Pre-sundering cultured races

[Drul Morbok]

Assuming the term race as "defined as any intelligent species which has developed language and culture" I'm uncertain about which (if any) races came into existence "naturally" on Khoras and before the sundering.

Elves, dwarves, ogres and others "splintered" from humans due to massive radiation after the sundering.
Other races where created/bred by human magic (i e. not "naturally"), like saurians, baenites, mandalar, secambru.
Not sure about vaullians, or saridians.

And some races came from other planets or dimensions like the xorian.

This seems to be summed up as "Originally, only humans lived in the world."


But at least one race seems to have developed on Khoras independent from humans and before the sundering - the sarthak/trossoli, as they are described as the only race not to change their calendar after the sundering.
And as I understand it, when the (maybe not-yet) dwarfs met them, it was a first contact, they were unheard of.

Did they still evolve from humans, and if so, when did they seperate?
Or is it truly seperate evolution? If so, when did they first exist?


Or the thallasians....they "seem to have evolved from a crustacean life form".
Also after the sundering?

[David Roomes]

First, let me preface this by saying that any game master is free to change the origin of the races in his or her game if they need a specific race to have a specific origin to serve their story. That's fine.

In my version of Khoras, here are the origin of all the "races"...

Original Species: Human

Forced rapid evolution due to massive radiation after Sundering:
Borrellians, Dwarves, Elves, Eshtari, Grum, Magrakians, Ogres, Saridians, Sybrenar, Vaullians, Ankari, Goblins, Hyttar, Merfolk, Orcs, Phanglir, Pugnar, Sea Gypsies, Trolls, Urtas,

Engineered by magic:
Baenites (created by the Thullian Empire for the Great War),
Phellysians (created by the wizard Rexilar)
Secambru (created by the Kytohan Empire)
Thallasians (created by a wizard pre-Sundering which then evolved and changed greatly after Sundering)
Mandalar (created by the Kithdari as a slave race)
Morphians (created by the Irenni League for the Great War)
Guldra (created by a wizard pre-Sundering which then evolved and changed greatly after Sundering)
Saurians (created by the Jakar resistance group prior to the Great War)
Skrell (created by the sarthak - background not posted yet - possibly a future spotlight topic)
Vothen (created by a wizard pre-Sundering which then evolved and changed greatly after Sundering)

Offshoot of another race that came about through continuing evolution:
Aswani (offshoot of the Mandalar race)
Boglings (offshoot of the Goblin race)
Hurkyte (offshoot of the Saurian race)
Sayune (offshot of the Grum race)
Scrub Rats (offshot of the Skrell race)
Trog (offshoot of the Goblin race)
Sarthak (offshoot of the Kithdari race - background not posted yet - possibly a future spotlight topic)

True Aberrations
Setharin (not a true race, an aberrant form of avarian)
Aberrants (individual aberrations that can occur in any race)
Faerie (not a true race, an aberrant form of elf)
Giants (individual aberations that can occur in any race)
Etherbane (individual aberrations that can occur in any race)

Came from another dimension: Kithdari, Xorians

Came from another star system: Karthasians


Now that I've reviewed all the races, I realize that I should probably make some changes:

For instance, the "aberrations" are not true "races". I probably shouldn't call them races. Perhaps I should move the Aberrations somewhere else.

Also, the Sea Gypsies are more of a culture, not a different species. The sea gypsies are mostly human and should perhaps be reclassified as a human subrace, along with Northerners, Southerners, Padashani, Tomarin and so forth.

The Kithdari, Sarthak and Skrell all have historical information about their origins that hasn't been posted to the site yet. Maybe I should make the "origin of the races" the next spotlight and clean up a lot of the historical vagueness.

Thoughts? Comments?

[Drul Morbok]

Wow, thanks a lot, this is really informative, once more I'm deeply impressed by the coherency of your creation, and how it all fits together, even if I don't grasp it at first glance (to be honest, often not even after 10+ years of glancing).

Should you ever need an idea for a future spotlight, I totally encourage you to incorporate this into the site, as I did not find such an exhaustive overview.

And I had similar thoughts about classification, I already considered asking about the classification as lesser versus greater race.
I noticed some lesser races seem to be variants (aberrations) of other races rather than races of their own, and while I admit that it doesn't really matter (after all, lesser versus greate race seems to be a metagame classification rather than an in-game aspect), I did e.g. not quite understand what makes ogres a greater race, and orcs a lesser one...numbers? Whether they have their own society or blend into other races' societies? Maybe a bit of all, and yet a lot more to consider?
Also right now there's a page for lesser races and a page for greater races, plus a page for an overview with a list of some of either.

While in itself, the classification lesser/greater would not have been important enough for me to really be an issue, I would really be interested in reading anything you publish about origin and classification of races

[David Roomes]

I admit that the Races section of Khoras is a bit messy. In truth, that's because it is one of the oldest sections in the entire world, written when I was much younger. It certainly warrants some attention and some "clean up". I think it could be organized better. I will devote a monthly spotlight to it.

It'll have to wait a few months though, but I'll get to it eventually.