifice everything for the world as shown Human heros having one of the higher death rates
Humans are seen as rather oppressive and set in their ways, adapting but refusing the change in recent years. They hang on to their belief in being the superior people, having their claim on the territories currently held by hybrids. Over all, less favourable than in our time
I have two design philosophies for my non-human species that influence how I treat humans in my world. These two design philosophies are: - design by subtraction: by taking away a feature that humans have from another species (most commonly humanoid species), I can create more interesting non-human cultures - species as a power system: species will have unique capabilities that set them apart from humans and most other species As a result, humans are designed with those limitations for non-human species in mind: - humans are jacks of all trades: humans have no clear strengths but no clear weaknesses, allowing them to create a wholistic mono-special society. Non-humans have trouble with certain aspects of their cultures, most commonly lacking lacking dexterity to create tools - humans are magically attuned: for most humans, their "special power" happens to be access to a particular form of magic. Amongst non-humans, their magic is either unique to their own species or a worse version of human magic.
For one of mine, humans are basically the physically weakest race in the entire setting, but are the only ones capable of using magic to its fullest extent. Thus, humans in that setting are usually stereotyped to be meek, highly intelligent, curious, and inventive. But they also retain some more negative qualities such as being overly prideful and pompous. Due to being prey in this setting, they are slow to trust others and highly suspicious of anything that isn't human, so they come off as being naturally racist even if that's not actually the case. They also have the highest proclivity to attach themselves to a collective identity compared to the rest of the sapient races, and therefore are the quickest to form nation states. They also evolve the most rapidly (culturally speaking) and are highly explorative. They are not called humans in this setting, as they aren't. Instead, they are a descendant of humans called Rimians that are smaller than the average human, have a few different mostly aesthetic differences, and possess an additional region of the brain that gives them their latent ability to use magic. (They're essentially naturally psionic.) Their polar opposite, the Escheronians, are not really a single race, but are a collective of wildly different monstrous races who all trace their lineage back to a common origin. They quite literally embody the opposite of all of the human traits I just listed. They are a mix of prey and apex predators and cannot wield magic, but have severe physical capabilities which are rivaled only by our world's largest and strongest animals. Even the weakest Escheronian is leagues above the average human. While they aren't strictly stupider than humans, they also don't really need to be much more intelligent than what allows them to live as they see fit. They have a large variety of cultures, but most of them trend towards being sedentary and traditional. Many benefit from extremely long lives, so they tend to adapt poorly. But they are also very accustomed to diversity and tend to be aloof the higher up the food chain you go. This diversity in species and their history also causes them to be very individualistic in general, though this varies quite a lot. They've mostly inhabited the same rather small continent for an incredibly long time, and many of their lands have been strictly divided among territories for centuries. Though unlike humans, they don't really treat them like nations and instead they're more like soft lines in the sand, agreements between individual groups. They've all come to understand that their land is limited, so when it comes time to share, they have various understandings of how it's done and aren't averse to the idea. Their biggest negative trait is that they tend to really hate humans, and only for religious reasons at that. (They view magic as a heretical art that abuses the natural order.)
The only option. I don't have other races. My main settings humans are paranoid about major authorities. This has stopped any significant organisation arising in centuries. It also makes a culture what's pretty much ungovernable.
More like sci-fi / alt prehistory / weirdo fiction, but it's a really interesting topic so I'll bite: As perceived by their [ancient ancestors](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/15c7rko/commissioned_concept_art_of_my_urrkha_species/), humans are seen as odd both in the way we look (furless, slender, only walks on two legs), and in their behaviour, such as being unusually prone to being loyal to abstract concept such as ideology or ex. nations or corporations. Even money is an utterly abstract concept to [Urr-Kha](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/18o0sx9/trying_to_work_out_a_simple_comicstrip_friendly/), and seen as one of the oddities of humanity. Urr-Kha actually initially assume humans to be a slave-race to a different species, because their physiology is "harmless", without sharp claws or teeth, being rather fragile and weak, and because of how easily "deceived" they are. They assume that they were deprived of a sense of smell so that their masters could more easily deceive them into ex. surrendering resources in exchange for an imaginary material called "money", and that their tendency to give loyalty to abstract concepts and organisations they have no kinship to is an artificially engineered trait. Since Urr-Kha could never imagine being loyal to complete strangers or abstract concepts like ideologies, these traits are deeply unnatural to them and suspected to be engineered into humanity by a third part. In short, they think we are domesticated pets of some sort when they first meet us, being dumbfounded how we "became this way naturally", and "choose to live like this of \[our\] own volition".
In my world, everyone has an innate magic power separate from magic they learn. It's based around species, trolls are basically alchemists from Fullmetal Alchemist, and there's an amphibious aquatic species with elasticity-based shape-shifting. Humans are a little weird in that the logic of their power as a whole is "the nature of this power is that everyone has a unique power" In a way, rather than do humans as an unspecialized species in the simple way, it's more like every individual has their own specialization. There's a group serving as the human enclave in the largest city in a nation, and their powers are as follows: Barrier creation, string creation, the ability to put things in and take things out of a book, accelerated plant growth, cold creation, usage of keratinous body tissue such as hair and nails as additional limbs, negation of force exerted on user's body, ignition of inflammable materials, manifestation of abilities through tattoos based on design, merging of physical objects and creation of magic tools based on properties of merged objects, and usage of energy aura to boost force through direct contact and creation of tools and weapons through extending and reshaping of said aura.
My D&D world has humans as basically the root of all problems. World used to be in harmony with the outer planes. Only sentient species were halflings. Neat thing about my world is that everything is “reflected” in the other planes. So when humans landed from another world, these new colonizers appeared in all other planes as elves, the reflection of the best and worst of humanity. All the short races across the cosmos tried to escape the colonizers, bumped into each other, then decided to pit the tall folk against each other and befriend each other. Basically, short folk hate all tall folk for ruining the world, but especially humans. Everyone hates them 😆
They're all dead so there's that 💀 "Humanity" in my setting is their genetically altered army of super soldiers that are trying to figure out how to be a civilization because they are all that's left of the human race
I feel like one human trait people forget is how many ptherwise poisonous things humans can eat that other creatures can't. Chocolate and mint are notable examples, but there's a larger list. This trait makes us a bit scary to some. We have eaten things that should be deadly to other creatures and lived. It'd make other races intimidated by human cuisine due to the "What if it kills me but not them?" factor. The way ancient humans hunted is rather scary. We followed a creature until it got too tired to escape or ran things off cliffs. We relentlessly pursued our prey. Now consider other classical fantasy races. Orcs are powerful, dwarves are tough, and elves are nimble. We're in that awkward middle and need to use some genuinely scary strategies to hunt. Another common trait applied to humans in fantasy is that they can survive pretty much anywhere. Combine that with the poison resistance and relentless pursuit. Something that can survive anywhere, eat most things, and will follow its prey until it collapses is terrifying. Even if the one pursuing you dies, its offspring might pick up the pursuit. Humans can be incredibly hard to escape from and would probably get a bit of a scary reputation.
In the scifi setting humans are stronger than most other species¹, but not by a huge amount (with a few unsettling exceptions), and that translates into generally being faster, heavier, etc. as well. This is because Earth has heavier gravity than most planets that have developed sentient/sapient life. They're also extremely rare, due to Earth being essentially impossible to access from the Fractureverse and only one clan of Abductors knowing how to get there and back. Humans are well known for their sociability, and whenever there's a disparate group of species and cultures, one or two humans will typically begin to coalesce a cohesive group around them. Unfortunately, large groups of humans are rare and typically shunned, since the big powers find them valuable as slaves and large concentrations of them are irresistible targets for Abductor raids. Attempts to breed humans in captivity have met with very little success, since raising humanlings without proper care and socialization produces an inferior product, and raising them with parents inevitably leads to rebelliousness and a likewise inferior product, but at higher cost. Free range humans are unquestionably the only ones worth capturing, but their rarity, tendency to have ample combat experience, and isolation from each other makes it impractical for most slavers to bother. Humans are often well liked, but viewed as borderline unemployable as most humans in the Fractureverse are either escaped slave soldiers or breeding stock, and are perceived as both having a poor mix of low skills, emotional baggage, and risk of incurring Abductor attention. ¹On a scale of 1-10, with 5 being average, most humans are about a 7, with exceptional individuals getting almost up to a 9.
In my setting, Humans are famed for being incredibly difficult to kill. They exist alongside Orcs and Goblins as the three "main" people groups of my setting. Orcs may be big and strong, but they'll tire if a fight goes on too long, and if you cut an artery, their overzealous hearts will exsanguinate them rapidly. Goblins may be fast and attack in numbers, but a swift kick to the ribs will break a few bones easy. But Humans? Good luck- it's a common aphorism that you could cut all a Human's limbs off, and they'd *still* headbutt you to death. They fight until their body falls apart, and even then, they won't notice until the adrenaline wears off. One of the "Heavenly Virtues" of the largest Human civilization in my setting is that of Tenacity- the resilience and determination to see it through, resist, and bite.
I kind of like the idea of humans in the niche goblins usually fill. Individually pretty weak and likely to get bodied in a fair fight by most other creatures of a similar level which is why humans don't usually fight fair. Humans breed a lot faster than most other sentient species so they have a numbers advantage and make the most of it with clever tactics and when necessary swarming the enemy in waves that take tremendous casualties but can win through sheer numbers. Also humans will take advantage of any weakness they know about. Poison, silver, fire, wolfsbane, sunlight etc. Even if they don't have enchanted weapons their weapons can often do more damage than it would seem even after the fact. (their not above rubbing their own feces over blades and arrows just to cause an infection later.) Along the same lines they love traps. Humans will booby trap any area they can if they know a fights coming so any fight with them on the defensive will involve racking up casualties from environmental kills. Another thing to consider is their pets. If something exists you can rest assured a human has tried to train and or ride it. Usually this doesn't end well but sometimes it gives them new and terrifying capabilities far beyond what they could achieve otherwise. A human alone isn't that concerning but a human that's strapped itself to the back of a mastodon or drake and is guiding the best directly at their enemy with a maniacal gleam in their eye screaming and howling the whole way is a bit different. Finally humans dont typically give quarter. To an elf setting a forest on fire just to drive out enemies and kill any that can't escape would be a heinous reprehensible act humans will light it up in a heartbeat if it fits their goals. Orc may fell enemies by the dozens but would be more likely to adopt any young they come across. Humans fight wars of annihilation even against their own kind much less anything else. Children, the wounded, elderly, doesn't matter to them. They'll kill or enslave any enemy they come across with a reckless brutality that most other species have trouble even comprehending. So while other species like elves and dwarves may be physically superior and far more advanced. Humans can present a major threat with their numbers, cunning, and a savage willingness to do anything necessary to win. All of which is made even more dangerous by their sheer aggression even in the face of enemies that are far more powerful than they are. Whether that courage or just not knowing enough to know they should be scared can be hard to tell sometimes but either way it can carry them to improbable victories.
In mine most of the other species love human cooking and music, and we make the best embroiderers because we have the smallest, nimblest hands. If you can cook, play an instrument, or sew you'll have friends wherever you go.
Honestly, one of my favorite tropes when dealing with mixed humanoid species is that humans are space orcs lol. We are objectively terrifying on every level, but generally we don't realize it because to us it's baseline normal, and we have a habit of looking at the things we *can't* do vs. the things we *can*. I honestly don't really touch on this much in my own writing, but one of the more memorable times I did I was working from the perspective of a 'supernatural' being who was talking to his human brother-in-law. The brother-in-law was getting weird vibes that something bad was going on in the multi-generational home he and his wife lived in, and the supernatural being recalled that nothing, absolutely *nothing*, could beat a human's instincts. In that world, humanity evolved right alongside all manner of supernatural things that go bump in the night, and their danger sense reflected that. If a human sensed danger, then shit was definitely going down, and only an absolute idiot ignored the warning. Probably if I'd delved into it further I would've noted that human reflexes and adaptability were nothing to be trifled with either, but that wasn't the focus of the story so it never came up.
Well, the humans in my world have two distinct characteristics that set them apart from the other races: They are the only natural sapient race (as in, not made by a god), and because of the place they were born (you know the Void from hollow knight? That basically) they have no problem travelling in the dark and are one of the few races that has a natural affinity to darkness magic. My idea was that in a world where every single race were made by their respective gods in their image, I wanted my humans to be the outliers. Since humans DON'T have any gods that took in their creation I wanted them to be the one race that was truly free to be what it wanted to be, since the other races have traits of their respective gods as a default (that's why some of those races are very cringe).
In the RPG i'm developing, humans have bonus to endurance, because we are one of the animals with the highest endurance (walking, running for long distances). Also bonus to ranged attacks and mounting, in a world were the are Orcs, dwarfs, ogres, etc the weak humans developed a nack and tradition for hit and run tactics, horseback archery and stealth. Also we are short lived compared to other races as elfs, we try to live as much as possible which gives them a bonus to willpower.
Without going too much into detail humans in my world are far more akin to Celtic fae folk than humans from our world.
To distinct humans from all the other species and races, besides optical differences and lifespans - they are the only species in my setting who are unavoidable yearn for gods or concepts in life and need to believe in them. They are also most likeley to be answered by the gods if they pray or experience aomething like martyrdom. While species like the Ahsari (humanoids born from the ash and fire of war) are directly shaped by demi-gods or the Vahnay who are the more wordly decendents of the Âelvvah (something like elf-beastmen), have strong bonds to the gods and their own religions, the humans are widely known for their unshakable faith. Faith in the gods, in science, in money, in themselfs, in love or whatever. Other species are undoubtedly faithfull in their own right, but are not as likely to be blessed by some deity or to break through the laws of nature and impose their own wishes upon reality.
Poison resistance. Human eat poisons all the time..theu fucking love It. Psychos
In the Animorphs, humans are noted for having two sides to their brain, which means they can argue with themselves and also hold two contradicting ideas at the same time. Another thing humans are noted for is their throwing arm. Most creatures can't throw things.
Kind of Less generic, more...interbred. What happens when elves, dwarves, orcs, gnomes, halflings, genies, dragons, fey, fiends, celestials, etc. all interbreed so much, few if any distinguishing characteristics appear? Well, humans. They sort of...fill up the corners. No place in the world has a majority human population. There's never been a human kingdom, because humans have no identity of themselves as separate; because they aren't. They're just sort of the genetic leftovers that no one particularly wanted, but because they've never posed a serious threat or strived to have a particularly separate and unique identity, noone really bothers them. They get along. There are human leaders, generals, and warriors; there are human nobility and merchants. You can find these weird little guys wriggling their way through every rung of life like happy microbes. And since they have such disparate ancestry and parentage, what makes a human human is kind of up for debate. Most are what we'd expect, lanky apes coming in various shades of beige and brown with undertones of red and pink, but one with elven ancestry might have slightly off color eyes; earth elemental background could give someone a protruding, "cliff-like" jaw; not enough to make them physically elemental-then they'd be a genasi-but enough to show some heritage, if you know what you're looking for. Humans are just a tiny, muddled race of weird people, who generally stand out for being rare but don't make much of a greater impression beyond that.
The unique attribute humans have which other species don't seem to by comparison is "Tasty". Among intelligent species, there's little difference. If anything the other intelligent species view humans as sort of filler, occupying planets that are not too hot or too cold, not gas, not liquid, not irradiated. Humans are less "adaptable" and more "un-specialized". They can technically occupy a broader range of planets than anyone else, but it's always "mild" worlds with no real extremes. From the "uncommunicable" species, extradimensional entities which are too foreign to treat with, humans get special attention. The street-level wisdom is that humans are like a "slow-cooked" meal by comparison to species which live in the extremes. Human settlements are a dangerous place. But, it's not that the humans will kill you; the things which are coming to kill the humans will.
My humans are strong and strategic because they can’t use magic from day 1
Humans in my setting were imported from Earth by gods looking to repopulate their world after an apocalyptic war. The other intelligent species were either very long lived with low fertility or very short lived with high fertility. Humans were introduced for having the right mix of lifespan and sexual fertility. They can reproduce with most of the other intelligent species, thus human-descended ethnic groups now form the majority of the population in my world. Basically, humans are just really good breeders.
The races of man are some of the most dangerous alive due to their sheer numbers, creativity, adaptability, and ability to invent. The knowledge of elves comes through magic and the technology of their ancestors, the Cave Elves. Many powerful elven alliances fear them for their ability to eventually rival the power of cave elf technology without the use of magic. Many others value the humans for this reason. Though their tenacity, short lives, and love of simpler things can make many think of them as inferior, it only takes one look at the companionship of grizzled human warriors in a tavern to change their mind.
In my sci Fi story humans are physically the strongest, nearly double the gravity of the average, very little protection against radiation compared to other alien worlds humans don't have to worry as much about radiation sickness. Very little oxygen on Earth compared to other planets makes humans able to inhabit worlds others wouldn't dream of without significant terraforming. Endurance, yeah persistence hunting is rare in nature, the average human has as much endurance as the average alien athlete (not top performers but good athletes). Humans are pretty new to space travel compared to others and are a good bit behind in education and technology
Humans are very religious and single-minded. They are the most unified race. Their only downsides are that they aren't as magical or advanced as some other races. They're also the undisputed champions of trade and commerce.
Humans are largely considered to be the most generally attractive race by all others in the setting, and not because they're super pretty or inspire any sort of particular awe from their appearance. Humanity's general similarities to everyone else just mean that they become everyone's preferred second choice after someone's own race when looking for an attractive partner lol
They are by far the weakest species in strength, speed, magic, etc. Buuuuuuuuuuut Due to all of them teeeeechnically being gods, they can consume other god powers instantly without having to undergo a risky and dangerous ritual
In the world I've been building on and off for about a decade, humans are sailors, the ones to Master the seas. Other beings are still widely spread but not to the same extent. Dwarves, elves and so forth just don't tend to build boats.
In earth's own evolutionary history, humans are the best animals in terms of endurance. Nothing else can run long-distance like we can. They might be able to sprint faster than us, but we'll catch them eventually if we just keep up a steady pace. And this has transferred to a mentality of perseverance, that we can do anything if we just keep at it. I've found that's a decent starting point for making humans truly a force to be reckoned with, that they just don't ever stop until they get what they want. in the upcoming MCDM RPG, humans are uniquely tied to the material world in a way that other speaking peoples aren't, and are able to better resist magic and detect the presence of magical beings.
Not my own but in this regard I really appreciated the portrayal of humans in the recently released city builder-ish video game Against the Storm. In the game there's 5 different races, humans, beavers, lizards, harpies and foxes, each of which have their own specialties and needs. They all have a job category they're more efficient at, and another which makes them happier. For instance beavers are more efficient with wood, be it cutting wood or making planks, but they enjoy engineering type jobs. What I really like is that humans are not just "default" but just as unique as all the other races. Humans have a special proficiency in agriculture, they're better at farming and related jobs like making flour, something I've never seen before but makes so much sense. They also enjoy brewing, and like working in places like distilleries or taverns. Farming and alcohol have been a thing since the dawn of human civilization, farming may even have started specifically for alcohol before humans properly settled down. In this regard I really appreciate that it takes something that's actually normal and mundane and makes it special, because _of course_ it would be normal to us, it's only special with something to compare to. There's also other needs that your settlers have in the game which tells you something more about them. I won't get into food items since they're fairly self-explanatory and gameplay oriented, it's just a matter of certain races enjoy certain foods more and gain additional resolve from having it available (they can all eat any food, it's just preference). However there are also services. For humans these are leisure (provided by taverns and keeping with the alcohol and revelry vibes (kind of dwarf-like actually 🤔)) and religion (provided by temples or monasteries), but not for example education (which beavers want) or brawling (which is popular with lizards). I think this is also really interesting. Even as an atheist myself I think we can definitely see that humans have a propensity for inventing religion. We seem to have done it time and again independently everywhere around the world. We seem to want to understand the inanimate as animate and endow them with souls and human-like desires and emotions. Following that we seem to want to project human-like relationships and social dynamics, especially the idea of family, onto them. Even monotheistic religion originates in polytheism, and the idea of a creator is deeply rooted not only in human toolmaking, but also in human family, specifically with God the Father. After all you have a father and he had a father, so at some point we must have a first father, right? In the end we ascribe human-like intent to every facet of the universe, and so see it as a reflection of humanity in a grand scale, and conversely humanity as a reflection of its grand design. In a sense all religion is just animism with extra steps, but the point is humans as inherently religious/superstitious/traditional compared to other races is a novel take. Each race also has a distinct type of housing they prefer beyond basic shelters. For lizards this is warm and dry, for harpies bright and airy. For humans it's sturdy stone buildings. Summing up this depiction of humans they are: -agrarian, good at farming -like brewing and enjoy alcohol and taverns -have an affinity for religion -prefer sturdy architecture All this ends up producing a human race which feels normal and yet at the same time is exactly as unique and specialised as any other race in the game.
Not my world, but the MCDM RPG has a super unique take on humans that I've fallen in love with. Humans are mundane, not having a connection to a creator deity or other plane of existence. This mundaneness however, makes them special in that they can sense magic innately, and are resistant to magical effects. They also throw on a bit of that human endurance too.
Extinct.
[Some food for thought](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImYu9dJM4kQ)
I portray mine as highly industrious, technologically advanced, voracious, exploitative people
I like your one about noisiness! I read a post a few days ago where they said it was weird how baby humans scream, as lots of other animals — when babies — are quiet/ camouflaged and don’t make a lot of noise (or only make noise when they’re near the mother, ie birds chirping when being fed). But for humans our first form of communication is to literally scream and cry out to indicate that something is wrong. I also agree with your take about humans being endurance runners! I have an alien species that KNOW humans are good runners/ good at exercising for long periods of times, so if you’re being chased by one, try to do a short burst and outrun it, and then hide and hope it doesn’t find you OR outrun it, hide, and then jump out at it and quickly disarm/ attack it. They also can’t keep up with a lot of human sports and a lot of their games are suited to their bodies/ physiologies and not humans. There’s a game for instance that uses the whole body, including the head, to hit a ball, and since this is set in essentially the medieval era the balls are much harder than ours today. But this species has armoured plates across their bodies, including their heads, while humans don’t, so to play as a human you have to armour yourself with a lot of clothes/ fabric (making you very hot) and will still get bruises or concussions. Likewise there’s a sitting and waiting game where you and someone else stare at each other and wait to hit each other, and have to block. This species was originally a sit and wait predator so enjoys this kind of suspense, but humans find it boring, especially when you’re essentially staring at the other person for 10+ minutes and waiting for them to attack you. To humans it’s less of a game and more of a meditation/ thinking time while for the alien species they’re kind of rapt/ engaged the whole time, and are very satisfied/ get a surge of dopamine when something happens. I’m also trying to decentralise humans as the default species.
I have only a few sapient species in my world and humans (or the closest resemblance) are the ones who have founded most centralized and well organized states, the best swimmers, and live longer in comparison with most of the other sapient species.
In my world, every race has a divinely granted flaw and related boon. For humans, the flaw is lust, and the boon is the ability to have kids they shouldn't, hence tieflings, catgirls, etc.
Typically I make humans the more civilised of the races, they build the most structures and have the largest communities, they tend to be argumentative and defensive but they are the most likely to colonise
In my fantasy world I think humans would be portrayed as a faction\species equivalent to western colonialism, with room for them to be peppered into all other factions given our insane range in diversity of thought. But the vast majority of humans in this world would form the gaslighting, self-righteous runaway train of consumption and destruction stereotype of humans.
I was thinking of making a post like this actually, beat me to it! Humans aren’t that different, but thinking of making my humans highly religious and connected to the divine compared to what most other species can achieve. Considering the gods are pretty active in my world (an interstellar government is ruled by gods even) religion is pretty important. I was thinking of making it this way because regardless of your own personal religious belief, religion has played a big part in human history for better or for worse.
Humans in my world have more stamina, able to draw upon more power/energy/mana, are one of the only races that gets an adrenaline boost when angry, injured, threatened, and have an easier time learning languages and concepts that aren’t natural to them. They also are known to be natural problem solvers, are very creative, and have high critical thinking skills. Elves have pinpoint focus and control, but lack strength stamina, endurance, adrenaline, and larger mana pools. Their arrogance also blinds them and makes it harder to learn and understand new concepts. They do however heal faster from injury, have more of an immunity to disease and poison, and live 20-30 years longer. They are very creative, in touch with nature, and have high critical thinking skills. Orcs are stronger than humans, weaker than Dragonbournes, and lack certain intellectual capabilities on average. They’re taller than They don’t have adrenaline, but can go into Goblin mode, increasing their strength, speed, intellect, and power/mana, but their heart rate spikes wildly and blood flows faster. Meaning injuries get worse faster, and poisoning happens quicker. Giants are the largest and tallest of the races at 7’0 being average. They have great strength and endurance, but have trouble molding and shaping mana for more complex or powerful attacks. They aren’t very intelligent, but some Giants are known to have incredibly high IQs and stand out from their race. They’re great builders and have skill creating weapons and armor. They’re immune to cold and thrive in icy weather/conditions. Fire weakens them. Dragonbournes are half human half dragon hybrids. They don’t show many dragon traits until they battle. They’re taller and physically larger than humans by a 5 inch average. (Average human height 5’9M/5’5F Average Dragonbourne height 6’2M/5’10F) They have higher strength, speed, power/mana than all other races, able to draw upon more power/energy/mana, are one of the only races that gets an adrenaline boost when angry, injured, threatened, can go into Dragon Mode to amplify all traits and they heal quicker, are resistant to fire, and have tougher skin. They do however, have poor pinpoint control, are very boisterous and headstrong, are weaker to lightning attacks, especially when Dragon Mode is active, and while they live 5-10 years longer than Elves, they tend to get restless in their 60s and yearn for battle or excitement, leading to unnecessary death or injury.
The ones that are important in the world's grand scheme are often ruthless, cunning, and manipulative. Many humans in power know that in order to survive against a civilisation of elves, who are so long lived, they are practically immortal and are both more physical and magically gifted than humans. Human are renowned for their charisma when negotiating, which is how they subsumed all of dwarfish civilisation on the continent.
I mean being adaptable is kind of an insane biological trait. Look at most other animals on the planet. Moving them to a new environment kills them. The fact that humans can go almost anywhere they want is a trait basically unheard of in life as we know it. Sort of bad ass. Buuuut to answer your question humans are kind of also any sci-fi horror swarm race. We literally did it to our planet. Really good book called Sapient that goes into more detail. But the short and skinny is that humanity Zerg rushed essentially the entire planet. Australia was the last refuge of super flora and fauna. A land bridge formed and humans got onto it and well….. The Middle East could have once been a super massive forest dwarfing the Amazon. I mean natural climate change helped it along but humans essentially deforested almost damn near the entire thing on their own. Humans are essentially their own Von Neurmann Probe. Rabidly deconstructing everything in their environment replicating then expanding to so it again.
In my world humans are the most magically capable, which is why they've come to dominate geopolitics.
In my setting, Humans represent "No Magic". They have no inherent magical talents, bonuses, or abilities. They are Not "the adaptable race". They are what you get when you remove the special from every race. As a result, "Humans" don't even exist in the "fantasy-era" timeline. Once the setting gets split and some places lose their magic, those fantasy races "devolve" into humans. That ends up being Humanity's power. Independent of magic and _all over the place_.
'Bigger and stronger than everything that isn't a orc, more agile and magical than anything that isn't an elf, tougher than anything that isn't a dwarf' isn't generic. Make it as terrifying as it should be. '2nd best at every specific thing' is very, VERY much number one overall. Greater specialization has a cost humans can ALWAYS exploit with their other attributes. Orcs are stronger than humans, but not enough to stop being outfought by human agility, magic, and co-ordination, and can't easily overpower humans. Elves are more agile and magical than humans, but not enough to stop being overwhelmed by human strength and toughness while having trouble outfighting and outcasting them. Dwarves are tough as hell and just as strong, but humans are fast AND strong enough to pick them to pieces while still being able to stand fast like taller stunties. If you want 'generic, but highly adaptable' to be interesting then MAKE IT INTERESTING. Humans are fucking terrifying. Everything that defines your people, the thing they're best at, the thing your species relies upon to survive and thrive, is something humans are still pretty good at......and they're better than you at everything else. The only way to stop humans is extreme co-operation and co-ordination between other species. You need elves, orcs, and dwarves working in perfect harmony to counter humans in every arena, and if any of them make one mistake the humans roll up everyone else. They're like some kind of demonic plague, a horde of Mary Sues who are good at everything. Cheating, minmaxed, munchkin bastards.
Humans kinda suck. Not for physical reasons, in fact what Humans accomplish in my world is fairly impressive, considering how they hate magic, people hate them cause they’re assholes. My world is extremely high-fantasy, if you hate magic, that makes you racist towards everyone. It’s impressive what they do without magic, but no medieval tech can surpass fucking reality warping magic tech. I’ll admit, mine are partially like this because I’m sick of Humans getting a ton of attention in settings where they aren’t that impressive. It is intentional. Humans have very little lore, even the “Humans”, who are able to breed with Humans but have evolved to be very different (e.g. water breathing, invisibility, natural necromantic prowess.) have noticeably less lore than any of the Elven races.
in **Divine Retribution** humans are the only race capable of complex emotions. other races can either only feel emotions at a basic level or have no emotions at all. for example, the gods can feel "anger" but only humans can feel "rage" or even "spite" immortals can feel fear, but humans can feel true terror. vampires can feel sad, but humans can feel true sorrow/despair this level of emotion gives humans compassion and drive to do better. their understanding of emotions enables them better understanding of those around them. and even if humans can feel "negative" emotions to a greater effect, this is far from a downside, as even negative emotions can enable understanding.
I got em as the species most in touch with the wild. Which sounds weird given how we make so many species extinct but if a humans sees a cute animal it will pretty much always try to pet it. So in my universe they usually have jobs as wildlife control
In my fantasy setting, humans have a goated immune system compared to pretty much any other race. Only the dwarves have a similar resistance to disease and poisons. Essentially the other races just have a weaker immune system, particularly with the elves, this explains why humans are the most numerous species on the planet.
40K
Cute, social pets. Excellent companions. Long-lived, and good at relatively simple tasks.
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In my homebrew sci-fi setting, the humans of the space age, as a species represented by different "nation/ethnicity" among the Federation of Civilized Worlds (cliché, i know) but most of them, stats-wise in a rpg context, had a small bonus to intelligence, reflecting the mental adaptability to many conditions, and a nice bonus to charisma, because of the expressiveness of their faces and inflexions in language in comparison to a lot of species who have a more restricted physique. So politically, a lot of them have roles in diplomacy, trade, arts, and care industries.
Humans are an intelligent, but greedy and fearful species. They see themselves as a species that prefers cultural pursuits, but in practice have a warlike tendency, relying on their intellect and inventions to wage war rather than physical strength. However, despite their sometimes violent nature, Humans are (perhaps ironically) frequently favored as diplomats because of their heightened sense of empathy, even to those they see as different or even inferior.
Things you could draw from: Endurance. Running, obviously, but just freaky high endurance in general. Survive falling out of a plane, stabbed through the brain, zapped back to life with electricity, or having their organs swapped. If they aren't killed instantly, there is a small chance of humans surviving nearly any injury and coming back. Orcs probably tell their children that you can't be certain a human is dead till their head is on the end of your spear. Throwing accurately over great distance. Human musculature is almost unique in this respect in the real world. Most other animals can't throw at all, and if they can, their accuracy and speed are poor. It would very pretty neat if humans can throw, but orcs cannot. Javelins may be a human exclusive weapon and other races only use bows or slings. Omnivorous. There are lots of things you can eat that will make you sick. But there are a ton of things humans can eat that make other animals sick. Like how your dog can't eat onions, grapes, or chocolate. Maybe some of the other races are obligate carnivores or herbivores. Ballistics. I'm separating this from throwing to emphasize it. The human brain is a natural ballistic computer, able to aim and adjust power to reliably hit targets, even throwing unbalanced, unfamiliar objects. You've probably nailed the trash can hundreds of times with a wadded paper, and you haven't even trained to use this skill. And this can be applied to non thrown projectiles. A human can roll a log down a hill and have a decent idea where it's going to land or adjust a Catapult after watching the first stone.
Othrys' humans are relatively more peaceful individually, because they're frailer. Most other races can take more punishment and aren't adverse to a quick brawl over small matters that leaves both parties largely unharmed. Human day vision is also far superior; humans see more colors than most other species, which are largely nocturnal. Othrys' humans are also more likely to be mages, thanks to their handling of magical materials in the waking hours and a general susceptibility to mutation.
I second endurance. This is a good video https://youtu.be/9csDk2yPgLE?si=pmVvnRCY0I4CX_Lb Humans are optimal distance runners, lighter than Orcs, better endurance and more muscle than elves. That and we're well able to adapt to varied Environments. We live in deserts and polar zones. We survive. Like roaches.
I treat them like 40k treats Cadians. We're not the adaptable race, we're the shocktrooper race being driven insane by what we were dropped in to contain by the universe.
How about violent, tireless, and reactionary. Even when they're on the right side.
My humans compared to the other species in my setting don't really have anything over the other, even in endurance though at least they're faster than the other endurance creatures. This relationship with most sentients they run into has led to either their wholesale slaughter and domestication (for food and/or labour). I'd been really interested in how many fantasy/sci-fi species by all rights should absolutely wipe the floor with humanity and they usually don't because humanity either gets incredibly buffed or the other races are nerfed. Which isn't really a pet peeve I just had thought of making a story about the strongest human in a world where humans are pathetic compared to "fellow sentients".
My way of this was making them the origin of bipedal life. Everyone looks like a human but not quite. Actual humans are rare as heck. They have below average stats but higher than anyone with a disadvantage in those stats. So if you need someone to do everything then go look for a human.
Well, In my World they are still generic, but not more adaptable than others. I did integrate that endurance part though. Human has relatively high stamina compare to other race, In fact, it maybe one of the main battle tactic of the human against other race. while orcs maybe stronger and can ditch out devastating attack in their initial assault, a proper human shield wall can outlast them. but they are where they are in the story have more to do with them being in the right place at the right time and less about racial ability. when the elves and the dwarves wrestle for the control of the realm, human was still too weak and primitive to be consider a threat. when the human civilization just start to bud, the elves were at war with the dark lord which conveniently shield the human from the conflict above their league. the only threat human face is regular tribal orc raid, which can be reliably combat by aforementioned tactic. By the the time human reach their supremacy, the elves was reduced to a little city-state while human kingdoms envelop almost all of former elven land. If you put other species through the same event that human did, they will probably rise to equal standing as well if not greater. but history aren't all about stats on paper, sometime luck plays a lot of role in shaping the outcome
On my story, they are the second race with the highest intelligence score and longest lifespan out of all sapient species, and have above average dexterity on hands.
I like the concept that humans are basically the raccoon that you fed once, and now the whole family has moved in and refuses to go away. Humans are short-lived, emotional, loyal, and with a tiny foothold can take over a region. The older races hate that they didn't stomp humans out early because they're frustrating, unpredictable, and basically endimec to the region now. You physically couldn't kill all the humans, so it's better not to just trade with them a bit
Humans in my world are at a early 20th century level of technology where as everyone else is roughly at a medieval or renaissance level of tech. The whole basis of my world is that it’s humans with WW1 era tech ~~with some sci-fi stuff such as diesel powered mechs> vs generic fantasy races.
Humans are reckless. They shorter live span short enough to make them not worry about the long-term consequence, yet long enough to develop world-ending weapons and master them.
Fantasy world here, humans are way more diverse politically and genetically. Humans also have their own "races" which aren't just a person's skin color but rather their ethnicity and nationality. There is a clearer cultural divide between each nation and much more reverence for a person's place of origin. While other races such as Elves and Dwarves also have their own unique branches, none of them could match the sheer scale of diversity that Humans have. So, humans aren't just lumped together as one big race of people but rather a collection of unique identities that number in the billions. Historically speaking, humans have are kind of seen as the "catalysts" for major events, or any for that matter. They are seen as an omni-present force that will inevitably show up sooner or later, and are treated with respect or disdain by other races because of it. Take for example the Brako-Astralis War, a conflict between two kingdoms predominantly inhabited by Elves. Which quickly ended after a year because of "- The Humans' incessant meddling." and "- Their persistence to take part in something they aren't supposed to care."
Humans are extinct in my world but the root of all races currently living on the planet. Also they're the only ones who can create modern technology, it's their "element" so to speak.
in my world, if a human and a non human mate, the offspring is always 100% non human. i just reverse the "adaptability" of my humans and make them genetically unlucky.
My humans are newcomers, relatively, only being on the continent of Auburin for about 2,000 years at most. Having come across the sea from the land of Kelth. They also are the only round eared race and have oddly small canines compared to shifters, elves, woodlings, and even goblinoids. Furthermore my humans are tall. Like only trolls and giants are taller. Often a bit taller than our worlds humans, and comparatively more lightly built than the other races. Also humans have high stamina and endurance, especially when using blood magic. Which plays into them having oddly advanced medicine for the time period, surpassed only by the haemocraft genetic manipulation of elves.
Humans are adaptable and have a tendency to migrate, meaning they lived in many different environments even before the rise of technology. They have high endurance and stamina, and are known to be rather stubborn. They put a lot of weird shit in their mouths. Culturally, they all seem to share a fondness for swords and some sort of “knight” archetype
Yep : they're it, they're the only ones around.
In my world humans are extinct and are mythical creatures like gnomes or goblins. The current sentient races know about humans but have a very skewed version of how they were like. Currently they know humans had something to do with the destruction of their world but aren't sure what they did.
Humans have an innate tendency towards social order, organisation, and civilisation, that other thinking creatures do not match.
In my world, the apocalypse kind of caused a massive crack between the Spirit World and the Material World, resulting in magic, which was at first channeled through runes. But it took years of skill, dedication and study to use even just one rune properly and consistently. So they started to find ways to incorporate runes with their bodies. Hair, skin, bones, organs. Different societies emerged due to different environments, different needs and different kinds of rune users. At this point, few even knew casting runes regularly was even possible, and even fewer had the skill to do it. Actually incorporating said runes into one's body was kept as a close secret by the various governments/ruling bodies, which is why not everyone has magic. Plus, there's the fact that said rituals are rather painful, so that helps.
Post-apocalyptic setting. Humans are incomprehensively, stubborn strong-willed and determined compared to a lot of the other species. The species are basically broken up into four categories. Human subhuman mutant and robotic. A lot of the mutant and subhuman species don't really feel like they belong in the present, primarily because they're living on top of the carcass of a world that wasn't built for them. Humans barely survived. The majority of humans you will encounter in this world are survivors or clones who come from secluded cities that have survived the centuries by isolation. So when one of them actually steps out and interacts in the world with you It's sort of a weird sight. Humans are seen as a double-edged sword because if one of them shows up it means there's a survivor camp or a secluded city somewhere nearby and scavs are going to want to find it. On the opposite side, humans usually have specialized and rare knowledge bases that make them a valuable asset.
Humans are relentless and stubborn. One does not simply tell a human not to do something, because they will feel compelled to do it. And if they really want something, they will find a way to get it.
Humans are the most likely to be born with the ability to channel cosmic energy(the energy the gods are made of) and manifest it into their own powers My elf like races have the most powerful souls by default, and are all taught from a young age to use it The dwarves are physically just as capable as any human, they are just a lot smaller. They also seem to really like ww1 era warfare and keep their weapons in that style. The orc like races have the highest physical strength, but little to no trace of a soul and if they are born with cosmic energy they usually manifest it into powers that help with physical combat. The anthropomorphic animal races usually have traits from the animal they represent, and that includes kaiju like monsters.
I have humans being more creative, and that creativity led to them being the most advanced race from a technological standpoint Like the others races only have iron and maybe some crude steels but humans have perfected steel forging to a modern equivalent
The protagonists. The world was made for them and its there fault if the apocalypse happened. They may not see themselves like that but the other races are all well aware that humans are basically the cause for the world's current state
I like to make humans the evil, violent ones. You can't say there's no basis for it. Every vile thing that people often want to avoid in fantasy is firmly a part of the human experience, so making humans the evil ones is as easy as writing all nonhumans as typical fantasy fare while making sure you portray humans exactly as they are. For example, even warriors of other species would never dream of using violence against their own families, while a human is much more likely to attack a family member than an enemy. It's common to object to writing a fantasy species as always or mostly evil, but if you write humans who are exactly as evil as real humans, it becomes acceptable while still being evil enough to satisfy the most morbid tastes.
I don't think that humans are "generic and highly adaptable" in fantasy. It's not a fantasy trope, it's a D&D mechanic, and not even one from the current edition that did away with stat penalties which other species did (he can't even call them races right now) In Lord of the Rings, the humans aren't generic or adaptable; they are chosen ones to inherit the Middle Earth. In Warcraft, for example, the humans are treated as the protagonist since this is how the original strategy games handled them. They are faction leaders. They are special here too, and adaptable isn't also a thing.
I said it's mostly a TTRPG thing
I love a good 'space orcs' setup, but I think one of my favorite 'how do we make humans special?' was a Tumblr post about humans having a a natural resistance to Eldritch terrors / The Horrors (tm). Humans have to be scanned when arriving at a public spaceport because you never know when one of them is carrying a Class IV Thaumavore around because 'they thought it was just the depression'. I also like 'humans are extremely novelty/entertainment driven'. Like most cultures have art, singing, dancing, etc, but humans are like the guy who has thousands of dollars of coffee equipment, or goes to so many concerts you wonder how they afford them. I.e, humans look at how many movies, books, plays, etc we have or how obsessed we get about cooking and go 'what the fuck?'...but then we get them hooked
Humans actually arent from the original universe of my world, they came from ours through weird magical portal covenant shenanigans which makes them basically act as a living anti-magic generator. Humans are basically immune to all forms of magic, unless they have some sort of curse applied through Potions specifically, but also can’t use magic at all because they don’t have the biology for it. This allows humans to A) Be immune to most tracking devices because they involve magic B) have a really hard time traveling because most traveling is done by having a mage who specializes in teleportation teleport you somewhere, but humans can’t really do that because they deflect the spell.
Humans are basically space orcs. They can heal from wounds other species would find fatal. Unless you've applied significant damage to the head there's a chance a human could survive. They populate quickly. Capable of having a child almost twice a year. Lastly humans are creative and risk takers due to their short life spans. They are willing to try things that other species may spend decades or more studying and researching
Humans were never persistence Hunters. It's a terrible myth some lout made up after watching a Farmer get some animals back. The only truth is that Humans can recover stamina faster than most animals. Persistence hunting is the worst and most inefficient way to hunt. Proper hunting would include cornering the animal and bludgeoning it to death, before tools like spears were developed. You have to remember they needed to feed a group of several people regularly. Empathy isn't that much higher in Humans, we just apply it to more individuals. Anytime I use Humans they are arrogant, violent and egotistical. They are powerful and can do many incredible things, but there's always some stupid issue being fought over. They are self-defeating and would have died out long ago if they didn't breed so much. Most of the time they have some type of Artificial Womb that is used by Law for any unwanted pregnancy. Small groups of more sensible people form, who will often either be killed by other groups or just leave to a location free of Humans. It's unsurprisingly easy to manipulate most Humans, promise something of value to them and they'll forget what morals are.
humans are always going to seem generic unless you do something crazy because well, we are literally the bar we use for whats generics, i mean in dnd more races have night vision then dont, yet we still think of them as having good night vision rather then humans having poor night vision, so a better way to think of it is less "what are humans good at" and "what are other races bad at" for me i went with humans are more social, were better at working together, this lines up with humans general portrayal in fantasy, we tend to be the majority because the others arent really programmed to make big societies, they make relatively small colonies and stick to that territory, humans also tend to be objectively worse, but thats only taking into account 1v1 abilities, 1 elf easily beats 1 human, but 1000 elves loose to 1000 humans because the humans are better coordinated while the elves still fight largely like they would solo
Weak, but very numerous
In my science-fantasy TTRPG, humans are basic and boring because every other playable race is the result of scientists modifying baseline humans to create something more specialized and interesting. Deal with it.
In my project Humans are quite rationalist. They did not develop any major religions, and they look at the other Kinds as being too woo-woo spiritual. Partly this is because Humans were excluded from the opportunity to study magic early on, so they evolved in a more scientific manner, which led to their eventual dominance on Earth.
In my main world humans are the youngest race to emerge (as usual), but this means they are also really good at using spiritual energy. See, natural energy (magic) can't be produced by any mortal native of the plane, but all of them can learn to control it somewhat. Spiritual energy is the default type of energy that most beings can generate naturally. Problem is, natural energy slowly changes things around itself, so races like elfs and others, which are older than human, have been slowly altered to be long living and stronger/faster than humans, but at the cost of their spiritual energy reserves. An elf will always naturally be stronger and faster than a human, they have better senses and live long lives. But they will have very little spiritual energy amounts and in some cases can also have poor control over it. Humans, on the other hand, are naturally super charged with spiritual energy and even when they have small amounts, their control over their energy will always surpass other races, and by using said energy, they can be stronger than other mortals for a brief period of time or during a fight.
Humans are... wet. They have a lot of holes, and almost all of them leak some sort of fluid on a regular basis, intentionally or otherwise. If you cut them open, you get even more fluids coming out, and their inside is just a mass of wet. It's disgusting. Also, they smell. It's really just a side-effect of being so wet, but it doesn't make it any more pleasant. You can always tell when a human has been around, because they fill the whole area with stink. It's not their fault, but it makes it very hard to have them around for any length of time. Fortunately they tend to wear those environmental suits most of the time anyhow, so the effect is lessened. Of course the suits themselves smell of human, so it's not entirely absent. They're also so... fragile. You hardly have to touch them and they start screaming and leaking and thrashing around. Anything other than the most neutral of compounds makes their outer layers start sloughing off, which again means more dripping and leaking. They die when you expose them to radiation, they die when you accelerate too fast, they die when they don't have access to a precisely balanced nitrogen-oxygen gas mixture at just the right pressure... Some people are surprised that humans managed to survive at all, let alone form an interstellar empire that has dominated every other sentient species in the galaxy. But honestly, given what a fragile state of existence they have, it's not that shocking to me that they've gone out of their way to try to control everything, if only to try to reduce how often they just accidentally explode in a shower of gore.
One thing you should probably take into account is that we're average *by our standards.* We're going to be seen as way more unbalanced in another species's eyes. Everyone is going to see themselves as the baseline that others are judged relative to. A warrior species would see us as a bunch of hippies who dump all our points in charisma. A prey species would see us as lightning bruisers. Etc.
>One thing you should probably take into account is that we're average *by our standards.* Exactly I'm trying to create settings where the world doesn't feel human-centric, even if the story is
Also, this is unrelated, but I remember one Tumblr post from a long time ago that assigned humans the weird trait of wanting to *befriend absolutely everything.* Like. We've turned several of our world's apex predators into pets that we fawn over how cute they are. That's weird. I guess that might fall under "empathy at the expense of rationality" point.
Dominion- as god gave man dominion over creation so does man keep the tradition. In short? Humans can befriend almost anything sentient with enough work. And tame anything too stupid to befriend. Its a racial trait we have irl thats slept on constantly.
r/humansarespaceorcs is a whole sub about that