Races

[FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit]

I was wondering... What do Zalanthias look like compared to... erm... Earthians? Do humans have their own distinct races, like we do? Like we have asian, african, mexican, caucasian (Where the hell is 'Caucasia' anyways?), British, blah blah blah. I was wondering, does Zalanthas have similar distinctions? I imagine northerners and southerners have some distinctions... Are there different breeds of elves and dwarves, as well? Perhaps some half-giants have more giant in them then the average one, hm? And also, do you think it'd be weird to see some one walking around Zalanthas who looked undeniably... I don't know... Korean, by their short description? This is just random talk at 10:55 pm on a school night. You don't need to think too deeply about it, now. I was just curious.

[Cyrin]

Over near Russia, it's actually near the Black Sea if I remember correctly, are the Caucasian mountains.

(To be nitty, Mexican and British would more or less be considered "ethnicities" rather than a "race")

As far as Earth races go, I'd understood things to be that skin pigmentation had to do with adaptation to the enviroment.  More sun = more melanin, less sun = less melanin.

All well and good I suppose as far as the Northern Hemisphere goes.  Folks up in Norway tend to be fair, folks down towards the Mediterranean and Equator tend to be darker.

If anyone can explain how Asians fit into that theory, or why Aborignies are so dark, even though Australia's location in the Southern Hemipshere is rather proportional to Europe's respective location, or why that whole concept is currently wrong.

I think you're probably right on there being different "breeds" of folks.  (On a side note, I'd think especially in the case of muls.  I'd bet there's a few breeders who actually  breed for say, flat noses and such.  Much like dogs are bred for specific traits, functional or asthetic)

[John]

As far as Earth races go, I'd understood things to be that skin pigmentation had to do with adaptation to the enviroment.  More sun = more melanin, less sun = less melanin.

This (for some reason) was raised on another message board I visit, and quite a few people said that, so I imagine it's correct.

why Aborignies are so dark, even though Australia's location in the Southern Hemipshere is rather proportional to Europe's respective location, or why that whole concept is currently wrong.

Well it's all got to do with weather really. England is a hell of a lot colder then Australia (it gets snow all over the place, in Australia only a few places get snow. Summer in England is 25 degrees, summer in Australia is 40), and AFAIK it's because the Earth is on a tilt, so as a general rule, the southern hemisphere is warmer then the northern, because the tilt cause the southern to be facing the sun more. That's all I know about the whole thing, and I'm probably wrong about a couple of things.

Do humans have their own distinct races, like we do? Like we have asian, african, mexican, caucasian British etc

I actually love this idea. I think up to now, people have mainly been interested in the differences between races (such as elves and humans) and keep physical distinctions between the races instead of between regions. But I love the idea of physical traits being more prominant in a certain area.

I don't think that skin coloration will be too different between say the north and the south. I think skin coloration differences would vary more depending on lifestyle. I think the skin colorations would be something like this (from lightest to darkest):
'Rinthers ---> Tuluki city dwellers ---> Southern city dwellers ----> Foresters ---> Desert dwellers.

But the skin differences would be EXTREMELY small (with the possible exception of 'rinthers), because even city folk would get a lot of sun exposure.

I think what's more likely to happen, is certain areas have certain physical traits, such as hooked noses are more prominant in Tuluk, Long Fingers are more prominant in the desert, flat noses are more prominant in Red Storm area, slanted eyes are more prominant in the 'rinth. That sort of thing. AFAIK no official documents have been drawn up saying which is which, but I for one would love such a document. I'd get a kick out of knowing who a dirty Tulukian is without needing to listen to them talk .

Although JUST because someone has a hooked nose wouldn't mean they're a Tulukian, because zalanthas is well known for it's "freaks" so they might be pure 'nakkie blood, but it would help a little. And it'd be funny if it turned out a prominant seargeant in the militia, had a grandfather who was Tulukian, he might not be respected as much by others because of his heritage, and how he deals with it would be interesting.

I think regional differences would be a lot more subtle among non-humans. The reason is humans tend to be allowed to have a wide variety of physical traits, whereas non-humans are limited a bit more. So regional differences for elves might not be as obvious as northern elves are 12ft while southern elves are 10ft, but might be a small difference, like northern elve's fingers are a bit longer, or their eyes are a bit more narrow or something like that.

Just some ideas.

[Delerak]

All fantasy readers and enthusiasts know that there is only one race on Earth, which is human.  To think otherwise is just plain silly.

[Twilight]

Within the human species there are only three races.  Races are classified according to physical features.  

Caucasians are what most people would call "white" and are composed of people of European, North African, or southwest Asian ancestry.

Mongoloids is the major native racial stock native to Asia including people of northern and eastern Asia, Malaysian, Eskimo and often American Indian ancenstry (I think the physical feature here an epicanthic fold).

Negroids (don't go balistic on me, that is the name) would be the rest of Africa and probably the aboriginies.

Note that this is all based off of ancestry.  So there is not such thing as a Mexican race, rather, you could be descended from Caucasian or Mongloid stock, or be a mixture of both.

[Savak]

Twilight is (mostly) correct, as far as the current classification scheme of Homo sapiens sapiens varieties -- to the best of my knowledge.  It's been about 5 years since I studied such fringe specifics, however.  For the interested, there's a fair bit of work done on it in evolutionary biology literature focusing on humans.

Interestingly, the Australian Aboriginals are classified as caucasian for a few subtle reasons (although if you ask me, I'd allow them their own subtype as they lived fairly isolated, we think, for quite a long time).  It's NOT rare or exceedingly uncommon to find a blue-eyed and blonde-haired aboriginal, although the general facies tends to remain identifiable, and skin tones range from honey-brown to quite black.

But I digress.

In Zalanthas, most of the tribes do indeed have physical trait tendencies, and there are general variations between North and South.  However, there has also been a LOT of mixed blood in the cities, coming from a wide variety of tribes.  One could argue that elves, humans, half-elves, and dwarves are in fact all the same "race" and that they are simply varieties within the same race (much like a Great Dane and a Poodle are the same "race," although dramatically different body types), solely because they can successfully mate AND (excluding dwarves) produce viable offspring.  So in the theory of modern Earth science, I could buy an argument that at least elves & humans are in fact the same "race."  Dwarves may be the same genus, or even genus & species, but significantly different subspecies.

Someone with more recent memory of the classification schemes might correct some of that, mind.

-Savak

[P-ton]

lets take this a step further.
You know how on earth all chinese people have black hair and red hair is only common in irish and scottish, can we do that on Arm?
Like people from the Gol Krathu would have fair skin and lighter hair
People from Nak have meditirean skin and brown and black hair
People from the far south like Red Storm have a reddish tint and auburn hair and people from the tablelands would be black skinned and black haired
maybe i am thinking too much

[Tlaloc]

You know how on earth all chinese people have black hair and red hair is only common in irish and scottish, can we do that on Arm?

This is kind of already done, in a sense.Wierd mutations aside, I beleive, though its been a while since I read the document which states it specifically, that Northerners tend to be fairer skinned, and dark-haired, while Southerners tend to be blonde, with dark to black skin. I remember there was one PC who made up a tribe of red-haired folk in the Northlands.

I'd point you to the document I'm thinking of specifically, but I really don't remember where its at right now. At the very least, I remember this was something the Immortals were planning on trying on keeping ahead of in our own NPC building, but in the latest frenzy, this might have been shuffled under the table for sake of ease.

But sure...I don't see whats wrong with picking a style, and keeping it.

-Tlaloc

[FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit]

Yeah, I was just kidding about the mexican/british thing. Although, you must admit, it'd be funny to see a Zalanthian walking around with a British accent. Imagine the sort of weird looks he'd get! Hmm... New character concept, perhaps?

By the way, has anyone here played Arcanum? In that game, there is only one character with a British accent... There isn't even a town or state full of British people... Just that one guy. You have to assume he's faking it, right?

[Cyrin]

Within the human species there are only three races.  Races are classified according to physical features.  

Caucasians are what most people would call "white" and are composed of people of European, North African, or southwest Asian ancestry.

Mongoloids is the major native racial stock native to Asia including people of northern and eastern Asia, Malaysian, Eskimo and often American Indian ancenstry (I think the physical feature here an epicanthic fold).

Negroids (don't go balistic on me, that is the name) would be the rest of Africa and probably the aboriginies.

Note that this is all based off of ancestry.  So there is not such thing as a Mexican race, rather, you could be descended from Caucasian or Mongloid stock, or be a mixture of both.

I'd heard that, and then I'd heard they had stopped using that form of classification.  Be it from trying to be "sensitive" or from the fact , for example, that Native Americans are considered both Mongoloid and Caucasian, and the instance Savak mentioned with the Aborignes.

Please excuse me, but it's been long since I's had me some edjamicashun.

[EvilRoeSlade]

In Zalanthas, most of the tribes do indeed have physical trait tendencies, and there are general variations between North and South.  However, there has also been a LOT of mixed blood in the cities, coming from a wide variety of tribes.  One could argue that elves, humans, half-elves, and dwarves are in fact all the same "race" and that they are simply varieties within the same race (much like a Great Dane and a Poodle are the same "race," although dramatically different body types), solely because they can successfully mate AND (excluding dwarves) produce viable offspring.  So in the theory of modern Earth science, I could buy an argument that at least elves & humans are in fact the same "race."  Dwarves may be the same genus, or even genus & species, but significantly different subspecies.

Someone with more recent memory of the classification schemes might correct some of that, mind.

I'd be glad to!

To be of the same species, it must be physically, geographically, and culturally (as in they have to be willing to do it naturally) possible for the two creatures in question to produce viable offspring.

While humans and dwarves can produce offspring, their offspring is sterile, therefore they are not of the same species.

The only two races that are of the same species is humans and elves, because they can produce non-sterile offspring, and do so on a regular basis.

[John]

Well, this sort of thing has been brought up before and here is what was said.

Allanak: Dark skin, dark complexion
Northern Plain Tribes: Dark skinned, light haired, blue/green/grey eyes.

and from just random surfing of the board I noticed Savak said this in another thread

Northerners: bit more plump, more hairy then southerners, bit more light skinned then southeners.

So perhaps some traits could be decided and written up? I'd like that document, and it was talked about 4 yrs ago and AFAIK nothing happened from it. BUT because of a lot of mixing of north and south, not everyone would be forced to stick with the document

BTW, Aboriginals are caucasian? I always thought they were asian because they came in from Asia. Hey, what do you know, 10 yrs worth of being forced to learn about them finally came in use

[Fedaykin]

I've always opposed those descriptions a little.

Going back to old Tuluk, if you were to look at the NPC's all over which represented the Tuluki population, the majority of them, as I recall, had swarthy skin and dark/black hair, along with a good deal of blue and black inked tattoos.