Shadow World - Races

Races

(See also List of Shadow World races)

Shadow World broadly categorizes races into the mortal (or "mannish," though this category includes species such as dwarves and centaurs), immortal (or "Elven") species, and "Half-elven" species. The "half-elven" are not necessarily the direct offspring of a human and an elven parent, but rather long-lived the intermixed hybrid population resulting from widespread interbreeding of human and elven populations until speciation occurs, for example the Sulini or Ky'tari Compared to mortals, either sort of half-elf has a long life, though for species it is measured in centuries while for individuals such as Elor Once Dark or T'vaar Dekdarion it is measurable in millennia.

Human subspecies are categorizable as roughly descended from extinct species such as the Jinteni, a few varieties of "High Men" borrowing heavily from Tolkien's Dunadaen (e.g. Zori or Laan) and many categories of "common men" (such as Jameri or Haid). Shadow World's "High Men" differ from the Dunadaen both in higher racial diversity among the former (e.g. the Kinsai are dark-skinned), and there is no suggestion in the source material that High Men or their antecedents owe their longer lives to a very distant elven ancestor.

There are also so-called "evil" or monstrous races such as the Murlogi (goblins) and Lugroki (Orcs), with speculated origins as the results of alien origin or sorcerous manipulation.

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Famous quotes containing the word races:

    For the most part we stupidly confound one man with another. The dull distinguish only races or nations, or at most classes, but the wise man, individuals.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Arrive at New Orleans, a city of ships, steamers, flatboats, rafts, mud, fog, filth, stench, and a mixture of races and tongues. Cholera, “some.” [At] Planters’ Hotel. Mem:—Never get caught in a cheap tavern in a strange city.
    Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)

    Listen, my friend, there are two races of beings. The masses teeming and happy—common clay, if you like—eating, breeding, working, counting their pennies; people who just live; ordinary people; people you can’t imagine dead. And then there are the others—the noble ones, the heroes. The ones you can quite well imagine lying shot, pale and tragic; one minute triumphant with a guard of honor, and the next being marched away between two gendarmes.
    Jean Anouilh (1910–1987)