Editing The Dark Eye (section)

==Peoples of the world==
In The Dark Eye, characters are built from the race (what you are), the culture (where you grew up) and the profession (what you learned).
Races therefore are mostly about biology while history, religion, mentality and such are dictated by the culture.

*'''[[Humans]]:''' Human races are the Middlelanders (Caucasians), Tulamids (Arabs), Thorwals (Vikings), Nivese (Sámi), Moha (Native Americans), Utulu (Africans) and a few more. Among the biggest cultures are the Middleland (central Europe, high middle ages), the Horas-Empire (Italy/France, full renaissance), Al’Alfa (Spain in colonial times with a good measure of ancient Rome), the Tulamid City States (ancient Egypt / 1001 nights / Persia), the Novadis (desert dwelling one-true-god worshipping zealots), the Bornland (Tsaristic Russia minus the Tsar), and a lot more smaller ones.
*'''[[Elves]]:''' Physically, elves are mostly as Tolkien wrote them: beautiful, ageless and magic. Culturally they live as hunter-gatherers, but help themselves a lot with their innate magic. Turning themselves invisible for the hunt, magically making plants produce ripe fruit or literally singing pure metal out of the ground and shaping it  - for elves magic is part of their everyday life. This leaves them with lots of time for music, art or storytelling. Elves are divided into different peoples after the fall of their race (sound familiar?). A few thousand years ago, the high elves ruled the continent with advanced magic and science. After a series of bad decisions (allied with an over-ambitious dragon-god, pissing of their own gods, trying to become gods themselves, falling for the tricks of The Nameless One) they all went extinct. Now we are left with three branches of the tree:
**'''Wood Elves:''' Direct descendants of the light elves who first arrived in our reality from The Light. While  other elves went off, explored, advanced and later became the high elves, the wood elves already back then cut ties with their cousins. By living traditionally and staying in their old forests close to The Dream, they avoided the bad things that happened. Never rose, therefore never fell. Wood elves prefer to live their lives as they have always done, isolating themselves from the rest of the world. Even other elves are accepted, but rarely welcomed with open arms. Would-be intruders usually find themselves a few days later outside the forest again with no memory of how they got there or what happened. Except if they were aggressive, then they never return. Tree houses, talk to animals, control plants, collectively dream to alter reality.
**'''Firn Elves:''' Survivors of high elves’ attempt to ascend to godhood. The heaven’s tower in the far north was their most advanced city, dedicated to the study of reality and divinity. Learning of their achievements, the corruptor Pardona charmed her way into the city and slowly took over. A few elves recognized her evil, but by then she already controlled most of the population. The resulting civil war wiped out the city save for a few survivors who managed to flee the destruction. The descendents of these survivors now live in the eternal ice of the far north. They returned to the old ways, but remember well the fate of their ancestors. This makes them wary of everything foreign, people and ideas alike. In the frozen wastes survival is a constant battle even for a tribe of elves with all their magic and this has made the firn elves a grim, hard people. Don’t expect them to rescue you if you freeze to death on their doorstep – life is hard and after you die they can use your stuff to improve the survival of their tribe. Igloos and Ice palaces, weaponized weather, very tough.
**'''Shire Elves:''' The longest to hold on to their high elven might, but  they too ultimately fell. The other elves say that they did not quite learn the lesson the first time: while the firn elves and wood elves live in tribes keeping mostly to themselves, the shire elves got right back up from their fall and founded another kingdom. Which also ended badly. Their expansion and exploration lead to wars with humans, dwarfs and orcs and although they could win most battles, over the centuries they were losing by attrition. Now the shire elves, like the others, live again in tribes and small villages which do each their own thing. Other than the rest of the elves, these guys trade freely with other races, some clans and families even living side by side with humans in villages and cities. They are the most friendly and open of all elves, teaching and learning from others and curious to travel and see the world. Also the most common source of half elves. The elves next door. Friendly, curious, but surprisingly fighty when necessary.
*'''[[Dwarves]]:''' Dwarves are small, sturdy, have a life span of about 600 years and mostly live below ground. Interestingly, only about one in four dwarves is female, leading to fierce competition among males to impress the ladies with skill, heroism or wealth. Dwarves hate magic and possess a high magic resistance. The very few who are born with the gift either get it burned out or are taken in by a Geode (dwarven druids, living respected but exiled in the wild). To compensate, they have developed technology further than any other people and are doing quite well for themselves (concrete, chemistry, complex mechanics but still no firearms). Of all the non-humans they have the best relationship with humans and often live together in shared cities. Before the rise of the younger races they spread out from their ancient home of Xorlosch and settled under many mountain ranges and slowly their culture evolved into four different peoples:
**'''Anvil Dwarves:''' Standard-fantasy-dwarves. Love to fight, drink, sing (badly) and forge weapons and armour. Very war-like, often go to seek glory in battle or hire out as mercenaries.
**'''Gem Dwarves:''' Fancy clothes instead of chainmails, fencing weapons instead of axes. Gem dwarves have style and are famous as traders, jewelers and tinkerers (also infamous as thieves). More equivalent of gnomes in other settings.
**'''Ore Dwarves:''' The original dwarven culture, and they are very proud of it. A common saying is “Grandfather did it like this and his Grandfather before him, therefore it is good this way”. Not exactly innovators, but the most spiritual of the dwarves, very close to their god and obsessed with history, philosophy and numerology. Rather reclusive, but not unfriendly.
**'''Hill Dwarves:''' Live under hills rather than mountains; Inventors of beer and many delicious recipes. Friendly, peaceful, equivalent more to Tolkien-Hobbits. But don’t think you can go and raid their nice little houses – they are still dwarves and if you get on their bad side you get a heavy crossbow bolt between the eyes.
*'''Achaz:''' Achaz are humanoid [[Lizardmen]]. They stand as tall as humans, have scales, webbed fingers and a tail and can grow up to 250 years old. Being cold-blooded, they only live in the (sub-)tropical regions of the continent (except that one tribe in the Orcland for some reason). Females can be identified by their red-colored dorsal ridges (no lizard boobs here). While they do feel love, sex involves no pleasure for them and “producing a clutch” is only a means of reproduction. When necessary Achaz can also change their gender. While in some regions tribal Achaz trade with humans and in rare instances also live together with them, their comparatively alien physiology and mentality always sets them apart from us mammals. Achaz are an ancient race, even pre-dating dwarves and elves. At the height of their power their empire spanned continents, but latest since the second dragon war those are all gone. Gone from this world, at least... When the ancient Achaz saw their race falling, they folded space and time around the core lands of their empire and shunted in into a globule (DnD-eqilvalent: demiplane). That really big desert in the middle of the continent, where now Novadis ride their camels and wage djihad? That is what they left when they went away and somewhere in the limbus (DnD-eqivalent: astral plane) these guys are still around. Several adventures deal with preventing the return of a country full of super-powerful lizard-wizards. In the here and now, there are two cultures of Achaz:
**'''Archaic Achaz:''' The very few who retain their old culture (or at least as much as they could). Often protecting ancient hidden temples or outposts which somehow survived, these Achaz still pray to the old gods and practice the ancient art of cristallomancy (channeling magic through crystals). Although much knowledge has been lost since their glory days, they still hold great power, especially in temporal and transmutation magic.
**'''Tribal Achaz:''' Most of the Achaz people have reverted to a primitive tribal lifestyle. Contrary to the elves, this was not a choice but a cultural regression due to most of their elite being wiped out or fleeing this world. They live mostly as hunter-gatherers, fishermen and occasionally from a bit of farming. They lost the art of working metal and practicing magic and instead of the mighty priests of old they are now led by shamans.
*'''[[Orcs]]:''' Orcs are smaller than humans, but taller than dwarves. They are humanoid but covered in dense, black fur, have proportionally longer arms and impressive teeth (think small Wookies). Orcs are strong and tough and have keen senses. They mature quickly (adult by age 10) and even under the best of conditions don’t live past 40. Orcs hail from the northern steppes only known to humans as the Orcland where they live in tribes of hunter-gatherers. These tribes constantly war with each other and with their neighbors, plundering resources, treasure and slaves. Orcs are physically superior to humans and for all their brutality by no means stupid. Would the tribes unite, they could form a fighting force that could threaten the very existence of the human realms. A few times this already happened; after the last Orcenstorm they actually kept a few conquered territories where they rule over enslaved populations of humans. Other Orcs think these occupants are lazy and un-orcy because they live  too comfortable a life. Additionally, the chosen of their gods has been building a proper city deep in the Orclands where orcs play at civilisation – and are frighteningly good at it. Orcs are a patriarchal society, so much so that females are seen as possessions and are not even given names. They appear primitive, but are surprisingly good craftsmen and their steel weapons and composite bows can easily match human products.
*'''[[Goblins]]:''' Goblins are related to Orcs and share their general physique; they are however smaller (about the size of a dwarf and significantly lighter) and their fur is red. Where Orcs are seen as a threat, Goblins are usually seen as a nuisance. They live in primitive stone-age-like tribes, hunting, gathering, stealing and raiding. Their proverbial cowardice leads them to only attack when they greatly outnumber a target and even then they quickly turn and flee when encountering resistance. Almost nobody remembers that these little guys had a kingdom only a few hundred years ago that gave the knights of Rondra (Godess of Battle) a run for their money... Also different from orcs, goblins are led by their female-only shamans. Hilariously, they still have not understood the connection between sex and pregnancy, leading to a high fertility rate. Most goblins live as tribes in the wilderness, but some have settled in human cities, taking care of dirty work like catching vermin and cleaning gutters.
*'''Other Races:''' Other intelligent races exist, but are either too monstrous (Ogres, Krakonians) or too alien (Fae, Zilits) to be a playable race. You may encounter them on your adventures but except for highly specialized quests they are just not feasible as PCs.

Mixed Races only exist in the half-elf and half-orc, other cross-species pairings do not produce viable offspring.