25 lines
No EOL
4 KiB
Markdown
25 lines
No EOL
4 KiB
Markdown
_“You look like me, you are like me. You do not - you are not.”_
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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.
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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.
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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.
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### The Tul People
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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.
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- **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.
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- **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.
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- **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.
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- **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.
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- **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.
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### The Others
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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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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. |