What alternatives to "human" are there?

[Morrus]

What do RPGs, books, etc. use when they don't want to use "human"? "Mankind" - for better or worse - is completely moon- landing associated in my head, and "Men" (a la Tolkien) is rather exclusionary. I find "human" rather bland, though - probably due to overuse.

I guess some sci-fi properties use Terran and Earthling. What about fantasy settings?

 

[GreyLord]

CS Lewis - Son of Adam, Daughter of Eve

Star Trek - The Federation (well, it expanded after awhile to include all sorts of aliens beyond Spock, so maybe not such a good example....)

Mass Effect - The Alliance

Americans, Europeans, Australians, Asians....

Those from the Old World/Old Earth

The People

Stephen Donaldson - People of the Land, Mithil Stowndowners

Terry Brooks - Southlanders, Southland, Bordermen

Well, there's a few.

 

[Morrus]

Thanks. Yeah, I was more after the race than a country or political entity (I can come up with Welsh, French, The Empire, or Xagymomuwotsitians easily enough).

Something generic enough to be used without establishing a specific setting or world.

I guess "human" gets used a lot because it best fits that bill; which is also precisely the reason I want to avoid it if possible!

(I've settled on "smallfolk" for halflings).

 

[The Mormegil]

The actual problem is that humans are never really associated with any specific characteristic in fantasy. They are always considered "bland", which is comprehensible since we're human, but it's also rather odd. Why don't humans have something that distinguishes them from other races, the same way elves and dwarves do? Why don't humans have specific cultural references in their stat blocks? Elves are ALL associated with woods and archery dwarves are ALL associated with underground jewelry and crafting (yeah yeah exceptions blah blah blah you know what I mean though)... Why can't men be associated with something?

One reason is that the rulebooks are obviously written by a human point of view, which means humans are the implicit standard. One other reason is that humans are actually real and everybody notices there's plenty of difference between various humans. Another reason is that racism is a crime and any sort of "human archetype" can probably be tagged as such. Another reason is that humans are supposed to be the race everybody automatically goes to unless they have a specific reason not to, and this means they need to be familiar. Sometimes humans are associated with versatility and adaptation, which is IMO just an excuse for not detailing their culture due to the above reasons.

In any case, the only "distinguishable" human traits that are not tied to the campaign setting are the supposed "versatility" of humans (meh) and their short lifespan (compared to all other core fantasy races except goblinoids), no thanks to Tolkien of course. I don't think the human versatility is a strong starting point for a name. As such I suggest "mortalkind" or some variation thereof.

Another idea is to notice that since all other races have a name in Human (or Common), humans should probably have their name in another language (it's most likely to have clear terms indicating them) but that's fantasy gibberish territory and definitely not canon.

 

[pogre]

Naked Apes - from an old beer & pretzels minis game I wrote years ago.

Skins - from an old sci-fi book - don't remember the title.

Manlings - Gotrek of Gotrek & Felix fame - Warhammer universe.

These are probably not particularly satisfying for your purpose. There is a reason everybody falls back to Human I guess.

 

[TrippyHippy]

2014 - Reasons to be cheerful! (part 3*)

What do RPGs, books, etc. use when they don't want to use "human"? "Mankind" - for better or worse - is completely moon- landing associated in my head, and "Men" (a la Tolkien) is rather exclusionary. I find "human" rather bland, though - probably due to overuse.

I guess some sci-fi properties use Terran and Earthling. What about fantasy settings?

Just break them down into cultures and name them after their cultures. In the same way you have 'small folk', you could have 'woodland folk', 'desert folk', 'mountain folk' and so on.

I guess the common name is 'folk'.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Urgh I think 'folk' is worse than human, it just brings up folk dancing to me.

"the most fatuous, tenth-rate entertainment ever devised by man."

Where folk is used in books I have read it is always for such a goody-two-shoes bunch that makes me sick!

 

[TrippyHippy]

Really? It brings up Led Zeppelin and Steeleye Span to me, but each to their own.

 

[mach1.9pants]

I just realise what it annoys me from, the hippy but not trippy Ffolk (note two Fs, very new age) from the Forgotten Realms

 

[Bluenose]

Traveller has the Solomani, the People of Sol. Though that also technically covers bioengineered intelligent dolphins and apes. Also several other races of humans with different names, but Solomani would seem perfectly usable. And like you say, there's also Terrans and Earthlings, again SF terms. The one I've seen a bit in fantasy is usually associated with mankind appearing "later" than the other races where they're called newcomers or something related to that, or perhaps primitives if they aren't seen as advancced.