Character Races
A supplemental page to Character Creation
Tall-men
Tall-men are the most numerous race, making up about a third of the world's inhabitants. Their population is exploding, and the long- lived races view them as a threat. They're the second-tallest of the races, right after the ogres. The race name comes from their height and the length of their limbs, and other races sometimes call them "long-legs." Although tall, they aren't as sturdy as dwarfs or ogres, and they're sometimes given the disparaging label "weak for somebody who's built like that." When tall-men have children with ogres or half- foots, those children can leave descendants. As a result, their population has grown explosively over a wide range that includes the Western Continent, the Eastern Archipelago, and the Northern Continent..
AVERAGE HEIGHT: Male: 180cm / Female: 170 cm
AGE OF MATURITY: 16 years
AVERAGE LIFESPAN: 60 (human, short-lived race)
Half-foots
A race with clever fingers and very sharp senses. During dungeon expeditions, half-foots are often responsible for keeping the party alive by detecting and disarming traps and opening locks. There are also cases where they've been taken along on succubi hunts or to areas where mermaids appear and used as "lures." Their small builds put them at a big disadvantage when they live in areas with other races. As a result, most of them stay in their own territories, and only those with a strong desire to move up in the world go elsewhere. In consequence, a prejudice that half-foots are "greedy, cunning, and glib talkers" has developed among other races.
Their largest populations are in the interior of the Eastern and Southern continents and in the northwest of the Western continent. Their biggest nation, Kahka Brud, is located in the western area of the Eastern Continent and has many dungeons. Ambitious individuals base themselves in Kahka Brud and head into the dungeons.
AVERAGE HEIGHT: Male: 100 cm / Female: 95 cm
AGE OF MATURITY: 14 years
AVERAGE LIFESPAN: 50 (human, short-lived race)
Note! HALF-FOOT NAMES Names are composed of a first name, a last name, and their father's first name plus "s" or "z." For example, Chilchuck's first name is "Chil," his Last name is "Chuck," and his father's name is "Tim" + s. Chilchuck's daughters' family names are either "Chilz" or "Chils." Only people who are very close to an individual call them by their first name on its own.
Elves
A race with an exceptional talent for magic. As party members, they use a wide variety of spells, with many of them working as attackers or healers. They're all beautiful (according to modern beauty standards, at any rate) and are noted for appearing androgynous. They're extremely long- lived, with some individuals reaching the age of five hundred, but their birthrate is low, and their population is steadily declining. Once, the excessive development of science and magic technologies generated strife among the races. In particular, all-out war broke out between the elves and the dwarfs, both of whom had built advanced civilizations. It was during this war that dungeons were created.
The majority live on the Northern Central and Southern Central continents. Their largest nation, an absolute monarchy governed by a 372-year-old queen, is located on the Northern Central Continent. There are also primitive villages deep in the woods and underground, and in some regions cannibalism is still practiced.
AVERAGE HEIGHT: Male: 155 cm / Female: 150 cm
AGE OF MATURITY: 80 years
AVERAGE LIFESPAN: 400 (human, long-lived race)
Note! ELF NAMES The names of elf nobility are especially striking: Instead of a family name, their personal name is followed by that of their house. For example, Mithrun is "Mithrun of the House of Kerensil." As an aside, Thistle's real name is unknown because he was taken from his parents at a young age and doesn't remember it.
Dwarves
They have a profound knowledge of minerals and are skilled at working with them. Many are particularly good blacksmiths. Since antiquity, they have poured their hearts and souls into exploring dungeons. Despite this, dwarfs have no group that's equivalent to the elves' Canaries. This may be because dwarfs' ties to their blood relatives run deep, and they're skeptical of national organizations; since they have no concept of coming together as a nation, putting together an investigative organization would be difficult. Another factor may be that they each connect with dungeons in different ways: Some earn money, others refine their skills, while still others eat monsters (although that last one's probably only Senshi).
When dwarfs and gnomes have children together, those children can leave descendants. Since that's so, many of the regions in which the two races live share borders with each other. The largest populations are on the Southern and Eastern continents.
AVERAGE HEIGHT: Male: 135cm / Female: 125 cm
AGE OF MATURITY: 40 years
AVERAGE LIFESPAN: 200 (human, long-lived race)
Note! DWARF NAMES Like "Namari" (lead) or "Daya" (diamond), many dwarf names are linked to metals or precious stones. In addition, as with "Senshi of Izganda," the areas they're from are used as last names. As an aside, many words in the dwarf tongue have been picked up by the common tongue as well. When that happens, in the way that "Senshi" can mean "warrior," they sometimes acquire different meanings.
Gnomes
A race that has lived alongside the gods and spirits since antiquity and has been given the name of the earth spirits. Gnomes have their own unique system of magic, and they borrow the service of the spirits as if they were their neighbors. They resemble dwarfs, but they're a bit slimmer, their hands and feet are large, and their ears are higher on their heads. Both gnome culture and the spheres in which they live are similar to dwarfs', and so other races tend to confuse the two or treat them as the same thing. When war broke out between elves and dwarfs, the gnomes sided with the dwarfs. In contrast to dwarfs, who tend to be motivated and ambitious, many gnomes prefer to take life easy.
Gnome populations are seen on the Eastern and Southern continents and in the eastern area of the Western Continent. Other races tend to confuse them with dwarfs. The two races also tend to live in areas that border each other.
AVERAGE HEIGHT: Male: 130 cm / Female: 120 cm
AGE OF MATURITY: 40 years
AVERAGE LIFESPAN: 240 (human, long-lived race)
Note! GNOME-SYSTEM MAGIC There are multiple systems of magic: the elf system, the gnome system, and Eastern spellcasting, to name a few. Gnomes like Holm and Mr. and Mrs. Tansu use gnome magic, as does Falin, who learned it at magic school. Meanwhile, Marcille is a hybrid caster who can use both elf- and gnome-system magic.
Ogres
A race known for the horns on their heads and their muscular builds. They're proud of their fantastic strength, and they truly shine as attackers during dungeon expeditions. They're big eaters, though, and their fuel consumption is bad. Further back in history, there was a time when they built a large nation, but their population has steadily dwindled to the point that they're facing extinction. There are a few villages left at present, mostly in the Eastern Archipelago, and you almost never see ogres around the Island. There are various theories about the cause of their population decline; one is that their size kept them from riding horses, rendering them unable to move between villages, while another posits that their big appetites made it easy for them to run into food shortages.
Since the ogre population has been in steady decline, they live in extremely small areas, including parts of the Eastern Archipelago and the northern tip of the Western Continent. They can breed with tall-men, and many of the areas where they live border tall-man areas.
AVERAGE HEIGHT: Male: 200 cm / Female: 190 cm
AGE OF MATURITY: 15 years
AVERAGE LIFESPAN: 58 (human, short-lived race)
Note! OGRE HORNS AND FANGS Magnificent horns are a classic ogre feature. However, true or not, there's a popular belief that shaving off an ogre's horns and pulling out their canines will weaken them. Since that's the case, many ogres who live in tall-man towns have no horns or fangs. (Tade's tooth is missing simply because it got broken during her sumo wrestling match.)
Orcs
A demihuman race that seems to be a cross between humans and boar-type monsters. They have large builds, but they're surprisingly muscular and their body-fat percentage is low. Their bodies are covered with short, tough hair. Their children have stripes on their backs and are extremely adorable, like wild boar piglets. However, as they grow up, the stripes fade. They have incredibly violent, brutal natures, and they tend to agree that any adventurers they run into in the dungeon must be exterminated. Not only that, but they're thorough: They feed the dead adventurers to wargs so they can't be revived. The lands where they once lived were seized from them by the long-lived races, and in many cases they build their villages in ruined dungeons or abandoned mines dug by dwarfs.
Since orcs were driven from their areas by the long- lived races, their populations are extremely localized. Above ground, their villages are seen in the mountains of the Eastern and Southern continents and in the north of the Western Continent. The majority live in dungeons and abandoned mines.
AVERAGE HEIGHT: Male: 160 cm / Female: 150 cm
AGE OF MATURITY: 14 years
AVERAGE LIFESPAN: 55 (demihuman, short-lived race)
Note! ORC HORNS The bumps you often see on the heads of adult male orcs don't grow there like ogre horns. They're "horn implants": monster bones that are inserted under the skin to create the appearance of horns. The higher the rank of the individual, the more prominent the bumps they're allowed to make.
Kobolds
A demihuman race thought to be a cross between humans and dog-type monsters. Like dogs, they have excellent noses. They can tell their companions apart by scent, and they're able to determine which race an individual belongs to from faint traces. Due to the structure of their vocal cords, they aren't good at speaking the common tongue, and even if they learn the language, it tends to sound broken. That means they aren't very good at communicating with other races. Since they look adorable, there are slave merchants who specialize in selling kobolds and other demihumans. Many of the kobolds who are purchased as slaves meet unfortunate ends.
There are kobold villages in several spots on the Western Continent, and they're surrounded by tall- man villages. Kabru may be able to speak the kobold tongue (see page 65) because there was a kobold village near Utaya, where he was born.
AVERAGE HEIGHT: Male: 150 cm / Female: 140 cm
AGE OF MATURITY: 13 years
AVERAGE LIFESPAN: 55 (demihuman, short-lived race)
Note! SURVIVAL SKILLS Kobolds have high resistance to all kinds of poisons, and they can eat rotten food without any trouble at all. Kuro was once bitten by a sea serpent, a monster with venom strong enough to instantly kill a human, and the worst that happened was his mouth swelled to quadruple its size. Since they can survive even in harsh environments, they often live where no other humans reside.
Beast-men
Beast-men are artificially made beast-men created from the use of ancient magic. Originally created as soldiers, beast-men are created from the process of fusing a beast's soul with human's to create demihumans. Many are found in arenas. The person who is fused must have the physical requirements to adopt that form, such as werebears requiring the person to have a very large frame originally, or wererats requiring a very small frame like that of a half-foots.