Earthdawn Revisited - Humans

Return to home page / Return to Character Creation Page

Contents

 * Appearance:
 * Mentality:
 * Background:
 * Names:
 * Mechanics:

Appearance:
Humans average 5 feet 7 inches in height and weigh an average of 150 pounds. They produce less body hair than most races, but more than elves. Skin tone ranges from ebony to tan and pinkish-white. Their ears are small and rounded. Humans reach physical maturity in their teens and live a natural life span of 75 years, though individuals have been known to live 100 years or longer,

Mentality
Humans feel a natural loyalty to their families. Inclined to form social groups, humans easily transfer this loyalty to tribes, cities, or kingdoms, though they do not adapt to large-scale society as well as dwarfs. This reluctance to pledge allegiance to a government does not prevent them from quickly adapting dwarven advances into their own cultures.

Humans prefer to live in roofed dwellings, clustered with others of their kind. They often copy dwarven city designs, though many human cities spring up in too haphazard a fashion for dwarven tastes. Most humans find elven communities unsettling.

Background:
In Barsaive, humans are viewed with a degree of suspicion. Orc Scorcher mercenaries and Troll Sky-pirates may occasionally raid and pillage, but villages can be rebuilt. Only the human-run empire of Thera seeks to dominate all inhabitants of Barsaive and place many of them in shackles. Many had Theran ancestors, but centuries living with their neighbours of other races have eroded any vestigial loyalty people may once have had for that tyrannical empire. So most humans are gregarious and open with their neighbours to compensate, making them unusually diverse.

Humans are as likely to have waited out the scourge in a Dwarven Kaer as to have constructed their own and in either case they would be very likely to share it with at least some other races.

They are currently the third most populous race in Barsaive.

Names:
Human surnames are the most varied, often they relate to a family profession (Cooper, Carver, Dyer) or they are named for a particularly noteworthy ancestor (Rudd's-son, Freya's daughter) but some human cultures have completely different naming systems.

Mechanics:
Versatile: Extra Starting Standard Edge, this may be used to purchase the initial Arcane Background: Adept but not any other adept edge. (+2)

Return to home page / Return to Character Creation Page