Just a preview of coming attractions, so I don't confuse myself with what needs to be done still. I've done most of of the demi-human races, but two remain: the jann and the woodwoses. I'd also like to do a post, or maybe even more than one, about the various human ethnicities. Given that my setting is deliberately quite humanocentric, that's arguably the one that matters the most anyway. I doubt I'll do one post for every possible ethnicity, but I also think that one for all of them is probably too much, so I'm targeting splitting it in two.
Let me make a list as well as some possible discussion points before I do those, however.
- The Jann, being descendants of ifrit mingled with humans, were originally a kind of tropical Persian or Arabian Nights themed race in my mind. The evolution of the setting's geography has put them further north, however. I'm still trying to decide what exactly this means in terms of my characterization of the jann, but honestly, it's probably not a big deal. I spent some time working out jann society a bit two versions of the setting ago (D•H Mk. IV) but I'm considering making them more like some of the Martian races of Barsoom, and even having them use jed and jeddak as titles. I also like the idea of there being some volcanic activity or something else driving warmer air along the coast, with the colder air being further inland. In any case, they'll be considerably less Middle Eastern, and probably more closely resemble some of the Turko-Mongol khanates of the Middle Ages when all is said and done, like the Kazakhs or the Cumans—but red-skinned and sorta Barsoomian too.
- The woodwoses, being descendants of werewolves, are a strong, savage and outdoorsy race that are often bestial in their behavior and uncomfortable and irritable in urban settings. They're not meant to be obligatorily dangerous or enemies; that's the role of the thurses, rather—but they are often not very friendly either. They do not hail from outside the setting, but rather linger in out of the way places across the Three Realms; places like the Bitterwood west Knifetop Peaks, the Wolf Wood farther to the north, and isolated places in the Haunted Forest, east of the southern end of the Sabertooth Mountains. Smaller, more isolated extended families live, often intermingled with hamlets and rural villages of Hillmen or Tarushans, and a reasonable number of them live in the Brynachshire region and rural Timischburg. Those who live among humans tend to behave more like humans, but those who live a hunter-predator lifestyle in the wild, or with "feral" packs of other woodwoses, tend to be savage in their behavior. The most unusual cluster of woodwoses are those that accompany the Chersky Mafia, usually as itinerant and nomadic thugs and muscle.
Of the human ethnicities, I don't think I'll spend a lot of time on them now, but I'll just list the ones that I want to discuss:
- Hillmen and those who have mixed with them, from Old Country locations such as
- Culmerland (similar to Anglo-Saxons)
- Skeldale (similar to Old Norse)
- Carlovingia (similar to early Medieval Holy Roman Empire, or Franks or other Continental Germanic tribes)
- Brynach (similar to Scots)
- Timischers (also from Carlovingia originally, but have their own nation rather than mingled with the Hillmen)
- Tarushans (similar to Balkan commoners; Romanians and Bulgarians or Serbians or other South Slavs; live in Timischburg, but formerly it was their own kingdom of Tarush Noptii. This is also the place to discuss the people of the Hill Country before the arrival of the Hillmen, of which only the Tazitta people remain.)
- Drylanders (similar to Cossacks and other more easterly/northerly Slavic peoples, although their land is now desert-like in most places)
- Others; the Northlanders and savage Inutos, about which I've spent very little time in thought, so they're still a fairly blank canvas right now.
Given that the varied inputs of the Hillmen and Timischers kind of go together, I'll focus on them as one post, and the Tarushans, Drylanders and others will make a good second post.
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