Humans

HUMANS

Humans are the most varied race. They exist in almost every environment, and they explore the world with great enthusiasm. Human settlements and farms spring up quickly in the explorers’ wake. Humans excel in commerce, the study of the arcane arts, and military campaigns. They worship every god, follow every alignment, and have a thousand myths of their own origins and creation… or so the story would go if it weren’t for the Great War in which the Norsemen conquered almost all the land around 2000 years ago and few civilizations remained. Then came the Great Flood which almost whipped mankind from the face of the world, then the Never-ending Winter (which is known as Fimbulvetr). After countless years of hardship only four main civilizations remain; the Sasainns, the Norsemen, the Alukhais, and the Gauls. The rest are wild men or nomads.

ALUKHAIS

Kanum Kotan is a vast land of prairies, forest, and tundra. Kanum Kotan is best known for its broad, barren steppes where horse-warriors and mammoth riders, masters of the powerful double-curved bow, gallop the great treeless tracts of land. Living in tribal clans and led by Khans, these warriors ride on raids of plunder. They are "lean horsemen in sheepskins and high fur caps lashing their horses and losing their barbed arrows". Before the Great Flood it had many cities that more or less firmly under the control of the Norsemen.

The Alukhais are fearsome warriors who pretty much look like the Mongolians of our time. Their horsemanship, combined with their carefully made saddles and skill at their chosen weapons, makes them a terrible raiding force. The Alukhais do not take slaves, at least not adult male slaves. Sometimes they take young children or non-Alukhaiian concubines, but otherwise they kill those who stand in their way.
"We do not want to rule over conquered peoples," say the Alukhais, "but over great pastures." The Alukhais have little fixed territory to defend but that little land they now have they defend it with flashing powder and sharp swords. The Alukhais are ancestor worshippers, who respect the accomplishments of men and their deeds for their people. They have no gods, as the Sasainns know the term, and whatever religious influence the Sasainns tried impose upon them has long since been rejected. 

• Civilization
• Language
• Geography

GAUL

Gauls have a notorious reputation as formidable opponents, noted for their wild savagery and physical prowess. The people are typically fair-skinned and tall -- at an average height of 6 feet. As a rule, they seldom venture far from their homeland. The Gauls never developed a government. The land is divided into a number of semi-nomadic tribes where they live as hunter-gatherers with a mixture of skilled crafts, particularly in wood. Since horses are rare, Gauls fight on foot. Their tactics are probably similar to those of the Gauls in the time of ancient Rome, except of greater ferocity.

Young men are expected to be fit for raiding and war by approximately the age of 15. Those who dwell deep in the forests commune with the spirits and the elves of the land and learn to venerate nature. Abundant harvests and healthy crops are important, and the depredations of wild animals can be terrifying. But a person who has embraced the wildness of nature rather than the comforts of home is somewhat learns how to coexist with their environment.

Gauls do not worship gods, rather they venerate nature and primal forces of the world, because of these druids are held in high regards and are often the leaders of their tribe The Gaul’s affinity for the wild lands is a useful heritage to those who follow the path of the druid. Gauls who become druids often seek out the remote, harsh lands where few others can thrive and survive.

• Language

SASAINNS

“The angels” as they call themselves in their native tongue, they claim to be descendants of Earendel, a radiant being suffused with positive energy. It appears in many forms: a pulsating globe of light, a humanoid (either gender or androgynous) with brightly glowing silver or gold skin. They were akin to the Norsemen, but after the Great Flood they no longer shared the gods with the Norsemen and adopted their current name.

Since then, the Sasainns have tried to convert other sentient creatures into their religion – either by choice or force – which caused numerous conflicts with the other races. While their culture is now ruled by one deity, this doesn’t mean that all Sasainns are religious; in fact most of them take religion as an excuse to explore other lands and more than one Sasainn appears as a hero in foreign lands. When it comes to physical qualities, the angels are no different than any other humans in Nordica except that they possess a paler complexion than the rest and hair colors ranging from black, brunette, red and white, the later being the most common.

• Language

Norsemen

The Norsemen worship strength. Written poems often describes their excitement at traveling in a fast Viking ship on the open sea, the sudden attack of a village, the share of a robbery, and the drinking party they used to have afterwards. They are often seen as merciless and blood thirsty monsters, however they see themselves as heroes, which explains some of their actions. Luckily not all Norsemen are hostile. After Fimbulvetr, space became too limited for the Norsemen in Mannheim. The soil could not keep up for more than one generation, and, as a result of what they had seen abroad, many decided to somewhat settle.

• Civilization
• Cosmology
• Language
• Geography