Humans
The Humans of Inazria are perhaps the most diverse and adaptable of all the races, spread across the tropical peninsula from the great capital of Thilidan to the remote fishing villages along the coast. Humans have built a civilization that values innovation, commerce, and cultural exchange. Human society is marked by its rapid pace of change and remarkable capacity for both great achievement and devastating conflict. The human race truly exists everywhere — even in the most remote, extreme, or unlikely places in the world.
Humans are the largest race in Azergad by population, and their shorter lifespans create a sense of urgency that drives them to accomplish great things in relatively brief periods. They are natural traders and diplomats, serving as bridges between the other races through their adaptability and openness to new ideas. Human settlements range from the sprawling metropolis of Thilidan to small farming communities, each reflecting a local culture and environment of its own. The young of Inazria sign onto trading ships, caravan escorts, and adventuring companies as readily as they take up the family trade.
To walk an Inazrian city is to be surrounded by abundance. In Thilidan, the river steps fill at dawn with washers, ferrymen, and morning prayers from thousands of worshippers. The terraces above them perfume whole districts with cardamom, pepper, and drying fish; meals are adapted from all of Azergad’s cuisines, plus flatbread and fish stew from the docks, and rice and honeyed milk sweets for the wedding feast. Humans all over Inazria dress in long wrapped and layered cloth dyed in fierce colors, with jewelry at the ears and wrists for the fortunate wealthy.
Windfall smells of tar, sailcloth, and roasting coffee; Its bustling harbor is crowded with lateen-rigged traders from every Realm. Marlis rings with the heavy clanging of metals - its smiths are famed from the Kystrilands to Khurz-Marn. However far apart their trades, an Inazrian household of any means keeps the same three treasures: a guest mat always ready, a family name in classical Inazri, and, usually, a less-than-humble opinion about seemingly everyone and everything.
Between the great cities lies a peninsula thick with sprawling towns, each with their own flavors and customs. South of Thilidan, along the capital’s warm climbing hills, stands the town of Surakell. Every dawn, it is tradition that the market opens by weighing yesterday’s pepper and cardamom harvest on public scales. Further inland, where the Thilidan River bends north through groves and busy roads, lies Padramat. Locals wash in the river steps and leave lotus petals for the local deities on the last night of the month. Padramat’s shrines are many, as it is a common destination for pilgrimages. On the gulf road south of Windfall sits Rimah, where coffee roasting houses open before the fishing boats return. A typical houseguest of a Rimah townsperson must be offered three cups of coffee (a result of the Rimah brewing method). However, while the gesture is generous, refusing the third cup is seen as particularly rude. It is known in Rimah that Kelanari dislike coffee and Dwarves drink too much of it.
South of Marlis, where the tropical forest thins into cattle country along the dry plains, the drover market of Dharfel gathers twice a month under striped awnings. Herders brand their stock with family seals cut in classical Inazri letters. The town smells of grilled meat, dust, and the sharp green of crushed herbs rubbed into leather. Along the sparsely-populated northern coast, beyond Windfall’s suburban farms, huddles the fishing village of Nelkush. Here, nets are blessed each season with salts and ash. Due to the rugged terrain and the high rates of storms and other disasters, Nelkush boats have become prized for their high quality and durability. Rural folk tell stories of cavern mouths inland from Nalukesh that breathe cold air, even amidst the sweltering summer - what is rumored to wait at the depths of such caverns, however, the fishermen prefer not to say.
Physically, humans are highly variable but typically stand between 5 and 6 feet tall with all kinds of lean and stocky builds. Their skin tones vary from pale to deep brown, with hair colors spanning the full spectrum from black to blonde. Humans mature by age 18 and typically live 75–90 years, though some exceptional individuals may reach 100 and beyond.
Traits
- Ability Score Increase: +1 to two different ability scores of your choice. At 10th level, you may add +1 to another ability score.
- Age: Humans mature by age 18 and live up to 90 years.
- Size: Humans vary widely in height and build. Your size is Medium.
- Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
- Versatile: You gain proficiency in one skill of your choice.
- Crossroads Upbringing: Raised where every race of man passes through, you gain proficiency with one tool, gaming set, or musical instrument of your choice. Additionally, you can convey and understand simple ideas with any creature that speaks a language, using the gestures, loanwords, and market-pidgin of the great trade cities.
- Determined: You can add your proficiency bonus to one ability check that doesn’t already include your proficiency bonus. You can use this trait once per long rest.
- Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common, plus your choice of trade language: Kystri, Veldtwin, or Wendric. Inazrian-born Humans are also exposed to Inazri, the classical Inazrian tongue, though full fluency is rare (see Inazri below).
Inazri
Inazri is the classical tongue of the peoples of Inazria — the language that was spoken in Thilidan when the Pact was signed, and which was once the daily speech of the Inazrian peninsula. Today it survives as a ceremonial and literary register rather than a vernacular. It is the language of oaths, blessings, festival songs, religious recitations, and gravestone inscriptions; of family names, place names, and the names given to newborn children; and of formal documents, royal decrees, and certain ritual texts. Inazrian-born Humans grow up hearing Inazri at weddings, funerals, harvest festivals, and the naming of children, and most might recite a handful of phrases, but daily life is conducted in Common.
Fluent speakers of Inazri are uncommon. They are rural village elders, antiquarians, scholars, priests, and the senior officers of certain Inazrian institutions. To be a fluent reader of old Inazri is to belong to a small society of those who can interpret what was originally written when the world was younger.
A Human character whose background includes a rural Inazrian upbringing, formal religious or scholarly training, or service to a Paragon’s seat may, at the GM’s discretion, gain the ability to speak, read, and write Inazri as an additional language. Inazrian Humans of any background may freely use Inazri-rooted personal names, family names, and place names regardless of fluency.