THE LORE · THE VALE
Humankind
aka Human, Humans
The latecomers — settlers, sellswords, and ledger-clerks drawn to the Vale by the dead Imperium's silver, plus the hard river-folk of the Northern Reach. Rootless, adaptable, and quietly lucky.
Humans hold no ancient claim to the Vale and ring with no native echo, and in a land that punishes the marked, that emptiness is their strength. Some came up the trade-roads chasing the Imperium's leavings; more came down the Karth from the Northern Reach and the high fords, hardy boat-folk and herders who forgot House Vandahl's banners somewhere upriver. They take any trade, any faith, any road, and pass for harmless until they aren't. Settled Vale folk call them green and overlook them — which suits a people whose best talent is being underestimated. Humankind is the default stock of Valenfeld: where a face has no other story, it is human.
KIND
race
PLAYABLE
yes
DEFAULT
yes
HOMELAND
Karth Bridge
Connected
Karth BridgePLACE · Most humans came down the Karth out of the Northern …ValenfeldPLACE · The latecomers settle thickest in Valenfeld, chasing…The Gaunt LedgerFACTION · The Ledger's clerks and factors are mostly human lat…The FindersFACTION · Human newcomers fill the Finders' lower ranks — expe…The UnclosedCONCEPT · Humans are the Vale's latecomers, with no old grave-…The Birth of the RacesCONCEPT · Humankind was not born from the cycle — it was fashi…
Appears In
Type Fields
kindrace
playableyes
defaultyes
homelandplace.karth-bridge
also_foundplace.vallenfield-town, place.highbridge
appearanceUnremarkable by design — every build and coloring the other peoples have one of, the Reach folk paler and broader.
demeanorAdaptable, opportunistic, easily underestimated.
strengthsVersatile, Lucky, At home in any faction or trade
weaknessesNo native echo-attunement, No ancient claim or protection
traitsversatile, fortune-favored
voice{"register":"Plain, direct, a little wry. No patience for mystics or fancy talk; says what they mean.","likes":["trade","work","famine","war","crime","power","law"],"opener":"What is it you want to know?","dismiss":"The gods, the echo — maybe. I've a roof to keep and a hard winter coming."}
birth_order7
origin_modefashioned
elemental_nature{"primary":"Water + Earth (mud — the lowest elements combined)","animating":"Fire (Vallen's animating breath) + Air (to carry the breath)","divine":"Aether — a vanishingly small sliver; enough for consciousness; not enough for divinity"}
cycle_transitionnone — not born from a cycle transition; fashioned by Vallen the Forge-Singer during the High Age for labor in the Imperium's great works
cosmological_prideHumans have none — they don't know their origin. The other races hold fragments: the Vyr know; the Asheni gravesongs hint ('the mud-kin came with the roads'); the Stoneborn guild-oaths say 'the last mud, which walked.' Humans believe they followed opportunity up the trade roads. This is true. The roads were built for them.
cycle_roleNo elemental nature = no elemental limit. Cannot be placed on the Rebirth or Ruin cycles. Made by a dead god: Vallen's destruction severed the one divine bond humans ever had. The fashioned race now wanders without its maker.
makerVallen the Forge-Singer — dead since the Sundering
All Relationships (15)
references
- →Karth Bridge — Most humans came down the Karth out of the Northern Reach, fording at the bridge before the Vale.
- →Valenfeld — The latecomers settle thickest in Valenfeld, chasing the dead Imperium's silver.
- ←The Gaunt Ledger — The Ledger's clerks and factors are mostly human latecomers — no House blood, no native echo, all appetite for trade.
- ←The Finders — Human newcomers fill the Finders' lower ranks — expendable, unremarkable, easily lost in a crowd.
- →The Unclosed — Humans are the Vale's latecomers, with no old grave-debt of their own in the ground — the Unclosed that haunt the Vale are mostly someone else's unfinished ending, inherited rather than born to.
documents
- ←The Birth of the Races — Humankind was not born from the cycle — it was fashioned. Vallen the Forge-Singer shaped it from mud (Water+Earth) during the High Age, animated with Fire and Air, and gave it a vanishingly small sliver of Aether. Made for labor.
made_for
- →The Vallen Imperium — Humankind was fashioned by Vallen for the Imperium's great works. The species arrived with the Imperium because the Imperium was Vallen's project and humans were his tools.
severed_by
- →The Sundering — The Sundering killed Vallen — the god who made humankind. The fashioned race's only divine bond was cut at its death. Humans now wander without the maker who built the roads they follow.
knows_origin_of
- ←The Vyr — The Vyr know that humankind was fashioned from mud by Vallen. They say nothing. The Vyr's contempt for humans is partly this: we are the firstborn; you were made by our younger sibling from river-clay.
aligned_with
- ←The Cult of the Living Vallen — Humankind adopted the Cult largely wholesale — the Listening College is the dominant scholarly institution humans have access to, and it teaches what it teaches.
worships
- →Vallen, the Wright — Vallen fashioned humankind and swore the Vallen Imperium to him; his dead-god faith is humanity's own tragedy — the maker gone and the world fraying.
- →Old Harrow, Turner of the Year — Farm-belt humans keep Old Harrow in the field even as they swear by the dead Wright in town — a living god below the dead one.
- →The Good Neighbor — Humans leave milk on the step and blame a cold house on a turned-away traveler.
- →The Last Guest — No one says the name — a spoken name is a summons — so the rites are acts of closing: latch the door, snuff the lamp, shut the dead's eyes.
rooted_in
- ←The Breath in the Mud — Grounded entirely in humankind's despised nature — mud-made, elementless, carrying Vallen's gifted breath. The heresy takes exactly the facts the Vyr use to call humans lesser and reads them as the wheel's one blind spot.
This world ships in Valenfeld. Play the game →