Races
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Dwarves
Dwarves say they saw the birth of The Rim, when the land split and the Waters Uncharted forever separated Atlantis from the outer continents. Since that time, they have hid in the giant caverns of Kir Dulum, beneath the Snowy Peaks, and made little contact with the other Races until recently. The elders of the Dwarf do not mince words, and say they hide out of fear, for they saw What it was that caused the great sundering of the world, and they pray to their gods daily, it does not come again, and if it will, they will forever retreat beneath the roots of the earth, and hope they are strong enough to stay in place through any cataclysm.
Nevertheless, recent developments in trade have brought foreigners to Snowy Peaks, and the doors of Kir Dulum have opened to trade and visit. The Dwarves maintain cordial relations with the Sun Elves of Nargast, the human vigilantes of Kazan, and the shamanistic Orc tribes. As these three races aren't always on peaceful terms, the Dwarves have taken on the role of diplomats and peacekeepers. While many Dwarves are shy and reserved, they turn out to be perfect for overseeing negotiations, fair, nigh-incorruptible, and able to command respect in their Halls of Stone from even the haughtiest elf prince or the most soulless human ship merchant.
Dwarves are typically between four and five feet tall, stout, with red or black beards that turn gray with age. Both males and females braid their hair, and the warrior clans often force a specific cut or braid upon the clansmen, both as a sign of discipline and as a distinguishing mark. Dwarves dress warmly, and it is not uncommon to see them stubbornly sticking to their winter clothes even in the heat of Sun Stream's Valley, which leads to sweat, grumpiness, and very unpleasant odors. They are cautious towards, but respectful of outsiders, keep few friends but are fiercely loyal to the friends they have, and when angered or in battle, truly incredible warriors. It is said that an organized army of all the Dwarven clans could conquer all the Rim, but, thankfully for the other races, the clans rarely unite behind a common purpose.
Elves
Sun Elves
The Sun Elves of Nargast are the Children of the Dragon Aspects. Millennia ago, when the Aspects first came to the Rim from their home on Atlantis, they made the Sun Elves, calling them erei odonas, "the beautiful children." Melianthe, the giver of life, made the elves strong and fair. Osielath, the dracolich, cast a veil over them, so that the shadow of Death would not touch them, and that they would be immortal. Karrabon, the hungry fire, made the elves masters of battle and gave them power over the elements. Isila, the dreamer, opened the eyes of the elves to the Astral plane of dreams, so they could walk and be in her presence at night. But Akhronos, the time-lord, passed over the erei odonas, and made humans. And so the elves, for all their glory and power, were cursed with the full weight of time.
As centuries pass, the elves grow old and frail, and their minds lose sharpness. Their once-beautiful cities fall slowly in decay, and every time they build anew, they grow more dissatisfied with the results, and more nostalgic of the past. Tapestries of great battles fill the elven halls, but those battles happened millennia in the past, with empires that no longer exist, and today elven warriors are few and far between. To look upon a Sun Elf is to see both their blessings and their curse - the young of the race are truly beautiful, standing between five and six feet tall, with long, flowing hair of gold or brown, lithe and graceful - and yet something about them will always clash with the present. Some wear armor often shows the dents of a thousand battles, and has been rendered near-useless. Some have scars that do not heal, and leave terrible blue marks that look all the worse on their perfect faces. Others yet look perfect on the outside, but use the speech or manners of some forgotten era.
The Sun Elves do not sit idly and watch themselves fade into oblivion, however. Yearning for the adaptability and resourcefulness of the human race, they seek to learn the secrets of its making. Of late, there have been two factions in Nargast: one that speaks for open communication and peaceful relations with the humans, hoping that the two races can benefit each other by working together, and one that favors outright military takeover. The factions are in a precarious balance, and so far war between the Elves of Nargast and the humans of Kazan has not broken out, but relations between the two kingdoms are icy to say the least. The Elves do not see any similarity between themselves and the Dwarves, and regard their dark mountainous fortresses with mistrust. Their attitude towards the distant Orcs varies between patronizing and outright racist (the elven word for Orc is "savage", and the more polite elves address the race as "noble Orc," a.k.a. "noble savage"). Nevertheless, as a result of aggressive negotiations in Kir Uldum, peace has prevailed between the Elves and the other races of Theodrath.
Wood Elves
The Wood Elves, while outwardly resembling the Sun Elves, are in truth a very different race. They are creatures of the Forest, and, as they claim, the original Forest they come from is not of this world. There are tales of a distant plane, called Arcadia, where the Fae have frolicked for an eternity before the sundering. Then, as Atlantis broke from the Rim and the world became shattered, Arcadia, too, moved away from the material world. Some Elves chose to stay in that beautiful place, but others saw the decay and imperfection in the forests of the Rim as appealing, and moved to the Great Forest at the south of Aodrath in the final hours of Arcadia's proximity.
Just as the Sun Elves embrace perfection, Wood Elves embrace the imperfect. They look mostly like humans, with slightly pointy ears and large, catlike eyes (legends abound of the Wood Elves being able to see in pitch black as well as humans see in daylight). They dress in camouflage colors, and even their fanciest outfits look woven from leaves and bark, not silk and precious stones. The Wood Elves value hunting and survival over intelligence, though their elders often display a wisdom that surprises the other races. The Wood Elves are not immortal, but strongly believe in reincarnation, and claim that no member of their race truly dies, but is reborn from the earth, into an animal, a bird, or even a flower in the Great Forest.
The Wood Elves are generally friendly to all other races, but maintain trade relationships only with the Orcish Inner Shore State, Kerak (Kerak, as a result, has become an immensely wealthy lumber port). Visitors to the Great Forest say that whatever place the Wood Elves came from, can still be felt here - a haunting, surreal feeling comes over to any foreigner who travels the Wood Elf lands. In converse, the Wood Elves often feel out of place and uncomfortable when away from their home, but, paradoxically, some of them love to travel. Perhaps the cause of the paradox is the race's love for the hunt, that deadly, visceral race between predator and prey. Wood Elf hunters have travelled both Aodrath and Theodrath, even the godsforsaken Death's Foot and Charred Vale, and the deadly sands of the Waste.
Gnomes
Gnomes are one of the youngest races in the Rim, and there are Human records from three centuries ago that describe "the wild tribes of Winter stream, that eat with the animals and do not clean their own filth, and resemble humans in nothing but their having arms and legs and a head like ours." The gnomes of today are far from uncivilized, however. The race as a whole underwent a radical transformation after the gnomes met the Halflings of Endlan. They learned how to build homes and cultivate crops from the Halfing Tribes, and they showed an uncanny skill with the few machines Halflings use - lumber mills and water wheels, mostly. In a matter of generations, the tribes set up a series of villages on the shores of Winter Stream. Known commonly as the Fishing Villages, these locales also feature workshops, where gnomish Mages and Changelings produce items of great wonder. Firecrackers and fireworks, wooden scarecrows that walk on their own, and even magical cannon for the fleets of Meliadas and the Cove.
Gnomes have made a great effort to integrate themselves into civilization and back away from their primitive roots. They pride themselves on wearing the latest fashion from the Inner Shore states, and they bathe and spruce themselves up regularly. The seasons are celebrated with grand village dances, which have turned into fancy parties under the open sky, where wine from Endlan wineries is served along the best catch of the local rivers. While most gnomes stand only three to four feet tall, when in human or elven lands, they try to disguise this fact by sitting on high chairs, standing on podiums or even more complicated measures (gnome-on-stilts is a popular saying among the Inner Shore states to mean "faking it"). Gnomes generally try to use very polite language, sounding ridiculous at times, but certainly not uncivilized.
Since their rapid transformation into a civilized society, the Gnomes have established trade relations with the halflings (about those wineries), the Inner Shore States, and even the Dragonteeth pirates. The last connection is publicly frowned upon, but praised in private, as it provides all of Aodrath with delicacies from the other continent, such as everfruit from Sun Steam's Valley or Kir Dulum stout from the Dwarven cellars. The gnomes are master organizers and managers, and have made even relations with the pirates reliable (so long as they keep paying well, of course).
Halflings
Halflings are close relatives of the human race, and the split between the two may have happened not too long ago, but its details are lost. There is a legend speaks of a great human empire that ruled most of northern Aodrath many thousands of years ago, an empire that fell when the poisonous Waste spread forth throughout the plains in the west of the continent. The halflings are the last remains of the empire, people say... and others will laugh, and say the halflings are a simple people, never meant for empires or ruling. Great vintners, sure. But great warriors?
The halflings do not disagree with this skepticism. They mostly lead a simple life, though where the Wood Elves emphasize nature and living in the wild, halflings emphasize order and cleanliness. They avoid smoke (except from their fine pipes) and large structures, and prefer burrows, which fit the hilly geography of Endlan well. Their little valley, sheltered by the Endland mountains on three sides, has almost perfect weather, and the halflings cultivate it carefully, slowly turning Endlan into a miniature paradise. They do not strive for absolute perfection as the Sun Elves do, the halflings are quite content with food in their belly and children playing in their streets. Their looks echo their beliefs - most halflings are jolly, a little on the round side, standing about four and a half to five and a half feet tall, dressed in a workman's clothes during the day and in their fanciest outfit at night. Partying is common, the best products of both the grand Endland wineries and the rich Endland tobacco farms end up on halfling tables come Midsummer or Harvest Day.
As trade relations between the halflings and gnomes began to grow, some of the folk of Endlan have decided to wander out beyond their peaceful valley and into the larger world. They are enterprising and resourceful, their talents lie chiefly in coming up with clever schemes on the spot rather than long-term planning. The halflings are equally cordial with all the other races, but have interactions mainly with the gnomes and the humans of Inner Shore States. They maintain no standing army, no centralized government, and so are blessedly free from the rigmarole of diplomacy - except when it comes to agreements about wine or tobacco delivery. A surprising number of the halflings fall in love with the adventuring lifestyle and join the Dragonteeth pirates. At home, these wanderers are regarded not as outcasts but as poor, misguided fools, who will surely see the error of their ways and come running back to Endlan, if they don't catch the wrong end of a knife or cannonball first.
Humans
The human race is far younger than the elves and the dwarves, it barely has a kingdom to call its own, and yet, the adaptability and perseverance of humans on the Rim has made their cities the most prosperous on two continents, and their king, the King of Kazan, a respected monarch along with the rulers of Nargast, Kir Dulum, and Urduk. Ancient legends say that while four of the five dragon aspects made the elves, the fifth, Akhronos, made the humans, and made time favor them. He did not grant humanity power over time, but gave them instead the ability to change and adapt beyond any other race. And so Humans have. Whether in the kingdom of Kazan, in the city-states of Fairport or Althane on the Inner Shore, in teh vigilant Shorepeak Fortress overlooking the Waste, or even in the blighted lands of Death's Foot, there are humans surviving and thriving.
Most humans stand between five and six feet tall. They vary in complexion and size from the peasants of Kazan, who are fair and hardy, to the merchants of Fairport, who are dark and rotund. Some humans are peace lovers who run off to Endlan to work on the wineries (and are accepted, though with great suspicion, by the halfling locals), others are great warriors who patrol Tuldwyn's Bar on the edge of The Waste and do battle with things unmentionable in the Bravelands. Most pirates are human. The only thing this race does not accept is permanence and complacency, and they will even go off to certain death, sailing the Waters Uncharted towards Atlantis, for the sake doing something new.
Human relations are most tense with the Sun Elves and the Orcs. The Sun Elves of Sun's Stream Valley are in a detente with Kazan, but any moment that tenuous standstill could break into an all-out war. Meanwhile, the Orcs of Kerak are tough competitors to Fairport and Althane, and the armies of Urduk occasionally cross the border into Bravelands, maintaining that the territory belongs to their race, and that the few human settlers there should leave for Shorepeak or wherever they came from. Of course, most of the time denizens of the Bravelands have bigger foes to worry about than each other, so that conflict has not escalated yet, either. All in all, however, it is only Dwarven-led negotiations that are maintaining a tenuous balance between the Humans, Orcs, and Elves on the Rim. Humans see the lesser races as valuable trade partners, but mostly disregard them from a military standpoint. Finally, Kazan is the only one of the great kingdoms to NOT be officially at war with the Dragonteeth Pirates, to the consternation of most residents of the Rim, and profits handily from deals with the Pirate fleet. There are even rumors that the Pirates would come to Kazan's aid should open war break out with the Sun Elves.
Orcs
The Orcs of Urduk appeared shortly after the Demon Crater scarred the lands of Theodrath, history says, but only the Elves and the Dwarves remember that far back, and neither race is particularly forthcoming with their records. They traveled south, away from their caves under the Black peaks, and put their shields on their backs as they moved, to show that a great enemy chased them from the North. Beyond the Black Peaks, they found a lush valley that stretched on for miles, with a small forest at its center, and they founded their capital of Urduk at the Eastern edge of the Valley, where it met The Great Sea. Since that moment, the orcs' history would be defined by conflict.
Whatever landed in the Demon Crater chased the Orcs to Urduk, and waged war on them. Tales of a horrible being, hundreds of feet tall, surrounded by an army of drakes black as the night, are still told by Orc mothers to unruly children at night. But the Orcs did not fall. They fought back, inch by inch, and forced the abomination north, to their old homes in the Black Peaks. The mountains were too steep and too harsh to fight in, so the Orcs stopped there, and built the Ban of Urduk as their northern border, and put the fortresses of Garm and Thornpeak to guard it. For a while, the Orcish race enjoyed a time of peace, and it is during this period that they developed a rich oral tradition, and strengthened their ties to the natural forces around them. Like the Wood Elves, the Orcs embrace a simple way of living, but unlike the latter race, they see power not in nature itself, but in its spirits, and Orcish shamans are trained from birth to communicate with these forces. Shamanism fits into the Orcs' tribal culture, and even in Urduk, their greatest city, most buildings are simple huts, and the greatest hall is called The Gazing Room, where all the tribes' shamans gather once a year to consult with the most powerful spirits of the land on what the future holds for Urduk.
Today, the Orcs seek to preserve and strengthen their spiritual ways, and it is rare to meet a member of this race who is not adorned with a blessed necklace, nor tattooed with the Spirit Symbols, nor in possession of a Protector Totem, whether at home or abroad. Orcs stand six to seven feet tall, have green (occasionally dirty-brown) skin, and narrow eyes set deep in the backs of their heads, and glow red when anger, rage or lust overtakes an Orc's mind. The elves see them as savages, the Dwarves fear the Orcs' talk of "Ancient Spirits," and the Humans look warily upon the Orcish armies, which even now march perilously close to the human settlements in the Bravelands. And yet, none of these races dare declare open war on the tribes of Urduk, and it is not only for the great number of Orcish flags that fly south of the Black Peaks. No one wants to test the armies that broke the Evil of the Demon Crater, and behind closed doors, many will whisper that Urduk's armies will march again, should the Evil stir once more.
