[Idea] Redoing The Human Races

[Sporadic 2844]

New players do not necessarily know which culture is going to end up appealing to them. Nobody studies the lore too thoroughly on their first go-around, and generally you end up with the people that happen to be friendly to you. To have subraces for cultures which, genetically, do not differ all that much is a lot of work. Not to mention, cultures come and go on LotC.

[PtahWithin 1320]

It seems like the arguments against this sum up to the following:

1. There's no point.
2. They all aren't that physically different from each other.

1. is just stupid. If the humans think it is necessary, who are we to decide for them that they should not arrange their cultures under different subraces? 2. has some argumentative value, but that ignores the question: perhaps differences could be made?

[mmat 7460]

Existing Key traits in my plebeian rodent brain

Hansetians/'Northerners' -

• Pretty buff, tall and stuff.
• Like drinking
• Are quite merry
• Dark Haired
• Grey/Green eyes
• Rugged and prefer snowy/cold areas and are more adept there than other subraces
• Soldiery diet
• Fair skin

Frenchies, Renatians, Salvians, etc/Heartlanders

• Majority of the human population
• Fairer hair,
• Brown or blue eyes(?)
• More slender build/slightly smaller
• The average joe of the humans/jack of all trades.
• Prefer warmer, grassy climates.
• Pale-ish skin(?)

Southerons

• Black
• Culturally adept at diplomacy

I just see this as an attempt by Knox to modernize the Human subraces and make them easy for newbies to understand. Heartlanders is a much more understandable term than Renatian, or whatever. Northerners is pretty self explanatory, simplicity is king. If players want to get deeper into the culture, Hanseti, Renatus, so be it. But have that layer of simplicity first.

 

Why not do this? It's not tampering with the cultures at all, just grouping them into a nice, easily graspable package.

[argonian 14254]

Do something like with the elves. You can immediately tell a Dark Elf from a High Elf, or either of those from a Wood Elf -

 

If it is done properly. There's been a problem where many have made Wood Elves without tanned skin, and so it can be confusing to identify them. If you give each subrace of humans a clear identifier, like elves have with skin color, you'd have to OOCly and ICly enforce it. I'm not sure what you can use though: most humans are generically white, so skin color doesn't seem like a good candidate. Hair? Anyone can have any hair color. Eyes? Same. Perhaps some combination of these in specific? Maybe...

No, the Human subraces have always been divided by culture, and every subrace has people with all real-life natural hair and eye colours. Having it suddenly change would be confusing and existing characters would suddenly either have to change appearance, or nearly no one would conform to those appearance rules.

Anyway, Heartlander should cover all non-Hansetian, non-generic Northern, and non-Raevir cultures, such as Auvgernian and Salvan(which isn't really a culture, more a nationality). There are too many little cultures to make subraces, and most of those cultures lived in Renatus during their peaks, and Renatus was the Heartlands for the the first two Holy Oren Empires.

[Dyrr 137]

Adunians are a sub-race of humans as much as Bretons are a sub race of humans in the elder scrolls.

 

Anyways, good idea, Knox, but there are a ****-TON of Human cultures. The main ones, however, I think are:

 

Raevir

Heartlander

Adunian

Auvergnian

Kaedreni

 

What I think needs to happen is we need to make a mega thread, a pinned thread in human roleplay going in depth explaining the culture, appearance and customs of each culture for new players to read and understand.

 

Personally, I'd put 'Kaedreni's into the same group as Heartlanders, though it wouldn't make to much of a difference. I haven't seen one Auvergnian for months, and I think something should have 20+ players in it's group to be qualified as a subrace.

That said, I think this should be the list: Raevir, Hansetian, Heartlander, Halfling, and Southeron (Or something similar with a different name).

 

 

This looks tasty, however Adunians do qualify as a Human subrace.

I'd say Raevir qualifies as a subrace, but Heartlander is just a culture of Humans who don't fall into a subrace. It's too diverse of a group.

 

Since Adunians are both Elf and Human, wouldn't that make Adunians a subrace of Humans and Elves? :P

[WuHanXianShi14 0]

Adunians are predominantly human in genetics. (think Aragon or Bretons in TES.)

[AlmondTree 418]

Yeah all these are cultures not sub races, it see the reason for this but i feel it's not needed.

[Knox213 10]

After talking to one of the lore masters, he came up with a pretty cool idea to actually group people into specific sub races/groups. I'll let him explain once I forward him all the details.

[Cracker 4570]

The way I see it is as follows;

 

Two actual sub-races, Northrons and Southrons.

 

Within Northrons, you have sub-cultures like Hansetian, Adunian, Raevir

Within Southrons, you have sub-cultures like Salvian, Renati, Rhenyar, Auvergnian, etc.

 

Personally, in terms of four big ethnic groups under these two blanket subraces, I think of

 

Northrons

Northernors- Northern Europeans

Raevirs - Eastern Europeans

 

Southrons

Southernors - Southern Europeans / Moors / Africans

Renati - Western Europeans 

 

Every other ethnic group is some combination of the above. For example, I'd imagine Auvergnian to be a mix of Renati and Southernors, Adunians a mix of Renati, Elves and Northernors, Rhenyars as Southernors with a touch of Raevir, Illation as a mix of norhtron and southron, etc.

 

This set-up is one which I think can be used to describe and categorize the myriad of cultures without compromising on their identities. 

 

On another level, I've always though of Kaedrini as a nationality more than an actual ethnic group. They've been people of all colors and even races which have been identified as Kaedrini and there's never been a physical distinguishing factor as with other sub-races.

[Heff 2460]

Illations have 20 or so people  (2nd largest house in Oren babeh)

[Helbolt 129]

If we are going to redo the sub-races of Humanity, can we at least name them something other than Northerons and Southerons?  It implies direction, which is inaccurate whenever we change maps.  A different name would be nice.

[_pok_ 1768]

i support!

[Sporadic 2844]

Why not do this? It's not tampering with the cultures at all, just grouping them into a nice, easily graspable package.

 

*awkward shuffle* it's actually not trivial to retroactively add subraces to the skill system that's being developed. It's a lot of extra work with a solid chance of subtle bugs/inconsistencies. Overall, it's not a precedent I'm eager on setting.

 

Modifying the names for Northener/Southeron can be done reasonably easily, however.

[Shelby ! 21]

I really do like this and I think it would clear up a lot of confusion for new players. I know I was overwhelmed when the humans when I first started lol. I support it.

[AlmondTree 418]

Whatever happens with this, remove "Hansetian" and call it anything else but "Hansetian" cause that's so ugly and mewmew.