4 KiB
“You look like me, you are like me. You do not - you are not.”
In the fractured and far-reaching lands of Vaelora, the line between kin and other is often drawn by the eye, not the blood. Among the common folk, difference is understood in simple terms: skin, shape, speech, and strangeness. It is only the scholars - those cloistered in imperial libraries or sifting through the ruins of the Shattering - who speak in terms like species, noting the invisible boundaries of blood and birth that divide the peoples of the world more deeply than language or land.
To these learned minds, the world’s peoples fall broadly into two ancient lineages: the Tul-born, descended from the enigmatic Tul-Dar - “those who came before” - and the Others, whose origins lie beyond, beside, or beneath the world as it is now known.
In the cities and courts of Vaelora, distinctions blur. In the forests and mountains, they sharpen. Though most call themselves simply “people,” the world remembers deeper truths - and not all blood flows the same beneath the skin.
The Tul People
The Tul People are the inheritors of the surface world: diverse, prolific, and widespread. Though their appearances vary, they share a fundamental biological ancestry, able to interbreed, share food and water, and suffer the same diseases. They make up the vast majority of civilized populations across the Inner Sea and beyond.
- Mentralians, the core of the central kingdoms and the Temerian Empire, possess pale to olive skin, small almond-shaped eyes, and a wide range of hair colors. They are a versatile and ambitious people, forming the cultural heart of the world’s fractured power blocs.
- Anderonians, native to the highlands of Anderon and northern reaches of Annwyn, are taller and broader than their Mentralian cousins. Their light skin, thick beards, and pale eyes make them a common sight in martial and frontier roles.
- Pharoseans, desert-dwellers of the sun-scorched south, are a people of olive to rich brown complexion, dark hair and eyes, and proud bearing. Red hair is rare and believed to bring fortune, a mark of the sun’s kiss.
- Sachrans, a once-free desert people now largely enslaved in the cities of Pharos, possess stone-colored skin - grey to deep brown - and hauntingly light eyes. Tall, lean, and enduring, they are whispered to have walked unburned across the sands before the first empires.
- Mountain Folk, who dwell in the wild footlands of the Shatar Mountains, are smaller in stature but thick-boned, with strong jaws and high endurance. Their eyes are often pale, occasionally a piercing storm-blue said to mark the old blood of spirits and snow.
The Others
Beyond the Tul-blooded, there exist peoples not born of that same old tree, whose roots reach into stranger soils. These are the Others - shaped by spirits, by sorcery, or by secrets best left unspoken.
- The Tlaxcal, also called the Jaguar-Blooded, are descendants of a servitor race engineered by the Tul-Dar - part human, part beast. Once bred to fight, they turned on their creators and slaughtered their kin species, rising from chains to carve their own path. Graceful, sharp-toothed, and warm-blooded, they are now a rare sight - most living in exile or as exotic slaves in foreign lands.
- The Myou, or “Strange People”, are a seductive anomaly - humanoid in shape, but fungus in truth. Native to the Ashenvale Woods, they are alluring, asexual, and lethally misunderstood. With green or grey skin and a scent like spring rain, they inspired the myths of dryads and man-eating forest spirits. Some are kept as pets or lovers, though always with chains nearby.
- The Akumei, whispered as Demon-Blooded, hail from the Kyourin Shogunate. They are what remains of those who survived the Shattering not by endurance, but by corruption - binding themselves to outer spirits and allowing that taint to sustain them. They are pale, strange-eyed, and otherworldly. Their lifeblood runs close to something not of this world, and their presence often stirs unease.