Human

"Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet."
- Agent Smith, The Matrix

" I am proud to be a human being. I believe that we have come this far by the skin of our teeth. That we always make it just by the skin of our teeth, but that we will always make it. Survive. Endure."
- Robert Heinlein, This I Believe

"Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape."
- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

Humanity: everybody's friend. Also, no hard feelings guys. Happy human songs are about killing invading humans too.

Humans (Scientific name Homo sapiens, "Inferior/simple-minded race" as seen by your generic super-intelligent and advanced race, "weak/frail race" as seen by your generic war-mongering race, and "Nom noms" as seen by the race that only exists to consume and grow) are a species of bilaterally symmetrical carbon-based creatures native to a small rocky planet orbiting Sol. Humans have five appendages: the two longest ones underneath for locomotion, two more flexible appendages in the middle that split into very fine tentacles on the ends for manipulation, and a cranium up top for sensation. They stand upright and have nearly their entire cognitive organ contained within a bony shell inside the sensory limb, the rest of it in a bone sheathe in the middle "baggy" part. Humans on average stand erect between 1.6 and 2 meters in height, and mass between 50 and 100 kilograms. Humans are descended from arboreal omnivores which migrated on the plains of the landmass locally named "Africa." They have only mild gender dimorphism: females are smaller by 9% on average, only males have protrusions at the base of the locomotor limbs, and nearly all females have two protruding subdermal glands on their front thorax near the base of the manipulation limbs. A good amount of data from various competitions and world records based on gender have also shown human sexual dimorphism also extends to attributes of physical fitness. For example, males are slightly faster and considerably stronger than females, while females possess greater resistance to diseases.

Humans are a playable race in almost every game, which is a complete mystery to most species. If you're going to imagine your character as a gunfightan, spell-slingan, wall-vaultan, asskickan superman, what's the point of suddenly slapping that little bit of realism in there? Therefore, they are largely overlooked in most games (except for 3.5e D&D players who HAD to have that extra first-level feat). Indeed, most descriptions of the species for playable races go something like "they're just like humans, except for this." Most of the time, you'll honestly prefer some of the actual DEFINING TRAITS that come with playing another race, whether it's Never-Say-Die Elfdar vehicles (as opposed to Space Marine 14-armor dickery) or some kind of crazy mutation/horns/dragon wings. Basically, the benefits can never truly erase the boredom you'll get from still being a human, despite all your other options.

Humans are represented in most games as the most balanced and widespread race, which is a blatant bit of self-flattery, or it can be read to mean that they are the most mediocre and suck equally at everything. Most notable can be in D&D 2.0, in which every race had a given benefit, save the humans who had nothing (unless you count the ability to be any class and reach max level in any of them, whereas other races had restricted classes and restricted levels in said classes - but then, everyone hated that rule and homebrewed it out anyway). When they ARE given distinct advantages, is to be more versatile, adaptable or "jack-of-all-trades" than other bipeds, which is kind of a non-advantage: "we didn't know what to give you, so here's a gift certificate at the local racial feature shop to buy something." You would think that humans' exceptional endurance compared to other Earth species would come into play, (we are one of the best long distance runners in the whole animal kingdom), but it never does; though there is a difference between animals and sapient humanoid races such as elves and dwarves.

Oh, also Humanity Fuck Yeah.

Human Special Rules

1. In every scifi movie and game involving aliens, humans MUST suck.
   No exceptions. Unless they're grimdark psycho-indoctrinated, genetically enhanced, Catholic Space-Nazis, or an evil(er) version of thereof. In which case, they're the best damn things in the setting where combat is concerned. In every fantasy movie and game involving elves, dwarves, goblins, etc. humans MUST be boring. No exceptions. Elves are the tall fast guys with great magic who live in the trees, Dwarves are the short strong guys with badass technology who live in the tunnels, humans are the boring medium guys with absolutely nothing special and completely average stats.
   • Unless this is John Carter of Mars in which the title human is an unstoppable one man army, who can kill four armed giant bug Martians with ease. Or if it's Middle Earth (if you don't think the Edain are awesome, you probably don't know enough about the setting), or Star Wars (where the humans are the most powerful, diverse, and influential race in the setting), Star Trek (where the humans are the ones responsible for much of the good stuff in the setting), or Avatar (where the humans are awesome, but portrayed as villains for being pragmatic).
2. Humans always have the crappy weapons when fighting technologically advanced/intelligent xenos(eg: Halo - Bullets vs. Plasma. Warhammer 40,000 - factory-built flashlights vs. alien ninja-star guns/living poison guns/cursed-soul-shooting guns). In the case of simple-minded/primitive xenos, the humans must be eaten/dismembered/eviscerated/disemboweled/some combination thereof by said xenos (eg: Bugs vs Mobile infantry, Xenomorphs vs Colonial Marines). In fantasy, humans always have the boring practical weapons when fighting any other race (eg: Humans vs Elves or Dwarves - Long swords and crossbows vs. magic bows and badass knives or giant hammers and axes and cannons).
3. in video games especially but in table top and roleplaying as well, humanity's special trait is always brute force. We're never as fast as the space elves, but we always build really big guns. As another example, when I Say "elf" you think Archers in the woods, but when I say "Fantasy Human" you think a Knight in full plate mail atop a horse, effectiveness may vary but humans trait is normally thick armor and hitting hard.
4. Compared to any other race, Humans must always be subjected to horrendous deaths in any war, real or fiction, by the hundreds, and often disproportionately to their involvement in said war.
5. In every work that involves armed fictional conflict, there must always be one heavily plot-armored character that can beat the odds no matter how retardedly outnumbered and outgunned he is. This character is human if humans are involved in the conflict at all.
6. In almost every setting where humans are not fanatical racist nut jobs, human are always the ones most likely to reproduce outside their species. If someone says they're a half-elf, dragon or demon, you never need to ask what the other half is. Among the first questions any human asks upon discovery of a new sapient is "Can I have Sex with it?", and then humans also ignore all rules of logic and genetics by managing to have kids with it.
7. Despite any inferiority to other races; Humans ALWAYS WIN. ALWAYS, in the end of it all. Either by the efforts of pre-mentioned Mary Sue or through the well-honed tactic of drowning their enemies in their own blood and corpses. This is because we can't win any other way, unless you're SPESS MARHEENS (That's a fact). In rare cases conflict spans for a few centuries, and the setting it happens in isn't in medieval stasis, humans win through their adaptability due to their short lifespans combined with sufficient intellect, while more long-living races fail to change their society in response to evolving technology, even if they happen to out-science humans (which they usually don't), and less intelligent races get wiped out or enslaved due to the giant technological edge humans have against them.

Also, our butthurt knows no fucking bounds.

Media That Prominently Feature Humans

All of them. No really, all of them. It's only natural that the only intelligent race we know of is the one we add everywhere and into everything. The reason for this can be numerous - It makes it easy to relate to it for most people when your race is represented, and since we are the only intelligent race we actually know, humans are the only template we can work off of.

Well, Dragonlance, but then, they had Kender, so...

Some do it more than others, tho - e.g, everybody knows that DnD only has the Human race because some people are too xenophobic to play an actual interesting race, while other media, like in 40k, humans are the best goddamn thing ever.

Human mating practices

We do have these. The writers of this wiki have not studied them. Why should we?

In role-playing games, humans (especially those of the bard class) tend to be the most fertile race, and the one most amenable to interspecies romance and cross-breeding (rivaled only by dragons).

P.S. If you don't know how babies are made just ask your parents what "fucking" is. They will be delighted to give you a detailed explanation.