D&D General What are humans?

[Aldarc]

Humans having no creator god is a little bit eerie.

Humans were created by Harambe, the God of Primates.

 

[Shardstone]

Humans were created by Harambe, the God of Primates.

Harambe is but a lesser god when compared to the mighty Australopithecine

 

[Vaalingrade]

Harambe is but a lesser god when compared to the mighty Australopithecine

We call her Lucy in this house, heretic.

 

[Shardstone]

We call her Lucy in this house, heretic.

Ah my b my b

 

[Aldarc]

Harambe is but a lesser god when compared to the mighty Australopithecine

Heresy.

 

[Hriston]

There are many shorter lived sapient species, though. Why aren't goblins mostly running the show?

I wasn't including those species in the "major peoples of the Material Plane," by which I meant elves, dwarves, humans, and halflings, which I thought would be clear from context, my bad. It's unclear in my mind, for instance, how long goblins live. They could be nearly as immortal as elves or have shorter lifespans depending on their breeding.

Also, some of these assumptions really vary by setting. On Exandria, Elves are longer lived, often attaining several centuries, but nothing close to immortal. Even in AD&D elf lifespans were measure in hundreds of years, not thousands.

I like to use the maximum age ranges given for elves in D&D as the age by which an elf must depart into the Feywild or fade if they remain on the Material Plane.

Again, this is setting dependent. There's no particular reason that humans should be ascendent, other than that has often been the case in fantasy novels and D&D settings. And the "other people in decline" trope comes mostly from Tolkien. It's not really still a thing in D&D, if you look at the descriptions of various species in the rules and settings.

Sure, I mean there could be settings where humans aren't even present or are newcome into a world dominated by older peoples. Generally though, I think of D&D settings as inhabiting an imaginary time that precedes a time more like our own, in which humans are the sole or at least dominant sentient people. Typically, for instance, elves and dwarves are depicted as having preceded the existence of humans.

Edit: sorry, just noticed that your avatar described you as a "Dungeon Master of Middle Earth." Sure, in that setting your observations are on point. That's not a D&D setting, though.

My title is intended to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek and has a double meaning. I make no secret of being a fan of JRR Tolkien, and it's a play on his unofficial title, Master of Middle-earth, to which I've merely added the word dungeon. I also consider the name Middle-earth to carry the same meaning as Midgard. I.e. the inhabitable world of mankind in which you and I both live. In that way, it can be said I am a DM in Middle-earth. I've never actually run a D&D game set in Tolkien's Middle-earth (the closest I've come was running MERP), but I use his tropes as sort of a default for my D&D games. With respect, I'm not sure what criteria you're using to determine what does or doesn't constitute "a D&D setting", but I would think there've been numerous games of D&D set in Middle-earth as described by Tolkien.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

I also consider the name Middle-earth to carry the same meaning as Midgard. I.e. the inhabitable world of mankind in which you and I both live. In that way, it can be said I am a DM in Middle-earth.

i mean, this would track with tolkien's intention to create a mythological piece for the english that isn't arthur and his knights.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

It's totally totally setting dependent. One can ring all sorts of variations on "what are humans?"

One setting can have humans as "the mongrel race" - a human is someone who is descended from non-human ancestors of more than one sort.

Another can have humans as "the base race" with non-human humanoids being offshoots having greater or lesser changes with time and magical and/or scientific mutation. ("Elves are humans with pointy ears. Pointy- and round-eared humans are not any more different from each other than humans with and without epicanthic folds in their eyes are different from each other.")

I have one setting where humans are relatively rare, and are all immigrant/exiled magic users from a "tech" world in another dimension (plus a few descendants of those exiled humans). Since they're transplants, they don't reproduce very well and would die out if the population weren't constantly replenished from that other-dimension tech-world.

One could have a "Humans are the Big Ones" setting where the other humanoids are all 3-4 feet tall, vs the 5-6+ ft humans. Yes, the elves and orcs are 4 ft or less too, and there are no ogres or giants because humans are the ogres.

TVTropes has a "Humans are Indexed" page linking to a bunch of variants. (Link not given because of how TVTropes is such a time drain.)

 

[Xeviat]

i'd really love if they tried to really extrapolate how other species cultures would logically differ from human society stemming from their own biological traits, similar to that, oh i forget what it's called but there was a thought experiment setting that tried to look at how a world would actually develop if things like teleportation circles and plant growth all those other magics that logically should have a massive impact on society did have the impact they should. (edit found it, it was the tippyverse)

like for elves who only need to trance for 4 hours a day, maybe that might create a whole 24 hour society where everything is open all the time and instead of having dedicated bedrooms there are little bubble room motels that you check in for 4-hours at a time that are treated more like public benches, and the idea of shutting everything down for nearly half of the day so people can sleep is insanely inefficient to them, how does your entire species being resistant to charm effects influence their society

maybe dwarves with darkvision, tremmorsense and an innate constant knowledge of just how far underground they are, resulting in pitch black cities where the only light is from the fires of the smelting forges, where colour is a near alien concept to them as is logically inked writing, but record things in texture and sound

or halflings, what would be the results of a species having nigh-supernatural luck and they know it

I actually really like this line of thinking. A few have noticed that I'm thinking in a more sci-fi way than a fantasy way when thinking about species, and that's true. For my own setting, I know each of the species evolutionary origins (humans are apes, halflings are spider monkeys, dwarves are badgers...) and have been thinking about how to truly differentiate them from humans.

Elves having a 24 hour day makes a lot of sense. They can see in the dark, so moonlight is fine. They like the outdoors and are adapted to their environment, so sitting on a park bench and taking a 4 hour trance isn't out of the question. Their charm resistance may make it so they don't legislate enchantment magic like other species might.

Being that dwarves often live underground and rely upon their darkvision, maybe dwarves don't write and paint because darkvision lacks color. Instead, they carve statues and chisel for writing; it's just easier to see in black and white. Their poison resistance could lead to not just strong alcohol, but frequent ingestion of poisonous plants and animals, seeing poison as a spice or a base flavor.

Halflings' innate luck and resistance to fear could lead to some really reckless behavior.

As for humans having wanderlust, do we really? What's the percentage of people who haven't left the area they were born in? Certainly there are adventurous humans who travel and explore, and maybe we have a higher percentage compared to other species, but there are migratory species to compare to. An avian species that migrates yearly might have way more wanderlust.

I do also like the lizardfolk emotion description, of where they perceive their emotions as sensations rather than feelings. It's interesting.

And I do love the idea of "the creator deity of humans is dead and Asmodeus stole its portfolio". Humans having The Devil as our patron deity makes for some good cautionary tales.