Human

'Important note: There will be references to vore throughout this article (both fatal and non-fatal). If you don’t like vore you aren't required to in order to adapt concepts from this setting but please keep this in mind when reading, thank you!'

Humans are a species of great ape that are alien to Faria, having arrived on space ships 200 years ago to escape their troubled home planet of Earth. While this species may not seem particularly fearsome at first glance, their appearance betrays a keenly intelligent and industrious social race that is all too prone to getting absorbed in their own affairs.

Biology
While many of Faria's native species might not know the differences in great detail, humans have many distinguishing characteristics from each other such as skin tone and subtle differences in appearance determined by their genes that make every human unique in their own way. Regardless of these outward differences, humans are very much the same on the inside and none of these differences make one human any worse than another. Human eye colours are most commonly brown, green or blue but colours like grey and rarely violet are possible as well, though some humans may choose to wear contacts that mask their true eye colour.

Average height of a human is between 5'-6' tall, with males typically being taller than females, though it is very possible for both men and women to be taller or shorter than average.

Humans have what is considered a noteworthy lack of hair or fur compared to other species around them, though this isn't quite true. While the most prominent of their hair is found on their head and nether regions, the majority of hair on their body is very short and wispy to the point of appearing invisible, giving them a "bald" look.

It's often incorrectly assumed that humans have poor senses, but this also isn't true. Humans have very keen vision able to perceive a wide range of colours, though they struggle to see in the dark and depend on artificial lighting or torches to see at night or in dark conditions. They also have keen senses of smell and hearing, though they are known to rely on dogs or other animals with stronger senses to perform tasks through training to do them much more efficiently than they could do themselves, another sign of human intelligence. The tall, upright stance of humans and long legs compared to other primates allows humans to cover a long distance of travel better than many other species, though they are slower at short distance travel. In many cases a human will prefer to depend on beasts of burden such as horses or caribox to carry them further distances more quickly than they could travel on their own.

Behaviour
Humans are a highly social species and typically live in large settlements. Typically most settlers are families looking to live somewhere safe and secure or to make a comfortable living pursuing a trade. Settlements are commonly lead by a single village chief or a small handful of people who run the local politics. A larger settlement like a city prefers to operate its own political power, though due to how spread out humans are there is a notable lack of any widespread government regulation and unified agreements among powers compared to those on Earth, they largely tend to their own settlements with travel between them most commonly occurring among merchants and couriers.

Humans have a wide variety of values, social norms, and rituals, which bolster human society. Humans are noted to be quite particular about not only adhering to these conventions but also expecting other species to do the same, no matter how little they may actually make an effort to educate other species on these conventions before becoming offended over them failing to understand their conventions.

Humans have a keen sense of curiosity, which pushes their efforts to understand and influence the environment and to explain and manipulate phenomena in Faria. This drive motivates humanity's development of science, philosophy, mythology, religion, and other fields of knowledge which they were already rich with compared to all other species on Faria. This intelligence and ambition has allowed them to coordinate efforts to turn land that is nigh uninhabitable into fertile land to live off of, and even create complex machinery to make life's challenges easier and allow them more time for leisure. The height of this phenomenon is best witnessed in The Warren, which boasts the present peak of human technology.

Humans are a diurnal species so are predominantly active during the day and spend an average of 7-9 hours at night sleeping, though some humans are known to work at night so must sleep in the daytime to adapt to this. This is something done of their own volition and not how they function instinctively.

Predation
Without their inclination for crafting complex tools and machines to defend themselves, humans would most commonly fall prey to predators out in the vast wilderness. Settlements take the threat of predation seriously and human settlements have some of the most advanced protections from them available, though not every settlement has access to the technology allowing for state of the art defenses so many must use more simple methods like walls, barriers or posting guards to look out for trouble before it arrives. Of course, if these tools were to fail a human or be destroyed/worked around, humans can very easily wind up a meal for a predator.

Humans as Predators
Human predators are heard of but not very common. Within human culture/settlements it's generally considered taboo to partake in such behaviour due to the fear of predation among the majority of people in settlements, but it may often be practiced behind closed doors between lovers using a safer approach to it as a means of expressing affections for one another, or indeed some humans may indulge themselves in full predatory desires, unafraid to claim victims through doing this.

Humans as Prey
Humans often fall prey to predators from both the wild and of other species sharing the civilized world with them. With many other species disliking or distrusting humans, humans have become stereotyped as being purely food due to a lack of understanding of the world beyond their settlements, some even outright believe their only place is as food.

Diet
Humans are omnivorous and capable of consuming a wide variety of plant and animal material. They have used fire and other sources of heat to cook their food since ancient times, and have mastered many means of preserving food to last longer for lean times as well as farming vegetation and livestock to maintain a steady supply of food to reduce the need to hunt. Humans primarily need fruits and vegetables to get the bulk of nutrients but are noted to be quite fond of the taste of meat and sugar. Many tend to neglect to eat a balanced diet in favour of these quicker sources of energy or purely for the fact they have a more palatable taste. Humans are able to survive up to 8 weeks without food and 3-4 days without water.

Weaknesses
Humans tend to shelter themselves within their own settlements, finding security from the wider world around them by fortifying their settlements with some of the most advanced technology and methods of any species in Faria. This tendency to stick close to home means they often can grow complacent and remain ignorant of the wider world which can make them prone to hubris when tackling the worlds dangers, especially without gathering all knowledge of threats available to them or being prepared to handle new threats.

While humans are capable of crafting weaponry and complex defenses to protect themselves, they lack any real means to fight off predators without having weapons with them, disarming them will therefore make them next to defenseless, especially against a very large or strong predator.

While a human's senses are far from poor, many predators outperform them in senses of smell and hearing as well as seeing in the dark better than humans, which can make them vulnerable to being caught off guard, especially in the dark/at night without an adequate light source.

Spirituality
Humans have brought many religious beliefs with them from Earth, but a lack of connection to home has caused these beliefs to amalgamate into a collective belief in all possibilities in a very loose sense, as well as some humans taking to belief in The Family. Other humans are less accepting of local beliefs and have tried to convert lyres to their own beliefs with little to no success due to how much hatred lyres already hold for humans.

Overall
The relationship with other species is a very mixed bag. Some human factions have frequently strained relationships with other species while many settlements coexist with other species peacefully. Some species hate humans so much that these strained relations seep out in public frequently. Despite how few humans are in numbers compared to other species, their keen adaptability and drive to seek opportunities to improve their lives means they can be found just about anywhere and thus they easily cross paths with other species. It's quite common for humans to make a living as merchants for this reason as they have a keen attraction to money, trade and especially garnering riches compared to other species, so a common archetype in the minds of many is a friendly human face atop a loaded cart of goods pulled by trusty beasts of burden, as well as a stereotype of humans being obsessed with money or how much monetary value something is worth.

Lyres
Humans aren’t usually a species lyres in the present day worry about as much as they did 200 years ago, but lingering animosity from the past persists from lyres primarily. When humans first arrived on Faria, they went out on missions hunting for raw supplies by whatever means they could, invading and destroying lyre territories in their path. This lead to The Southern War in which many died, especially the lyres as they could do little to nothing against the humans superior technology. While this war only affected the southern lyres, who hate humans the most, the stories told of the war are a cautionary tale in the minds of lyres everywhere. The sacred villages are known to forbid humans from entering just to protect their gods physical embodiments. Lyres are wary of humans for their technology. Humans are largely ignorant to the more reserved lifestyles of lyres and this can often create strain between the two species as humans tend to stockpile and hoard supplies while lyres only believe in taking what's truly needed. Humans do however enjoy getting involved in the Lyre's sole large scale celebration, The Festival of Gods, but many don't understand the religious importance this holiday has to the lyres so it's more often seen as an excuse to eat and drink excessively.

Anurans
Humans tend to fear anurans due to their frighteningly efficient and coordinated pack hunting as well as the anurans tendency of seeing humans as food. Humans simply see anurans as mindless savages, in spite of being aware they're clever hunters, and will chase them from settlements on sight with the aid of weaponry. Anurans call humans tall-bald as an insult, but also as a means of referring to them. Anurans are rarely welcomed into human settlements but anurans will often sneak in to steal food or tools from them.

Capres
Humans are a species capres are especially distrustful of. Humans are the most common species who lead or make up gangs of poachers who hunt capres to collect their tails. The tails are sold on the black market for high sums of reigels, with rumors stating buyers in The Warren will buy them for an even greater sum in credits. The distrust of humans is so bad that capres may forbid them from entering the village entirely, which can even extend to halfkin due to them being half-human.

Dromos
Dromos were created by a faction of humans who bioengineered them to prioritize the safety of humans during their work. As a result, humans as a whole are fawned over and adored by the dromos, any humans who visit the town get given the best treatment they can manage. Outside of merchants, not many humans actually visit the Dromos Settlement or make it there if they try to, so it’s considered a very special occasion for a new human face to visit.

Humans of course mostly like the dromos back, though they understand very little about this species and their unusual militaristic culture. Dromos get so excited when a human visits the Dromos Settlement once in a blue moon that the human visitors can be a bit overwhelmed by the dromos eagerness to please. Some humans may try to take advantage of the collective naiveté of the dromos for their own benefit, but thanks to human merchants helping to steer the dromos down a path to self-sufficiency, dromos can mostly avoid trouble on their own.

Beastkin
Beastkin have received mixed treatment from humans. Close-minded humans tend to see beastkin as a lesser race and treat them rather harshly owing to the fact they are anthropomorphic animals. Other humans are more baffled over how anthropomorphic species of animals that came from Earth rather than Faria came to be, due to the beastkin keeping their roots a closely guarded secret from the rest of the human race. The more positive relationships humans hold with beastkin have stemmed from humans who find the animal-like beastkin to be attractive, and learning through getting together that their bonding was able to create another new race...

Halfkin
Halfkin are the species that came from humans and beastkin getting together and producing offspring. Due to beastkin sharing a lot of human DNA, it's possible for the two species to have children together, though halfkin seem to largely take after their human parents and adopt minor traits of their beastkin half. The existence of halfkin alone has either helped or hindered the perception of their beastkin parentage depending on the settlement and individual humans.

Treating Each Other
As a whole, humans are a tightly knit social species who are capable of incredible feats when they put aside their differences to work together towards a common goal. They usually get along well with their fellow men, though humans are prone to harboring prejudices even among themselves towards those they don't understand due to being different in one way or another. Historical documents detailing their past on Earth have allowed researchers to realize that this infighting among their own species has dropped dramatically over the past 200 years, most likely due to humans having other species of a level intelligence to interact with and forge complex relationships with.

Humans have a tendency to foster norms of what roles in their society are best suited to either sex, though this mindset has been challenged and pushed against by many humans to allow people to decide what ways they wish to live their own lives, which has overall had a positive impact on the way humans run their settlements by providing a broader range of opportunities for everyone.

Reproduction
The highly social nature of humans typically results in humans making connections and choosing a partner for themselves passively as they come to know one another, though it's not unheard of for couples to adopt children, seek surrogate parenting or use artificial means to bring a baby to term. Mothers who end up pregnant inadvertently may choose to raise the baby regardless of these circumstances.

Childbirth in humans is dangerous and carries a high risk of complications and death for both the mother and baby, so humans are dependent on support from doctors and others in their lives to have children safely, which is a major reason why humans may feel more secure in settlements with other humans present or made up of only humans.

Life Cycle
When the baby is born 9 months after a mother becomes pregnant, both the mother and the father provide care for human offspring who are helpless at birth without their parents care and protection. Kids reach adulthood at 18 and may strike out on their own to make their own living or remain living at home to support their family.

Humans have a potential lifespan of 80-100 years, though humans in The Warren live to be 120 due to higher quality healthcare. Humans living in poorly fortified settlements or roughing it in the wild barely see their 30's living outside The Warren due to predation.