Fantasy humans

There's nothing saying that the humans have to follow mundane evolution in that case, mind you.

Aside from that, it could also be an interesting plot point that humanity has, in many forms and fashions, had to carve themselves a place in that sort of world: it'd definitely give humans a flavor in the fantasy world as determined despite their shortcomings.

Barring that, one of the older races taking pity on humans and raising them is also a perfectly valid fantasy approach, especially once worked in with a classic "but then the humans abused the gifts they were given by the Elves/Dwarves/Dragons and ruined everything".

its not so much "right" as "everyone is as bad as each other"

but that was a thing even before the wild hunt being ayys- the elves supplanted the Vraan, the humans supplanted the elves, eventually someone will supplant humans

Warcraft
All official D&D settings
Elder Scrolls

Does anyone else find it really hard to relate to or really admire elves? Can't bring myself to play as them, or most races that are long lived as they, is that odd?

>Elder Scrolls
>biggest and best
they wish, they WERE back when tiber septim was a thing, but not anymore

>warcraft
>biggest and best
wrong again, not eaxtly caught up on legion but it would currently either be the elves or draenai- who may or may not have gotten a spaceship

Firstly, the big thing you need to remember, is that D&D Human =/= Medieval Human.

They have *trappings* that are the same. But they live in very, VERY different worlds.

A better question is, why is Veeky Forums so obsessed with edgy societies, domination, inequality, and racial differences?

Why can't humans just view a travelling dwarf or elf or minotaur as a strange oddity, but welcome in the home of any human farmer if they provide a little labor or tell their children stories from far away lands?

Anything like that is 99% better then edgy "realistic" shit.

I'd argue that such fantasy settings having humans at all is unrealistic. Even speaking of just elves, dwarves, and the like, they overlap and occupy many of the same type of traits exhibited by humans, this doesn't take into account any of the other races outside those few. It is far more likely that mankind would never come to be, that they would be wiped out at some point in the competition chain before even becoming recognizable as humans. But as we all know, fantasy settings and stories are written by humans for humans, and there is no way anyone would ever shit on humanity without being accused of being some kind of misanthrope or self-hating race traitor.

Really, there's absolutely no reason beyond closed-mindedness to assume that non-Tolkien races have to be the "trusted ones".

Literally the only reason we have the pre-4e default setup is pure Grandfather Clause, from D&D's roots as a wargame that Gygax worked on and a bunch of his friends wanting to play in the Lord of the Rings setting. It can be trivially easy for an inventive DM to replace one or more of the "classic" races with something more exotic and have the result be an integrated part of the greater society.

For example, Orcs could be a predatory humanoid people from the cold North, who, whilst they may engage in the occasional raid, also freely trade exotic goods and crafts with Southlanders as well. In this kind of world, a Orc may be no more unusual a sight than a dwarf in Greyhawk; a brusque and burly sellsword or merchant who will spend a small fortune on beer and meat pies in the local tavern. Funny looking? Yeah, but hardly something to be upset about.

Dragonborn can make perfect sense right out of the 4e box; they're the former rulers of Arkhosia, which comes off as being a good and noble kingdom compared to the devil-worshippers of Bael Turath. There are ancient stories by the score speaking of the dragonborn as a people of righteous knights, servitors to the benevolent and just rule of Bahamut; why in the world would you be afraid of them? These people are, by the lore passed down in D&Dland, all that remains of an entire civilization of paladins! It'd be like treating a Knight of the Round Table as a blood-thirsty rapine sellsword.

There is literally no good reason beyond pure grognardia not to presume that exotic races cannot be made to fit a campaign. You want to run your human only campaign, or your Tolkien-inspired campaign, sure, go right ahead - that's your prerogative. But you are not the authority on what D&D races are "supposed" to be, or on what makes a race "properly" D&Dish.

>Would medieval-era humans really be capable of such a thing, wouldn't they just dominant and enslave everyone else and be the real villains?

They're not the most POPULOUS race, they're not the most ADAPTABLE, they're just another fantasy race: older races such as Dwarves and Elves would have a much larger advantage in terms of infrastructure, technology, numbers, and superior footholdings in their forests and mountains... And even then, most fantasy species prefer environments that are unsuitable for basic Human habitation because they either need to be worked or they possess difficult, obstructive, terrain.

So I never have Humans as the most populous fantasy race, ever, almost every setting I've seen it's been contrived and super silly given the different traits of other competing species. Most settings are "fish bowls" where things are just introduced at whim, but if you're going for even a shred of natural order, it's just goofy.

Though, I don't just give the big ol' middle finger to Humans: they're the plains people, they're the open-environment, flatland sort of species you can find in any sort of exposed biome with little coverage beyond the tall grasses and what not. Typically they have a history of other species (Elves, Dwarves, Orcs) trying to take THEIR land and root them out, but they've always failed to do so either because the Humans themselves were just too aggressive and constant or the environment was too inhospitable for the outsiders. You'd try to attack them directly and they'd just retreat at about twice the rate your own forces could do on a forced march, you try to defend yourself, but there's no terrain to act as cover or route the enemy and the Humans can and WILL come at the worst possible time and leave as quickly as they came, and worse yet is the moment you turn your back to them and retreat- they'll be biting at your heels 'till you've made the tree line or are back in the hills.

Why are the bull-men the only race deserving of noses?

>pro's and con's
I like you. Thank you for giving me a little more faith in Veeky Forums.

slavery existed in the feudal ages you retard and no im not talking about serfdom either

>Elder Scrolls
maybe back in the third era. Currently they are in a cold war with the elves though and things ain't lookin good for the empire considering their remaining provinces are starting to secede or are blasted hell-scapes.

>Stop doing this shit
>Now I will buy your game

That more or less happened in TES though. Additionally, in Warcraft the reason humans are more numerous is because Elves have a nasty habit of causing some genocidal cataclysm to themselves every 10000 years that nearly wipes out their populations. Dwarves are literally just rock people and have no interested in dealing with humans outside of whenever they find it convenient and because Humans and Dwarves occupy essentially entirely different biomes there's no competition for land or resources. So, Humans keep blobbing over Azeroth because they're pretty much unchallenged by any other major race by virtue of a fuckoffhuge ocean or literal planets. The Draenei and Orcs and cosmic refugees so they don't have anywhere near the populations or infrastructure to stand up to centuries of human development and expansion.

except not all humans in real life aren't a "plains, grassland" race you retard.
it would make sense if you had mongolian looking guys inhabiting the plains, because mongolian features work there, but european people and their features only look that way because we developed in dense forests. same with lots of other people.

your logic is shit, lmao

it makes no sense to have elves living in the temperate forest, when humans who are adapated to live there (European looking people and native americans, and some types of asian) perform just as well there

humans never preform "just as well as elves"

elves are more magically attuned, dextrous and longer lived- whatever they do they do better, thats the point

Ironically it's one of Japan's most profitable games

I think Fate: Grand Order is second.

Yes, but as a trade off there's usually like 10x(or x100) as many humans.

>your logic is shit, lmao

Your spacing is shit, lmao.

Also you're being so clinically retarded I'm almost convinced this has to be bait: you're essentially trying to debunk my argument on the basis that since real-life humans were capable of developing in an environment with basically no other competition from humanoids that they then outta be able to adapt, persist, and dominate other environments even though there's other SPECIES who are adapted to live there.

You're mistaking culture for biological adaptation and coming off as a huge mouth-breather who's PROUD of how fast he can prove he doesn't understand anything because you think for some arbitrary reason that a normal man with less dexterity, poorer hearing, no-low-light vision, would fair better in the woods than an Elf who's born with all of the aforementioned superior traits.

No, you're just a retard.

If you want to make humans that live on the plains, then give them asiatic features, because those features happen when people live on plains.

White features are only the result of living in dark forests.

But of course you're an idiot so somehow people living on planes with no protection from the sun and high amounts of wind will totally have white features that aren't adapted for environments like that.

And there's no reason for elves to be more dexterous than humans, and most sources don't show elves as having better low light vision, better hearing, etc

>And there's no reason for elves to be more dexterous than humans, and most sources don't show elves as having better low light vision, better hearing, etc
most elves come from tolkien, where they do have those things, and more

>Warcraft

When Warcraft was created the elves had two powerful nations. It's kinda hard to talk about Warcraft lore since it changes to often though.

>All official D&D settings

Forgotten Realms and Points of Light have the major elvish nations virtually unassailable in the modern era. And in the Feywild. Eberron has extremely powerful (and aggressive, in one case) elf nations.

>Elder Scrolls

Wew, not currently. But TES seems like a silly thing to cite as an example of this being a problem as humans did make war on everyone else.

>And there's no reason for elves to be more dexterous than humans

You might as well say "there's no reason for elves to be elves."

>and most sources don't show elves as having better low light vision, better hearing

Tolkien, Irish mythology, Norse mythology, D&D (every edition and setting), Warhammer Fantasy, Iron Kingdoms... elves have better hearing and low light vision in virtually every source.

They're too busy killing each other to be interested in non-human lands.

>peasants
>in a medieval European army to begin with

But what happens when a Napoleon or Nobunaga happens and they're united, even temporarily?

Don't humans have the advantage of being fast breeders compared to them and stuff like dwarves though? Even Tolkien elves do it once then lose interest.

I'm tired of seeing humans as the generic middle of the road type race.
I want to see a setting humans are some kind of extreme; fastest/slowest, smartest/dumbest, strongest/weakest, etc.

It's because humans are always the base, while everything else is "other".

>But what happens when a Napoleon or Nobunaga happens and they're united, even temporarily?
The non-humans might be fucked then.

Though it can be difficult for the human kingdom and races to be united if religions and past grievances get in the way. Even more so if some of them actually like the non-human creatures.

...

Boy this is an old fucking thread.

Except humans are also aliens from somewhere else, that showed up one day and proceeded to fuck and slaughter their way into making the setting humanocentric.

>Don't humans have the advantage of being fast breeders compared to them and stuff like dwarves though?
as far as I know? not really, the reason humans were the most numerous was because the elves were GTFO'ing out of middle earth because depression

>napoleon
>unifying
his enemies maybe, but imagine your generic "orcish horde sweeps the land" but the orcs are now pink

I think the Melnibonéans have a certain charm to them, seeing how incredibly evil, incestuous and powerful of a race they are.

>Melnibonéans
arent they basically dark elves?

Napoleon came the closest of anyone to uniting Europe

They're kinda both.

honestly just look at any newage ancient race idea. Replace them with elves, then just tone down their departure/extinction or make it ongoing. I mean the human as a slave/ servant race (with inevitable revolt or breakaway). If elves live centuries chances are they have a libeto to match, else they'd overpopulate themselves ridiculously quickly. You got that time of time on your biological clock, so no need to be in a hurry.
So how would a race that focused on quality over quantity make great works? Need a hell of a lot of people to build shit.
By seeing the potential in another much more abundant race that hasn't quite gotten off the ground as quickly because their ideas keep dying too soon to spread. Take them under your wing, and then suffer for your hubris in a few eons.
Then extrapolate for the other short races.
Maybe their patron elder race is different if you want to include other long lived races.
I mean think about it. If elves lived that long, and they bred at a similarly slow rate, then each elvish life is precious.
What are you to do if you want to war with those bastardly other elves with their slightly more angled ears, pieces of shit that they are? You could lose hundreds of years of training and knowledge if so much as one of your warriors die.
Good thing you found these angry green fellows not to long ago.

he pulled a hitler

he conquered lots of it for a short span, then was crushed and lost all the land

I mean look at all that otaku fapbait pandering, I can't say I'm surprised.

>Good thing you found these angry green fellows
Funny enough, in my setting this is how the eternal elf/dwarf rivalry plays out: both long lived and long viewed races with low birth rates and no inclination to die for lands they don't value, figured out they could proxy less advanced societies against one another. The Dwarves hit on the idea first and gave the elves a very hard time with their new Orc friends - who lived close by, were as strong as and almost enduring as the dwarves, and were even better too tall to want dwarf homes - until in desperation the Elves found and "assisted" a nomad tribe from over the seas - humans. Elves are growing increasingly uneasy at just how much the petty human kingdoms are flourishing in the plains bordering their forests however, and tend to manipulate the humans into wars with each other or the orcs as a form of population control. Orcs tend to do this user themselves on their own, which makes the Dwarves grumble about how noisome and disorderly they are.

Women are a pretty significant percentage in these pandering games sales base as well.

No one ever talks about the cute boys in this game, just the titty monsters like Magissa or the dorafs

>You could lose hundreds of years of training and knowledge if so much as one of your warriors die.
but by the same stroke that one elf is worth more than a small army if we go by the "everything about elves is exaggerated"

look at how elves are done in warhammer, yes they are long lived, but because they war they keep fucking

but this whole thing is fairly silly, since humans and elves would both be K selecting, and elves would value 100 years the same way humans value 10

That's because Japanese women don't post here. Westerners (and seanigs) as a whole are completely insignificant sales-wise.

>but by the same stroke that one elf is worth more than a small army if we go by the "everything about elves is exaggerated"
Ehh, logistics and action economy. I have no doubt a single ancient comando elf could be a fucking terror, an army is a bit much of a stretch for me. But hey, we're arguing nerds so let's take this silly thing a bit too seriously. There would still be an upper limit for the strength and speed of that elf, so really after that point was reached (probably quite young in their military life) then it's all tactics.

I mean think about it. Elves are always paired with nature. They're very self sufficient as a result. Just imagine that. A kingdom living in fear of multiple serial killers, assassins, saboteurs, and spies. Yet in the end it's just one really angry elf in the woods just sitting there, waiting.

>still be an upper limit for the strength and speed of that elf
well yes, but that limit happens to be "somewhere below morgoth but above a balrog"

>humans are the plains race
That shit's boring yo.

>minotaur female

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

DOES THE MALE HAVE A TINY GORILLA DICK?

It's been speculated that it's either that or female Dorafs have huge gaping vaginas

Are you saying all of Humanity in your setting consist solely of Medieval-era Humans? Because that describes an awfully specific historical and geographical slice of Humanity.

Anyway, Humans absolutely would co-exist with other races. But only if Humans get to be Humans. And what do Humans do? We have a long-standing tradition of being guardians of both flora and fauna that serve our interests. We will protect our crops and our cattle from anything that may try to harm it - all the way from bandits, down to the tiniest of insects. We are thorough like that.

If we had to rely on Dwarves for a steady supply of metals for our infrastructure, you could bet your bottom that we'd be right in those caves either helping them with the digging, or protecting them from pesky cave monsters who threaten our diminutive brethren. If Elf milk could be used to treat rare diseased, you better believe we would milk them like cows and give them protected status all the way. If Centaurs could serve as strong work horses in farms, you don't have to ask twice whether we'd put them to use working our fields and giving them lots of food, and protection from Trolls who may otherwise try to eat them.

The major drawback of living with Humans is our eccentricity and - for lack of better words - god complex. Humans have the weirdest ideas of what makes the world better, and we will try to put them into practise. A Dwarf living amongst Humans would constantly have to live with the fact that you have a bunch of busybodies running around you trying to find ways to improve your quality of life, changing the very ground beneath you to ensure your comfort and safety. It may come across as patronising.

Prouder races with tighter hierarchies such as Orcs may think of Humans as weak, meddling pests, too reliant on other races (both intelligent or otherwise) to be worthy of respect. Meanwhile the Human will look at the Orc and try to figure out if they are worth domesticating.

cont.

That is to say, we wouldn't necessarily be too focused on enslaving other races - certainly we may if they are too hard to negotiate with more peacefully, or lack the intelligence to do so.

However, humans always look to what is the easier option. And enslaving a people/race only works if they are too weak to fight against you.

Aren't you applying your 21st century acquired morals on the situation though? Humans were doing awful things to humans up until 50 years ago.

Probably the latter, as female draphs are literally bred for breeding. Having large vaginas to more easily pop out kids would make sense.

Aren't you implying that we have stopped doing awful things to each other? We may live in the 21st century, but we aren't exactly a tight knit bundle of love. We still have humans who want nothing more than to reinstate slavery and race castes, and would lobby for it if they had any political power to do so.

What I am saying is that Humans control their surroundings and make it work for Humans. I never said anything about the aforementioned Dwarves, Elves, and Centaurs being treated as equal citizens. They are viewed entirely through the scope of how they are useful to us, until they can otherwise prove themselves to be above their station.

The Dwarves may be made to live by the mines. The Centaurs kept in the farmlands. And the Elves - you figure that one. It all stinks of ghetto, so it's not ideal for the people living there. But at least they benefit from some levels of security they otherwise had to provide for themselves.

What you've written stinks of HFY, so far. That's only cause you haven't gone into how other races view and treat humans in their lands, so there's hope yet.

The best service a Human can provide is the service of technology and military. If your fantasy race has no need of either, they will likely shun the Humans and keep them out of their borders. Humans take up a lot of space. They exist in large numbers, and are constantly expanding. To long-lived races that makes Humans out to be plagues to be avoided and repelled for fear of it destroying your way of life - a justified concern.

However, the bigger question is why a Dwarf, Elf, or Centaur would consider living with Humans in the first place. If we exclude sexual deviants, there must be an incentive to trade your home for that of Humans. So they can't be perfect either. Humans aren't subjecting the Dwarves, Elves, or Centaurs and forcing them to move in, they are giving them a deal. A take it, or leave it deal. They won't have full autonomy with Humans, but maybe it is good enough?

Could Dwarves live in strict class systems where you are born into a single job and may never deviate? Perhaps if they elope to Human cities they may get a chance to do something else with their lives instead.

Could Elves live in a meritocracy where only the eldest and most powerful magic users have power? That means a young Elf may spend 100 or more years as a powerless apprentice. But if they go to the Humans they may get a chance to do something with their abilities.

Could Centaurs life in territorial harems where one male has multiple females, and fights off any outsiders? Could colts and fillies be forced to leave the pack and be forced to fend for themselves until they too have a pack and territory? With fear of predation and land being hard to get, perhaps going to the Humans seems like a good deal.

And why do Humans go to the other races. To get something, of course. We have to go to the Elves for magic. We have to go the the Dwarves for metals. We depend on them to grow stronger, without them we are weak. It's symbiotic.

Fuckin' luchador for comparison

I mean shit, that's pretty much what I did with the main kingdom in my setting. I just made them massive cunts.
>dominant kingdom of Humans waged verious wars against non-humans over the centuries
>Dwarves, Elves, Orcs/Goblins, other human nations all got shit from them
>most recent war was waged into a stalemate by the other dominant kingdom, the Elven kingDom
>Elves are also massive conquering cunts
>currently, there is a peace treaty held by the nation's, but to the south there are still skirmishes waged against the Dwarves, who's culture and society ha's basically been curbstomped by decades of Elves and Humans trying to fuck their shit up
>PCs can be non-humans (elven, Dwarven, Goblin, Orc, Tiefling) in main empire towns and cities, as they have in the past twenty years opened themselves up a lot more to trading from the western countrise, but PCs will still get dirty looks from time to time and it can be rough.
>Other major human nation to the southwest is based more on Renaissance Italy. Generally much more open but shitty in its own ways I.e vain, egotistical, etc.
>far western civilization is African inspired but tightly intertwined with demon kind in their heritage, so Tieflings are common.

I was discussing a subject related to this not so long ago.

Obviously to us in our human-only world, beautiful and sexy elven women or catgirls and the like are highly desirable to us, but would it be the case if we actually lived in the same world, even if it wasn't necessarily alongside them? They'd probably not have remotely the same exotic appeal and thus humans desire to enslave them in a manner Japanese artists often like to portray would like be less likely than we think.

Nice that in my setting they are ascended, my humans are divine creatures right below angels

Also i think that humans could be able to be dominant if their numbers are high enough

Probably not as sex slaves. But there would still probably be an exotic appeal.

Humans in the real world already have deviant subgroups who engage in incest and bestiality. So how hard a stretch is it that there would be subgroups of humans wanting to have sex with elves and catgirls?

Oh no I know people would still want to fuck them regardless, that's just mankind. But wars of aggression purely to enslave other races aren't even that uncommon in some western literature.

>Probably not as sex slaves. But there would still probably be an exotic appeal.

Honestly, seeing how people have gone "MUH DICK" over new hair colours, eyes colours and skin colours in our world, elves would likely be popular as sex slaves.

elves are just more attractive than humans, at least to humans- so humans would want to fuck elves

but more interesting question, would elves have the same concepts of beauty we do? or would it be something else due to the traits we value being so common as to be banal and the norm

Beauty standards have varied wildly throughout our own human history, never mind fictional worlds.

For a long time, a woman was considered attractive if she had a more full figure, or was even slightly obese, because that meant she was eating well, which was a huge deal in a society where most people were either farmers or worked in farm-adjacent jobs.

At some times in history, people purposefully blacked-out their teeth to make them look like they were missing. Missing teeth meant you ate a lot of sugary food, only the nobility could afford to regularly eat high-sugar foods, and so making it seem like you were missing teeth made you look more noble. At other times, it was considered fashionable to have pale skin, because it meant that you had the wealth and manpower to stay indoors a lot, unlike the peasants who got tanned working in the fields. Then there's foot-binding, which... ugh, the less said about that, the better.

Then there's how nudity taboos have varied wildly throughout history. For a long time in western culture, women's clothing was incredibly conservative. The outfit that the elf in your pic is wearing would be seen as scandalous in middle-ages Europe, and probably mark her out as a prostitute (and therefore riddled with STDs). The idea of womens' casual dress accentuating and advertising their bodies is the product of modern liberalism. And I mean REALLY modern: current women's fashion would have been unthinkable as little as 50 years ago.

While I agree with this user for the most part, the Khmer (Cambodian) did carve out an empire larger than the Carolingian Empire from a tropical rainforest that'd make most fantasy elves cringe.

So if you want a setting where human can be better forest dweller than elves (and/or fuck those elves!), adding a not!Khmer may be a good idea.

Elves are mentioned as having particularly acute hearing and vision in Tolkien. Tolkien invented this; folkloric sources make no mention of it.

And even Tolkien never mentioned elves (or dwarves) seeing in the dark. In fact, in 'The Hobbit', whenever the dwarves are caught in the dark without a light source, they're as blind as Bilbo.

D&D invented infravision.

>most elves come from tolkien, where they do have those things, and more
D&D elves have nothing to do with Tolkien's. The most significant similitude between them both is not being Santa's elves.

>The idea of womens' casual dress accentuating and advertising their bodies is the product of modern liberalism.

Not really. Standards of propriety varied. There were cuts of neckline before the Victorian era that would be considered vulgar today in western society.

The Khmer empire didn't work like anything resembling a modern state though. Not like the Carolingian Empire did (albeit it was closer) but most fantasy settings ditch feudalism and treat nations like they're modern countries with feudal (or tribal, ot whatever) aesthethics.

I want a setting where humans are very explicitly not the dominant race, scraping an existence out of the tablecrumbs of another race's vast empire

>Plus if lord mistreated you you can always say fuck this and migrate to other lord/kingdom/free city.

Unless you lived in France, Russia, or pre-plague England...

I've got some answers to this question
1) not everyone's going to be on board with just enslaving all those other races.

These next two pertain to stuff a GM I know did in his world building
2) They share common civilizational foundations that heavily discourage warefare between elves dwarves centaur and etc...
3) humans are known for suffering from political and intrigue issues far more then other races preventing any one human nation from becoming dominant.

Kinda like real life with a certain specific religion

>Warcraft
>lore

Warhammer Fantasy is kinda this, with the great human civs owing everything to elves or dwarfs, and their near-genocidal war with each other. Humans are 'dominant' through no real virtues of their own, and then only in Europe, North Africa, and the Far East. America is ruled by elves and lizards, Atlantis by elves, most of Africa by skeletons or more lizards, and the far north by parasitic daemons and monsters.

I am currently using a setting that is in the border realms of essentially the 4 corners of the major elemental plains. The majority of the interaction is between the water and earth plains, with air and fire above each respectively. it creates a "narrow" region of habitable ground where thousands of islands exist, ranging from things a mile or two in size to islands twice the size of greenland.
There is a large coalition of islands with dozens of generic fantasy races dotting each of them separately so i can give each race its due without having to worry near as much about ... well, mixing.
but humans do inhabit a large portion of these.

>competitive individualist.

Modern western values in a nutshelll.

This Negroid gets it

Would it make sense to portray humans as God killers whose heroes and (now fallen) empires destroyed the elvish and other fantasy gods?

well first you have to asspull a way for the humans to do that, so select your flavor of humanwank first

Easy enough. Titan Prometheus gave them the secret of the gods. The humans used that secret to destroy the gods of the rest of the world or something. They fell when they used that secret against themselves.

>thinking that any group without strong in-group preference could ever survive.

Not to mention that the parts where humans are supposed to be dominant are infested by greenskins, beastment, (wood) elves, vampires or a combination of two or more of them.

>wouldn't they just dominant and enslave everyone else and be the real villains?
A member of my weekly gaming group actually hd an interesting take on humans for his setting. In his setting humans originate from a continent far away from where the current story is set and they have been busy having what amounts to the 30 Years War which has recently ended but are now rebuilding in a puritanical fashion complete with witch-hunts.

They still manage to make it to the continent where the story takes place but most are in their homelands a sea away.

Interesting if by interesting you mean lazy asspull to remove humans from the main scenario. Lazy and coward since he didn't even have thr balls to just not have humans.

Humans are alien invaders, favored by the gods, who were transported them to this world from another dimension and were granted magical and divine power by the gods themselves while everyone else had none.