Racial Deep Dive: Humans

My understanding of history, prehistory and archaeology is intimately tied up with my understanding of linguistics and archaeogenetics, all topics that interest me greatly. Because of this, I've defaulted to a structure of human populations in Old Night that are also closely tied to ancient genetics and linguistics. Let me, therefore, go back to a post from several months ago about languages, and reiterate and slightly rewrite or edit it, and from that base, let me talk about the various populations of humans that you could find in the Old Night setting, as well as ones that you could potentially pick from if creating a character that's human in the RPG.

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Common. I like the use of the word Common, because it's understood by all and is used by both D&D and Tolkien both. For all intents and purposes, Common is the language of the Hill Country or Humberland, and is also called Humbrian. For our purposes, it is equivalent to English. Because of the presence of Humbrian colonists, traders and more throughout the region, Humbrian has become... well, Common. There have been significant inroads of the language as the native language (albeit with different accents, perhaps) throughout much of the region. While clearly not everyone speaks Common fluently, or in some remote places at all, throughout the entirety of the Three Realms+, you can usually get by pretty good if it's the only language you speak.

Anstal Tane, a classic Humbrian

Humbrian is closely associated with the Humbrians, of course, and their country, the Hill Country or Humberland. For purposes of comparison, the Humbrians should be like British Americans; essentially the same as the British, but in a newly settled frontier territory. Unlike in the real world, the Humbrians don't have access to return home, however; Humberland is their new home and there's no going back even if they wanted to, nor can they be supplemented by new arrivals or settlers from the old homeland of Culmerland (et al.) Except more Medieval rather than Colonial in dress and manners, etc.

Old Culmerian. The original language of the majority of the hillmen settlers, and the direct ancestor of Common. Hasn't been spoken in many centuries, but old texts are still around, and there's a vigorous academic interest in old Humbrian languages and languages from the Old Country before the Colonists came to the Three Realms+. Real world analog: Old English.

Normaund. While not directly closely related to Old Culmerian, a strata of Normaundish aristocrats ruled Culmer for a time. While they were eventually assimilated and integrated (mostly) their language was distinct for many years, and many old texts in this language still exist too. It also added greatly to the vocabulary and structure of Common, and the dividing line between Old Culmerian and Common is somewhat arbitrarily pinned to the start of the Normaundish influence. Real world analog: Norman French.

Brynach. A language that existed alongside Old Culmerian, and predates it in what was later called Culmer. In spite of its age and lower prestige, this stubbornly didn't die for a long time; there are still a few older people in rural parts of the Hill Country who speak or read this language, although there's not nearly enough of them to maintain a viable speaking base, and nobody speaks this as their every day language. Real world analog: Gaelic and other British Celtic languages. 

Skellish. Distantly related to Culmer, but from a neighboring Old Country kingdom called Skelldale, some of the Colonists spoke this language. While all have assimilated linguistically to Common, literature in this language is important because it maintains elements of history and myth that were analogous to what the Old Culmers would have believed, but which they themselves lost. Real world analog: Old Norse.

Timischer. The native language of the aristocracy of Timischburg. Most of them still learn it, but for various social reasons, their Tarushan subjects have resisted using it natively, and the utility of the language has faded. As more and more trade with the Hill Country has penetrated the region the last several hundred years, most people in Timischburg have learned Common, and because the Tarushans and Timischers have largely resisted using each others languages to a large degree, Common (with a German accent) has largely emerged as the consensus language that both groups already knew and were willing to use to speak to each other. Timischer is on its way to becoming a dead language; well known by the scholarly, but spoken very infrequently, even in the homes of the native Timischer nobles as of the last few generations. However, it retains prestige legal status in Timischburg; signs are written in it, and many documents, especially older ones, are written in Timischer. Timischer nobles also use it to speak with each other when they want to separate themselves by language from those around them. Many Timischers of lower social class use it as well as a kind of insider language; Timischer mercenary companies push it as the official language of their companies (although most speak it as a second language) and some Timischer criminal groups outside of Timischburg have cultivated it as a way to keep their communications more secret.

Similarly, Old Timischer, as it sounds, the language of the Timischers, but archaic. As Old Culmerian is to Common, Old Timischer is to modern Timischer. Real world analog: continental early Medieval Germanic languages, such as Low Franconian (Old Dutch) and High Franconian (Old German) which makes sense given the analog of the Timischer Old Country homeland of Carlovingia with the early Medieval Frankish kingdoms of the Carolingian dynasty.

Alpon von Lechfeld, a famous Timischer scholar, enjoying retirement in his private library.

Tarushan. Tarushan is the native language of the "aboriginal" people of Timischburg, which largely corresponds geographically with the old kingdom of Tarush Noptii. As noted above, it has no official status, but the Tarushan people still cling to it stubbornly, and many of the old Tarushan people refuse to learn or speak or read Timischer. Tarushan has less official status, but more actual use, and there are people in the rural areas, or among the Tarushan Gypsies who only speak Tarushan, with at best a smattering of Common. There are a number of older documents in a slightly archaic version of Tarushan that predate the arrival of the Timischers as well. Tarushan is clearly related to some of the other older languages in the region, although distantly, and has cultural, linguistic and presumably also genetic ties to the ancient kingdom of Kinzassal, which we'll cover later.

Claud Lupescu, a Tarushan young man

Tazittan. This is a minority language, distantly related to Tarushan but not mutually intelligible, of a number of primitive, rustic and hostile peoples deep in the wildernesses of Humberland, like the Haunted Forest, especially on the eastern slopes of the Sabertooth Mountains, and the Tazitta Badlands, of course. Although it descends from a literate society, there is no written Tazittan that anyone really uses today. For a social analog, you could consider Tazitta to be not unlike the Sioux language spoken in the 1860s or 1870s—except that there is less open conflict between the Hill-men and the Tazitta, mostly due to no resources in Tazitta territory tempting Hillmen settlement at the moment. The geographical and social limitations of this language make it one that's unlikely to be of much use for PCs, except in a campaign that features this isolated population of Tazittans, however. Although much more primitive in their dress and equipment, as befits a xenophobic and isolated population living in a hazardous and forsaken place like the Haunted Forest, physically and genetically, the Tazittans more or less resemble the Tarushans in their build and coloration; the original phenotype of the Kinzassal people who were ancestral to both.

Drylander. Spoken mostly on the Baal Hamazi peninsula, this is the native language of the area, and while not related to Tarushan and Tazittan, etc. it does seem to have borrowed from it, and some of the Drylanders have genetics that appear similar to those of Old Kinzassal. Today, as Baal Hamazi is a broken, Balkanized land of tribes and city-states, the language's status is questionable. Still spoken in many remote tribes as the only language, and the official language of some city-states such as Baal Hishutash—one of the most conservative of the city-states, or Baal Ngirsu, one of the most isolated. Otherwise, as traders and travelers from beyond have come to the land, their lingua franca, i.e., Common, has largely replaced Drylander in most of the more cosmopolitan or connected city-states, and even among many of the more nomadic Drylander tribes. 

Their language also seems to be unique, although with some odd similarities with some of the very old Humbrian Old Country languages, like Old Culmer and Skellish—some have posited that there's a link. That said, this idea is sketchy and not widely accepted. The Drylanders are usually seen as their own people, and if there is some distant connection with any other people, it's distant enough to not matter. The Drylanders are usually tall, and have pale eyes, with extremely pale gray being more common than elsewhere, although blue, hazel and lighter brown are not unusual. Their hair is usually dark, but often with a reddish tint, and their skin is ruddy, even for those who don't spend most of their time outside like the nomadic ones to.

Pretty typical nomadic Drylander

Kurushan. The language of the Kurushans and their Northlander cousins. Like Timischer or Drylander, it is more associated with past glories than the current situation; Lower Kurushat is more and more disconnected from "regular" Kurushat to the north, and the Kurushans are left to their own devices in a land where they are not the majority population. While still spoken in some northern cities, especially in old Kurushan noble houses, few indeed could function if this is the only language you speak. It still remains an important administrative language in Lower Kurushan cities, but most people on the street will be speaking Common instead. The Elementalists came out of the Kurushan population, and before they manifest their elemental natures as young teenagers, they tend to look like Kurushans; who are very similar in many ways to the Drylanders physically, although with slightly flatter faces, higher cheekbones and often epicanthic folds.

Pallaran. The final language related to old Kinzassal is Pallaran, the language of the Corsair Coast. Unlike most other regions in which a Tarushan-related language exists, Pallaran is still a pretty active language, and many people along the Corsair Coast speak it as a first and only language. That said, Common has made inroads here as well, as many traders and adventurers have come to this area, or the corsairs—and legitimate traders—from this region have sailed northwards. It is also the most divergent of the various "Tarushan" languages, as the people themselves are heavily admixed with some other population that is now anonymous other than the linguistic and genetic trace that they once existed.

A Pallaran man off of the Corsair Coast

Kinzassal. The language that stands at the heart of the Tarushan language family. While it only briefly belonged to a single political entity, and always had a variety of dialects, its importance in the romance of the Kin Twilight, and the semi-imagined legendary Golden Age of all of the splintered kin that later broke off from this brief period of near unity is hard to describe; even the Humbrians, who are not themselves descended from the Kin, are drawn to this romance. That said, although it would seem to be like Latin, and it's various descendants variously like Spanish, Romanian, Italian, French, etc. in reality there's not nearly as much textual evidence for this language as there is for Latin, and Kinzassal was a much more savage and primitive place than Rome anyway—more like the Bronze Age society; further removed and very foreign to the inhabitants of the Three Realms+ today. Most of the "texts" of this language come from weathered carvings on standing stones and other ruined places rather than from actual texts. That said, because of the various things that happened in this time, there's intense academic interest in the period of Kinzassal and its artifacts.

Nizrekh. The language of the island chain off the west coast that is the remainder of Atlantis; although Nizrekh is an unrelated language spoken by people who arrived after the fall of Atlantis. It is not related to any other language, and since the Nizrekhi are isolationist and remote, few others speak their language either.

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This next batch is made up of languages that native to demihuman populations, but since this is both a deep dive into the various human populations but also into the languages of the Three Realms+, they have to at least be noted.

Grendling. The language of the Grendlings, or Wendaks, the actual descendants of Atlanteans who were on the mainland when Atlantis fell. Because the Grendlings are themselves a debased and rapidly devolving population, super xenophobic and isolationist, few speak this language other than them, and they teach it to no one. It is—presumably—a distant descendant itself of the language of high Atlantean civilization, but even that is not for sure, and certainly they don't resemble each other much now. The Atlanteans relationship to humanity is dubious. The Grendlings are not exactly human anymore, and the Atlanteans, their direct ancestors, probably were, but were very different than any human population around today.

Thurse. The bestial language of the thurses, at least of Thursewood. Because the anatomy of thurses is very different than that of humans and demihumans, it is widely considered impossible to learn to speak this language, although it is possible to learn to understand it... assuming you can do so without being killed and eaten. 

Orcling. The language of the orcs and goblins from Gunaakt. Still widely spoken amongst that race, especially the most recent arrivals in the area, but not by much of anyone else. There are few written texts in this language, and many orclings who have been in the Three Realms+ for more than a couple of generations have lost this language and only speak it haltingly if at all. While obviously not a human language, it needs to be mentioned because it's not an insignificant one, and some scholars are taking an interest in it as the Orcling population becomes more important.

Nyxian. The language of the minority population in Hyperborean Lomar. The majority Zobnans who founded the city no longer speak their original language, and only speak Common, or whatever other trade language they've learned. The Zobnans mostly speak Common, and have no records of their former language, but it was probably a dialect of Nyxian.

Infernal. This is the primary language spoken by those from the Realms Outside such as daemons and elemental-like creatures like ifrit, although myriad other tongues exist amongst this diverse breed as well. In addition, this is the language of magic, so a smattering of it, at least, is known by any practitioner of the arcane arts. Perfect fluency in this language, on the other hand, is almost impossible for any mortal to achieve. Despite that, it was very fashionable in old Baal Hamazi, where the demonic taint of their bloodline was a source of pride to the ruling caste, to speak Infernal natively, and many noble houses took great pains to ensure that their children didn't hear any other language until they were five years of age. Some households still speak Infernal in the home, and it is still a pseudo-living language in some of the successor states to Baal Hamazi, but native speakers are few, and fewer every day.

Dagonic. This is a bizarre pre-human language, remnants of which float around on isolated and moldy standing stones and other areas. Intriguingly, it appears to have originally been a underwater language. Few people on the surface can even make an attempt to learn it, due to the challenges of speech that an underwater language had to have overcome, and the language itself is only known from very scanty and fragmentary remains, making fluency all but impossible for even the most dedicated scholar. For all intents and purposes, it is a written language only, not a spoken language, since there are no speakers that anyone knows of at all, and how to pronounce the language is anyone's guess.

Atlantean. Very little is known of this language, which was presumably the distant ancestor of the modern disappearing Grendling (Wendak) language. Because most documents, archives or carvings in this language disappeared under the sea, scholars are forced to try and interpret a very limited corpus of texts that remain, and their interpretations of what is represented is divisive and wildly divergent from each other. Really curious and foolhardy linguists could find living memory of spoken Atlantean from the Mind-wizards, like Gothan from the Heresiarchy... if they survive the experience.

Because I'm deliberately running a game that is sorta D&D-like mechanically, but which is meant to be played much more like Call of Cthulhu is played, these old languages can be very important when researching the blasphemous secret history of the Three Realms+, but unless the characters are Lovecraftian also in the sense that they are academics, sages, and professors, it's unlikely that they'd know any of those languages; it is more likely that they'd have to utilize the services of an academic contact, such as Drancent Hewe or even Professor Alpon von Lechfeld to help translate anything that they find. Or... in a really, really bad pinch, one of the ancient Heresiarchs.

Orcs in Old Night

I've talked a bit about orcs before. For whatever reason, I kind of like orcs, but I'm always tinkering just a little bit with how I present them. This post is still more or less the last word on orcs (and goblins) in Shadow of Old Night. I have two YouTube videos on them too, but they add very little that the post doesn't; in fact, one of them is literally me reading that post and adding more images from my AI orc collection or my Hero Forge models to the mix.

https://youtu.be/f5GENXzbPn8?si=WOPomPN5rpWaoSLp

https://youtu.be/L4Ol5SBAB7g?si=yw_JFxiih4seXpvZ

I've made some minor updates to some of those images since that post and those videos, especially the Hero Forge ones, but that's just minor cosmetic improvement, not substantive change. 

I didn't want to give all of them the same face, which even with face customizer ends up being a real problem in Hero Forge sometimes, so I've started looking for shortcuts to make more orcs that look like orcs but don't just use the orc face. One of the things I've done is use the orc face but try to modify the nose a bit and use a bit of other modifications to give them a little bit of variation, but still look very orc-like. 

The following is my attempt to combine the new ape model with a few orc elements; I replaced the hairy body with a normal one, and put the orc nose on an ape, and a different hair style. I used just the basic orc theme as a shortcut, but then modified some of the colors from my library of colors. I'd say this is a pretty good example of a "typical" orc male; maybe I'll go update a few of my example orc characters to show this. Maybe. I like the look of this guy.

And not every orc needs to be scowling all the time. Maybe I can make one who's more cocky, and happy-go-lucky.

Here's an old and outdated early attempt to make an orc in Hero Forge that matched my orcs, but I've updated him at least a little, using some of the same elements.

I will say that the first one is probably a bit too green for my taste. I like my orcs to be more khaki; they're green, but it's a very brownish, more realistic green. They're not bright like aspen leaves.

I made this orc laborer; probably the most likely encounter with an orc in the Three Realms that most will have... other than the pirates on the Darkling Sea which actually make a major component of the Darkness In the Hill Country 5x5 Front. This is heavily based on the quick and dirty profile face image I made above, but expanded and remade to be a whole character. Also, he's got a serious face, but less overtly scowling.

Dvergs, Hero Forge

Finally made a dverg model in Hero Forge. A swashbuckler male, not unlike some of my AI generated images. And a girl too.

Went with the gunmetal colored skin, and silvery metallic hair. His eyes aren't orange and molten looking, like most of my AI images, but that's OK. She's a little more coppery. Not meant to imply a male/female coloration dichotomy, just two examples.

Also, the official D&D channel posted this image just recently, with a Taylor Swift reference. Clearly, they're aiming for a completely different audience than when I started playing and when I got back into it in the 00s both. This image is insane. It doesn't look like a D&D image at all; it looks like a typical night in a Carnival cruise lines dining room, from what I hear. 

Humans in Shadow of Old Night

A couple of quick things, none of them sufficient to merit a post on their own.

1) I've been listening to the Hideous Laughter podcast. I'm in episode 29, and they average somewhere over an hour each, so I'm pretty invested in it... that said, it's getting harder and harder to listen to for a variety of reasons. Most of them are related to the fact that they're using the Pathfinder system. In general, actual plays aren't great spectator sport anyway, although the only way I seem to be able to do them is via audio only while I'm in the car. But Pathfinder is even worse than most, because they spend so much time talking about mechanical considerations. I'm going to set it aside when this episode is over. I don't claim to be done listening to it, but I need to take a break from it, at least. I'll probably download some of the Red Moon Roleplaying Warhammer Enemy Within episodes instead and try them out. Even so, I've decided that I need a pretty good run of actual music in between episodes. If the episodes are an hour, I need a good hour or music too.

2) I looked at the dates of the Focus on Freeport entries, which I have all compiled into a single ~60 page pdf. The earliest ones were posted in 2000, and the latest in 2002. I've decided that I can read that before reading Hell in Freeport and still approximate my chronological reading goal, so rather than waiting for Hell to arrive in the mail before starting the Freeport trilogy, I can start it now, while I'm motivated. That said; it's probably a moot point. I doubt I'll actually read even the trilogy much less Focus on Freeport before my Hell in Freeport order comes in the mail anyway. (You can also still get the individual focus files here.) Speaking of reading...

3) I'm just a few pages away from finishing my big Greek Myths & Tales book, a fancy Flame Tree Publishing book available at a decent price from Barnes & Noble. I also bought a Celtic and Norse one, but I'm not going to read them immediately. The text was quite old; mostly from the late 1800s, and it didn't exactly read like either a novel or a non-fiction study either one. I think I want to read something else first. That said, I was struck—not that I didn't already know this, but it's not something you think about—with how incredibly foreign the morality and culture of the Greeks is from us, in spite of their position at the foundation of Western Civilization in many ways. The famous saying is, "the past is a foreign country; they do things differently there." In the original context, that means that just the past in your own life among your own people, but it's really true when you talk about reading something like The Odyssey. But yeah, Norse and Celtic... I don't know the Celtic in particular as well as the Greek, but it can still wait. I've got other things to read.

4) So, I'm also likely to finish the 3.5 Monster Manual this week too. Before I start Freeport, or maybe concurrently, but I'll prioritize it, I want to read Raymond Feist's novel Silverthorn (cover art pictured above, although I have an earlier printing with a different cover. Oh, well.) We'll see what else I want to read, depending on how fast I finish stuff. I usually read novels fairly quickly, and I do want to not wait too long before moving on from Silverthorn to the last novel in the series; A Darkness at Sethanon. But I have two additional novel series to read after that; a trilogy and a quadrilogy. And of course, loads of gaming books on deck. In addition to Freeport stuff on pdf (mostly pdf, but not completely) I've also got Eberron in my backpack, and Heroes of Horror and Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, and Libris Mortis, and more to read. And, of course, once I finish the Monster Manual, I've got the other Monster Manuals, the Fiend Folio, etc. too.

5) I've been calling the setting for the Shadow of Old Night game the Three Realms sometimes, referring to the Hill Country, Timischburg and Baal Hamazi, the actual Three Realms. But in many ways, it's developing into Five Realms, as I spend a little bit more time lately on Lower Kurushat and the Corsair Coast. Those aren't really as big in scope as the Three Realms, but the then again, I'm not sure how much smaller they are, or what that cut-off is. Three Realms, plus two half-realms? Lower Kurushat in particular always was kind of there, but I didn't consider it too much. Pivoting to actually developing more details about it is a new thing. And, of course, the Corsair Coast is a new area, although I'll be building it by taking old Dark•Heritage material and making minor updates so that it fits in the new context. (I'm going to update a lot of Terassan stuff and make it slightly less "Spanishy", like Porto Liure (POR-toe lee-YOOR-ay) will be changed to Port Liure (port LYOOR) and I'll rewrite and update some of my old stuff to be up to date with the Shadow of Old Night context. Port Liure is, as an aside, my own pseudo-Provençal translation of Freeport. Catalan also gave Port Lliure. Spanish would, of course, be Puerto Libre, but that sounded too familiar to people in America, and I wanted a more European and slightly exotic/Medieval feel. Some of the other Romance languages give good results, if I massage them just a bit.)

6) Which reminds me; I need to probably talk briefly about the different human ethnicities. I'm slowly accreting more and more of them. The Corsair Coast people are meant to be very similar to the old Terassans and I will posit that they are related to the Tarushan ethnic group. This is now a bigger group than I thought, although in several branches that have diverged over many centuries, and do not speak languages that are the same, nor see themselves as the same people anymore. The Tarushans are either an extension to the west, or a closely related western cousin of the peoples of Old Kinzassal. Although I don't really talk about Old Kinzassal much, I do propose that there is still a lingering branch of it in the Hill Country, hidden in the deep woods and still so-far unsettled corners. The Tazitta tribes are one such; probably the largest. Otherwise, there is mixed ancestry from Old Kinzassal among many of the Hill Men in general, especially in Southumbria, although they have lost their language and culture, and their genetic percentage is relatively low. 

After the fall of Old Kinzassal, and its dwindling into a rural rump people, their close relatives the Tarushans carried the torch of their culture under a new banner and in different format. Tarushans, of course, are still a prominent ethnic group, especially in Timischburg. The Drylanders also have some obvious influence from either Tarushans or another substrate that was related to the Tarushans (but maybe separated by many centuries by geographical distance and the Indash Desert) and this is detectable in some loanwords and other linguistic stuff, but the Drylanders are also a different ethnic group and the largest component of their genetics, culture and language is unrelated to the Tarushans. 

The Terassans, or Corsairs, or whatever it is that I end up calling them are also related, but have been their own group for at least a millenium, and they do not look at the Tarushans and think of them as long-lost cousins or anything. But they clearly have a related language (kind of like the Romanians and the Spanish have related languages from old Latin, but also clearly are widely separated and don't consider themselves the same people at all).

And I've mentioned the Northlanders for some time, but as I start to actually focus a little bit on Lower Kurushat, they become important. They are also completely different from any other group. Maybe the "Terassans" can just be the Southlanders to match the Northlanders? Northrons and Southrons? Northlings and Southlings? I dunno. Still tossing around labels.

The last thing to mention is that I've mentioned these other languages. I don't actually mess with languages, except as they relate to names, to signal culture. Hillmen use Medieval British sounding names, for instance, whereas on the Corsair Coast use Medieval "Spanish" (usually actually Catalan or Provençal names) and Timischers use German-sounding names, etc. without actually assuming that they speak different languages. This is mostly just because I've never found that languages in fantasy stories and games has ever added anything very fun (Tolkien notwithstanding.) Even though linguistics is, in fact, kind of a minor hobby of mine, I've decided that it just isn't all that fun in game to deal with languages and linguistics. Honestly, even Tolkien agreed with this and punted to a Common speech that almost everyone used.

Racial Deep Dive: Elementalists

This is my race deep dive on surturs. I need to expand it before I can make my YouTube video on them, which maybe I'll make in the next few days, since I changed surturs to actually be all four elements in one (sorta) race. The text below is meant to be a new, expanded and revised race deep dive that can be used as a de facto script for my YouTube video on them, to go along with my pre-existing videos on grislings and kemlings. 

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Before the collapse of the kemling empire of Baal Hamazi, they stretched considerably farther to the east than the region does now; their farthest eastward outpost was Chersky Island in the Darkling Sea, which still bears foreboding ruins of ancient kemling fortresses. But their presence east of the Rudmont Escarpment was never heavy nor did they really control that territory as much as they would have liked. When a new population of demihumans and their own associated human ethnicity approached from the North (the northlings, obviously) they came into conflict with the retreating and already weakened Baal Hamazi empire. Some of these wars were so apocalyptic that they are ultimately the source of the Boneyard; the bleached bones of soldiers who fought there linger still on the sands and among the sagebrush and juniper scrubland, but in reality, few if any people ever lived in the Boneyard, which was called the Indash Desert at the time. As the Indash Sea withdrew, becoming smaller and saltier and more xeric, boats, fleets, and even entire towns were left high and dry, now abandoned and ghostly echoes of Kurushat and Baal Hamazi's prior expansions into the region. Climate change is only part of what happened to Kurushat, however. As the Empire grew more powerful and more peaceful, its vigor slowly drained, and the concerns of faraway southern colonies surrounded by hostile nations, barbarians and harsh climate seemed much less important to the indolent jeds and jeddak of Kurushat. Ultimately, cities like Vuukrat and Simashki came under the control of Lower Kurushat for a time, and even now they have a syncretic relationship where populations of kemlings, drylanders, northlings and elementalists all live together—but their relationship to greater Kurushat is non-existant, and the jeds and jeddaks of the north barely even remember that they once (in theory) ruled here.

Lower Kurushat is a southern extension of lands to the north and west of the mapped out section of the Three Realms; the Empire of Kurushat. Originally founded on a volcanic island (reminiscent of real-life Iceland or Spitzbergen), it was settled by a couple of different northern peoples in small numbers who raised sheep and cattle on the green grass amid the dark volcanic rock, blasted by winds from the sea, and having little in the way of trees because of the subarctic climate, except in some sheltered valleys and gorges. Glaciers top the inactive volcanos and ice floes occasionally pass by near the harbors, but in this land of water and ice, there is also a strong element of fire because of the numerous active volcanos that are building the islands even now. It's not clear exactly how the first elementalists came out of this environment. Some legends say that they, or at least their more elemental ancestors, simply walked out of the volcanos themselves, which are gates to the fiery Otherworldly realm of Muspelheim, and that the original Surtur himself, the fire jotunn, is their ancestor. Others suggest that they were normal people cursed or transformed by the malign intent of one of the ancient Heresiarchs, perhaps Esmeraude, She Who Ushers In the Apocalypse, who is known to have an affinity and fascination with fire. Whichever is the truth, the elementalists arrived on the mainland, conquering and colonizing; settling and trading. While most legends are agreed that surturs were the original elementalists, it soon became clear that other elements besides fire resided in the bloodlines of the elementalists; water, air and earth, and the tritons, sylphs and dvergs were associated with the surturs as well. Nobody is born a surtur; or any other type of elementalist; they are born as humans of the northling race, but as they enter puberty, some of them undergo a transition into elementalists. Which element manifests also doesn't seem to be linked to bloodline, so any of the elementalist races can be born of any parents, even ones that are simply northling humans. Roughly 15-20% of the population of Kurushat is elementalist, which holds true for the Kurushans present in Lower Kurushat as well.

The northlings, which all elementalists experience as children at least, and most of them grow up in families of northlings, are a race with brown skin, brown hair, epicanthic folds on their eyes, which are usually gray or palest blue. But I'll cover human ethnicities another day and discuss them in more detail then.

The Kurushans weren't genocidal when they came to the mainland, so many of the people who were already there are integrated into their northern Empire, but given the harsher boreal climate, the population was always relatively light anyway. Most of the itinerant hunter-gatherers who lived there saw their standard of living increase tremendously upon the arrival of the elementalists, who had a fair bit of noblesse oblige for those who welcomed them—although tremendous belligerence to those who did not. 

Kurushat is largely a coastal empire, and the climate is similar to that of the Alaskan southern coast, or Scandinavia, but once you get inland, you have either tundra and mammoth steppe, or boreal forest (taiga) and wild mountains. Free northerners still live inland from Kurushat, and many have friendly trading relationships with the empire, although raiding, as is common in barbaric societies, is not unknown. Kurushat, at its peak a few generations ago, stretched down deep into the northern Three Realms, although the settlement of Kurushan citizens of any type, elementalist or human, was always relatively light. The territory around Dagan Bay and the Kindattu Mountain corridor was their foothold, and some cities that still stand, such as Sinjagat or Volek Szemenok on Palar Lake were founded by Kurushans. Both the Hamazin and Kurushans look at Glittering Simashki and claim to be responsible for it, and both races still make up notable pluralities in the population. 

Today, the sections of colonial Kurushat that still remain on the map are independent city-states, abandoned by the Empire like post-Roman Britain. Some of the elementalists and northling humans who came during the expansion period remain—or rather, their posterity does. Although never the majority in any of their cities, the Kurushan culture, mostly driven by the elementalists themselves who were the carriers of it, are important components in the cities named above, as well as the surrounding areas, but all of them have also become syncretized and hybridized by exposure to the peoples who were already here, or who have arrived since (such as the area near Bucknerfeld, where Hillman have come right to the edges of the salt flats that ring the Indash Salt Sea.

The Kurushans of Lower Kurushat, as they still sometimes call the region, are not an overly proud people, seeing the retreat of their empire and the abandonment of their settlements with a mixture of peevishness, but also opportunity to chart their own course in a new land without the oversight of tyrannical jeds and other hetmen. Most have abandoned any notion of attempting to recreate or maintain Kurushan culture, becoming rather fond of the more cosmopolitan syncretic cultures that they live in. 

From a meta perspective, it's easy to see the elementalists as a kind of northern race, with some similarities to the Vikings, some to more eastern northern peoples such as the Slavs, Finns, or other Siberian peoples, but also a prominent nod toward the red men of Barsoom, which informs many of their names and titles, as well as their fiery yet usually honorable personalities. At least their culture which demands such, even if individuals may not be as honorable as their culture expects of them. Their supernatural origin, and their ancient clashes with the kemlings make them different than any human culture, real or imagined, however, and those who remain south of the boreal forest barrier that separates Lower Kurushat from Kurushat proper are more likely to be traders, adventurers, mercenaries, occasionally bandits, and a somewhat arrogant overcaste; confident in their superiority, yet mostly imbued with a noblesse oblige to the peoples who live in their cosmopolitan communities. Many of them still act as if the Imperial weight of Kurushat gives them authority, but the reality is that all of the Lower Kurushat area is now essentially independent city-states who must rule themselves with very little if any contact with Kurushat to the north anymore, which is why the various other peoples who live there have risen in prominence socially as the Kurushat Imperial structure retreated to the north. In some, this disconnection with their homeland drives a sense of melancholy, as they believe that they will inevitably give way to entropy and the greater numbers of their neighbors, to eventually be diluted beyond recognition and emerge as some new society altogether with little of old Kurushat to show for their efforts.

In terms of terminology, Kurushans and elementalists are often used interchangeably, but technically a surtur, triton, dverg or sylph is a member of that specific fantasy race, regardless of cultural or political affiliation, whereas Kurushans are members of the culture of Kurushat, regardless of race. However, in practical terms, that distinction often doesn't mean too much. 

Surturs are notable for their bright (sometimes unnaturally so) reddish or blond hair, brick red skin that sometimes tends towards sooty in the darkest of them, and red, orange or golden eyes. As the mechanics of the race suggest, the fire strike ability represents their connection to Muspelheim and their ability to call on the fiery elemental heritage that makes them different than humans.

Tritons are also tall, but with a teal colored skin, and bluish or greenish eyes and hair. Many of them have relocated; although they are climate tolerant of the cold waters (and air) of their origin, the Corsair Coast farther to the south now has a large (relatively speaking) population of triton expats who really enjoy the more subtropical waters of the coast and even the humid jungles and swamps farther inland more than the drier areas of the north. In spite of the fact that they can live underwater as easily as above it, most of them do not, because it would limit them to interactions with only other tritons. Many are fairly social and gregarious.

Sylphs are also tall, with icy blue or even grayish skin and blue or white hair, with silver chrome or topaz blue bright eyes. They tend to be taller, even, than the other elementalist variants, and thinner; and their hair is often breezy and wild. They prefer the colder lands, and further in the south, they enjoy spending time in the mountains where the weather is often colder, although that's just a preference not a necessity, and they do fine in warmer and drier climates when they find themselves there. They often come across as the most aloof and insular in personality and outlook of the elementalists.

Finally, dvergs are a little less tall; a bit more robust and stockily built. They often have metallic colored skin; a kind of dull iron or steel or a reddish copper color being the most common, with eyes that sometimes glow like magma. They tend to be the most individualistic of the elementalist races by personality, as well as the least common. It's hard to tell how many there are, however, as they often seek solitude, or otherwise leave their communities to go see more of the world, finding that they prefer life on the road and being in control of their own destinies without societal expectations to hinder their whims.

All four of the elementalists tend to be mildly arrogant, bordering on self-important, but mostly good-natured; their arrogance doesn't tend to make them megalomaniacal or narcissistic; rather they have a strong cultural tendency to see a need to express noblesse oblige. But they do so because there's usually a small hint of condescension towards other races. Of course this is a cultural and maybe even genetic behavioral tendency, not an absolute, and if you're playing an elementalist, you don't have to characterize them as such. And there are certainly plenty of violent bandits, pirates or otherwise non-good-natured arrogant elementalists out there.

A few additional details of Kurushan society. Young warriors often organize themselves into companies or bands; many of them hire themselves out as mercenaries across the Three Realms, which also gives them an opportunity to see more of the area. Reasonably well-trained and capable swordmaidens often serve as a kind of figurehead or inspiration for these bands. In some cases, these are little more than camp whores for the entire company, but in other cases, they are seen as extremely noble and a kind of foreign chivalric tradition of courtly loyalty and love has sprung up around them from the men in their companies. Be careful making assumptions about them; if you assume the former and the position is more like the latter, the entire band will take your assumption as a mortal offense, and you can find yourself facing one duel challenge after another until you're dead.

A pseudo-religious cultural tradition among them are the Larch Grove dancers, talented women and girls who perform this ritual for young men setting out on adventure. Exploration of the wilderness is a passion of many elementalists, and with the mammoth steppe and boreal forest around them, as well as many craggy and dramatic mountain ranges, there are great opportunities for exploratory teams to find excitement. Their adventures are recounted to enthralled audiences when they return home, usually for the winter season. A kind of extreme adventurer tourism has sprung up among the wealthier Kurushans who don't need to work, to strike out and explore the remnants of distant Hyperborea to the east beyond the Wolfwood in the brief spring, summer and fall for that area. Although this is dangerous and many fail in this attempt, those who make it to Hyperborea and return with the tales of their journey almost become celebrities in Kurushat. Some of this still remains in Volek Szemenok, although it happens very infrequently there; one successful expedition a generation being about as good as it gets. That said, the Larch Grove dancers have loosened up the requirements of what counts, and now actively look for opportunities to encourage young men to go on some kind of adventure—any kind of adventure—and to kick it off in style, involving his whole community.

As the culture and organization of old Kurushat becomes more and more irrelevant over time in Lower Kurushat, where there are large numbers of non-Kurushan people surrounding them, the noble titles of old Kurushat are largely irrelevant today. That said, the scions of the old jed's houses still maintain a status not at all unlike nobility in their demesnes, and may insist on using the titles, even if the rest of the cultural expectations that once surrounded the titles no longer matter.

The Burnt Seers are a kind of weird roving cult of soothsayers and hedge magicians that are part of Kurushan society, notable for their spiraling black tattoos and often socially and politically disruptive actions. When one, or a small company of them, roll into town, the local authorities are reluctant for superstitious reasons to outright run them out, but they keep a very close eye on them and curtail their ability to make trouble as best as they can. As the label suggests, most of them are surturs, but any Kurushan, even non-elementalists, might belong to the organization.

Orcs & Goblins: Hero Forge

After making my Hero Forge video of orclings, I decided that a few of the models didn't look super great. Actually quite a few of them. I made just minor updates; mostly coloring and lighting. If I do more, I might customize the faces a bit. 

Although I kind of like the idea that to humans, i.e., us, all goblins look alike. This is probably just the first batch of more updates to come.

Updates a'coming

I'm considering a fairly major update to the DFX game, or at least major in terms of it adding a few new things. First off, some context. I mentioned earlier that I played 5e for the first time this weekend, and the first time for D&D specifically, i.e., the brand D&D, in many years. Probably a good 9-10 years, maybe more. What I've played since then is only D&D in the same sense that my Wal-Mart brand facial tissue is a kleenex. I call all RPGs D&D when I'm being casual, but I haven't played actual D&D in quite a long time.

My impressions of it were, and I think I mentioned some of these things in my last post, A) if you need an online electronic tool to make and manage your character, that's a major red flag. B) if you need grids, battle-maps, and tokens or miniatures to keep combat straight, on a routine basis, not just for extraordinarily complicated and complex combats, that's another red flag. C) if a single extended combat sequence takes an entire 3½-4 hour session to play out, that's yet another red flag. D) short rests are ridiculous. E) if you need a VTT to manage your combats and characters, and you're being funneled into a proprietary tool that's—as has been said on multiple occasions by executives of the company to investors—going to be based on a subscription and microtransaction revenue model, that's not a red flag. That's the whole freakin' communist parade.

I said earlier that I bought an old used copy of the PHB for less than $20. That will be, I believe, the only 5e product that I buy, and I did so kind of reluctantly even so. I also, very belatedly, ordered older used copies of the 3.5 DMG and PHB. I'd been salty about the update from 3e to 3.5, and just used the SRD for years and years. I did, however, buy the MM, because I like monsters better than players, I guess, or something. (I suppose I could buy PODs from DriveThru at relatively decent prices, if I really wanted more. Most of the ones that I don't have, I don't see the need to do this, though. Except maybe Monster Manual IV. That's one of the few that I really regret having not bought when it was new. It sells for crazy expensive on the used market.) This doesn't exactly "complete" my 3e collection, but almost everything that I missed when it was current, I've now picked up as a pdf or something for less money than actually trying to collect the real books would cost. This is interesting, because actual physical copies of the books are still very expensive; the used market for most 3e era stuff, other than the core books is still pretty inflated. I think people still quite like this game, and if maybe they're not still playing it, they're still holding on to the books for some reason. As I mentioned before, I don't actually think 5e is a significant enough update to 3.5 to have been needed, honestly. It's clearly very much the same game in most respects, and it much more similar to 3e than it is to any other D&D game or edition. Sadly, it seems to have many of the same flaws, and few of the same strengths. Hardly surprising, honestly. If it had come out instead of 3.5, or even instead of Pathfinder, that would have been pretty cool. As it is, well... eh.

But a thought also occurs to me as I'm reading all of these 3e era books again, including some that I bought and never even actually got around to reading, sadly, years and years ago now. (I actually do way too much of that.) One of the major conceits of m20 when it was first designed was that while it streamlined the actual play of the game to almost ridiculous levels, sped up the game tremendously, and made everything much faster and easier on GMs, you could still use anything from d20 or 3e as is without needing to do much more than collapse any relevant skills, and stuff like that. You wanted a monster or spell or magic item from 3e? You could use it, and the conversion to m20 was such a snap that it almost doesn't even count as having to be done; you could literally do it on the fly in your head in a second or two. If you even bothered to. It also occurs to me that although Dark Fantasy X is no longer really an m20 game because it's changed quite a bit since I first conceived it as one, that for the most part this compatibility totally remains. I hadn't really given any thought to 3e in a long time, but since moving and uprooting all of my stuff, I kind of "re-found" my collection which had kind of been put away. Not sure what I'd want to potentially use; maybe some spells, maybe some monsters, maybe some scenarios or ideas here and there... but its been kind of fun to find all of this stuff again and find a way to actually use it again, even though I've long ago abandoned the idea that I'd have any interest in running something as rule-heavy and complicated as 3e ended up being. I just don't enjoy all of that complexity anymore. 

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I'm thinking of adding a new area or two to the setting. I know, I know. The Three Realms and all of that. But these areas won't really be new, just that I haven't done much with them yet. The Boneyard, for instance, kind of serves as a big empty desert that also happens to be the hub around which the Three Realms cluster. I created it more because I'm a huge fan of the American deserts and semi-deserts of the Southwest, from west Texas to southern California, to Arizona and New Mexico and southern Utah and even as far north as much of Wyoming that isn't specifically mountainous. However, that doesn't actually manage to rise to the level of it being a compelling inclusion in the setting. 

There's an interesting conspiracy theory, peddled by such "respectable" places as The History Channel, that there were Egyptians in the Grand Canyon, and that the federal government has covered it up by making the area where the find was off-limits and restricting access. I don't have any comment on whether or not that's a credible idea or not, but it's a cool idea. I'm thinking of creating some civilization in the Boneyard, or at least the Mad Max-like wreckage of one, just so I have more going on in the area than western scenery and old bones from wars between Baal Hamazi and Kurushat. And I've been toying with actually making Nizrekh and Hyperborea real areas in the setting rather than off-hand references "off-screen." But the Boneyard is probably a bit more pressing, since it's geographically contiguous to all three of my Three Realms as it is.

Not that I want actual Egyptian-like influences. But I do want something. I'm not sure exactly what, yet. 

Finally, for whatever reason, I've had some equivalent to fire genasi in my setting from very early on. I did this independently from Freeport, when I got it way back in 2007 or so, but no doubt the fact that they had the azhar race, which was also the fire genasi, but "corrected" down to LA +0, which is really where all PC races needed to be to be useable, encouraged me to keep at it. But for whatever reason, I never had the other three genasi. But as I've been working on the early stages of Elemental Fantasy X, I've been really enjoying having them, and I kind of want to add to the surturs three more races; the tritons, the sylphs and the ... I admit, I always have a hard time coming up with names for earth genasi that I like. I'm kind of considering dvergs, from the Norse word for dwarves. Oread, which D&D does already use, but which is from Greek mythology, also does the job credibly well. But I'm leaning more towards a northern European rather than southern inspiration for the setting. Besides Greek oreads were like nymphs or dryads; all gals. But we'll see what name sticks or if I keep noodling on it. I think what I'll actually do is convert the surturs to the elementalist race, which comes in four flavors; one for each elemental. Culturally they're all the same, and they all come from Kurushat. But rather than being just surturs, they'll be all four. 

I actually think that the elementalists are born like normal humans, and only manifest their elemental heritage as young teenagers. It's a thing of significant cultural importance to the Kurushi elementalists when their kids first manifest which element they'll have power over, kind of like some kind of coming of age bar mitzvah or quincianera or... something that normal Americans do instead of foreigners, although the best I've got is being shuffled off to middle school or high school. We don't really do any coming of age rituals in America anymore. Then, once it first manifests, it takes six months to a year for the young kurushi kid to gradually transform physically into one of the four elementalist races; his skin color, eye color and hair color will change, his body dimensions will probably change; it's kind of like puberty plus because of the elemental change that comes over them as well as... well, as well as everything else that happens during puberty to kids. 

I don't know that I really need more races. I've got five normal ones and five in the appendix. I'm thinking about what to do with them all if I add three more. Surturs are already a mainline race, so maybe it makes sense to put the three new ones there, and move woodwose to the appendix. Then I'll be seven and six. I'm also thinking of moving surturs along with the rest of the elementalists to the appendix instead, and adding orcs and goblins back into the mainline. But that's because the Shadow Over Garenport 5x5 features orcs and goblins quite a bit, and surturs won't make a significant appearance until at least Cult of Undeath is over. I'm also considering taking wendaks out entirely, because the more I think about it, the more I doubt that they have much of a role in the game that a player could make much use of. They're not designed to be very playable, and work more as "The Other" to use libtard academia vocabulary. 

Maybe I don't need to have so few races in the mainline section of the book. Maybe I move all but the ones that would rarely appear (dhampir, seraphs, and grendling/wendaks if I even keep them. Maybe even woodwoses belong here, rather than in the mainline part of the book.) The mainline races will be expanded to be human, grisling (Hyperborean), kemling, orcs and goblins, woodwoses, and all four of the elementalists; surturs, sylphs, tritons and ... dvergs, probably. That makes for ten regular races, a pretty nice selection (comparable to seven in the 3e SRD, and nine in the 5e SRD; although the 5e SRD also has some sub-races that technically expand that to thirteen.) Three more remain in the appendix. 

Assuming that I do this, and I'm leaning heavily towards yes, I probably will, I may want to come up with more iconics or at least some patrons that showcase more of the new races. But, that's OK. Coming up with iconics is kind of fun.

Male and female sylphs.

Male and female triton.

Male dverg. I guess I need to generate some decent dverg girl images, don't I?

Elves and Dwarves (EFX)

What exactly is a dwarf in fantasy? Dwarves (or dwarfs, which honestly is more accurate, although not much used in fantasy specifically) come from Germanic folklore. Old English had the word dweorg, which became the modern dwarf, but Old Norse had the cognate dvergr, and Old High German had twerg, for instance, all of which are meant to be the same folkloric or mythological creature. The best descriptions of them from mythology come from the Norse; the post-Viking Icelanders, and the Eddas describe the dwarves in some detail. In the Poetic Edda, for example, in the Voluspa (I’m omitting the diacritics, because they’re too much trouble) we have the description of the formation of the dwarves by the Aesir. Durin(n) and Motsognir were the first and mightiest, but the remainder of the dwarven names used to Tolkien come from here. Including, curiously, Gandalf. While listed as a dwarf, his name translates to “wand-elf”. Of course, Tolkien’s Gandalf is neither an elf nor a dwarf, nor does he use a wand, but in the Dvergatal, he’s both an elf and a dwarf, I suppose. (Thorin and Oakenshield, or Eikinskjaldi, which is Norse for Oakenshield, is listed separately, curiously.) Tolkien tried to distance his dwarves somewhat from Norse dwarves, but only a little (part of the reason he created an alternate, archaic “what if” spelling of the plural modeled after words like calves, thieves, wolves, hooves, knives, turves, elves, etc.); they clearly are very, very similar and were always meant to be. Richard Wagner also used a very mythological variation on his dwarves when he included some of them in Der Ring des Nibelungen, the Nibelungs themselves being dwarves. Originally from a singular character, probably, named Nibeling or Nyblung, although the same name refers to the royal house of the Burgundians from actual Germanic history. It also seems to be applied to a cadet branch of Pippin’s dynasty; one of the Frankish Carolingian kings; a nephew of Charles Martel himself was called Nibelungus. Dwarves in Germanic mythology were usually associated with earth or stone. They didn’t necessarily live underground, although many did. Many think this is because of their association with death (and therefore burial) however, and they were usually seen as—if not outright evil, then certainly either malicious or unconcerned about the affairs or men, unless they could take advantage of them. The seven dwarfs of the Snow White story, collected by the Grimms, for instance worked underground, and were very separated from and suspicious of men, but they lived together in a cottage in the forest, and took a shine to Snow White when she came by, becoming fiercely protective of her. Disney actually got most of the salient details right on that one. Rumpelstiltskin is another dwarf, who’s more overtly magical but also more overtly spiteful and cunning, trying to take advantage of the unnamed miller’s daughter. Here, though, Rumpelstiltskin is a name very similar to rumpelgeist or poltergeist, basically meaning a mischievous household ghost-like spirit; similar to a boggart or hob rather than to dwarves as we know them from Der Ring or Tolkien or D&D, etc.

A case has also been made among mythologists that dwarves are identical to dark-elves and black-elves, dokkalfar and svartalfar, or the less usually named myrkalfar, murk-elves. Most mythologists describe all of those as the same creatures, and most will also conflate them with with dwarves, suggesting that they were originally the same. Jakob Grimm himself wanted to separate dark-elves and black-elves and dwarves, but his view has not been much accepted in the years since. It’s worth pointing out that our primary source material for the mythology of Germanic peoples is probably quite flawed; written long after Christianization of the Germanic peoples, and focused on a far western fringe group to begin with; it’s not exactly clear how much the heathen Goths, or Alemani or Anglo-Saxons would have recognized the works of Snorri Sturleson as akin to their own beliefs. 

Regardless, dwarves in fantasy today are almost unanimously called dwarves, not dwarfs, and follow a kind of bowdlerized cartoonish reflection of what Tolkien did with them specifically with a bit of the Grimm Brothers tacked on too. They live underground, they’re master craftsman and artisans, they’re stubborn and grumpy, don’t get along with anyone very well, although they can be privately quite fond of the people that they argue with. They’re generally considered to be good rather than cunning or untrustworthy, and will hoard treasure. They’re resistant to magic as wizards and whatnot practice it; their own magic being much more subtle and usually related to their crafting skills. They’re usually seen as rivals if not even enemies of elves, although because both races are considered good, that is usually represented as grumpiness and dislike rather than outright hostility. 

In EFX, dwarves are a more modern race, as are the elves; (as are almost all non-human races, other than the orcs and goblins) formed when magical spillover from some other realm touched the EFX world and made localized changes. Elves and dwarves in EFX were actually formed at the same time in the same event; a magical realm that was like a platonic ideal of The Wilderness™ hit the area that later became the Reynhowe Frontier, which is where both elves and dwarves first appeared. They are different, but also more similar than they are different. Where elves have green coloration; skin, hair and eyes, and are especially focused on the deep forests that make up much of the Reynhowe territory, the dwarves are more focused on the mountains and the rocky hills that the forest grows on. Like dwarves everywhere, they are on the shorter side, rarely taller than five feet, although stocky enough to have the same weight average as a human. They have pointed ears, red or reddish-ochre colored skin, and dark hair, often with thick beards on the men. Their eyes are bright orange. Rather than living in carved underground “halls”, or dwarf-made caves, they tend to prefer living in semi-subterranean stone houses with turf covered roofs built into the side of mountains or hills. When they live elsewhere, such as in urban places like Cliffgate or somewhere else, they still prefer squat or half-underground houses made of sturdy stone or brick when they can get them, and turves on the roof. They actually often live in integrated communities along with elves, although their houses or even entire neighborhoods are segregated because of the style of house that they prefer to live in. Elves and dwarves, rather than being rivals who don’t get along see each other as complementary sides of the same coin. Whereas elves tend to be the explorers and huntsmen of their communities, dwarves are the artisans and traders. Both like to travel, but usually for different reasons, and they often team up accordingly. In areas where elves and dwarves live outside of the Reynhowe or Valade areas, where they are most common, they do often band together. Where they are able to have their own ethnic neighborhoods, they are in interesting mix of buildings; low stone houses for the dwarves, with the elves living in higher wooden houses, and as many trees and other plants as possible, and fountains of babbling water flowing through naturalistic rocks, etc. 

The dwarves, like the elves, at least within the Reynhowe itself, and to a lesser extent also those from Valade, are somewhat isolationist, and don’t get along super well with their neighbors. They especially dislike the necromancers and death knights of Kharnimrion to the north. However, there has been a diaspora of both elves and dwarves to many of the nations across the EFX continent, and many have no real connection whatsoever to the Reynhowe or Valade regions other that that they recognize that forgotten ancestors must have originally been from there; their loyalty is to whatever other country that they live in now; many for many generations.