Humans

 ''Elves shattered the world in their pursuit of godhood. The dwarves broke their flesh on the altar of immortality. It is Man's time now and we must not fall prey to vanity as the elder races have. We must serve and be contented by that role.''

 - Iona Wraithborn, Prime Supplicant to the Nascent

By far the most populous of the races that live in drifting islands of Canthia, Humans have long held a place of comfort and security in the world as a vassal race to the Aei'kar during their infancy. In 298, the humans rebelled against the Aei'kar and succeeded, travelling from Aei Shass across the Eir'Khol to a new island they named, Vaelorn.

Origins
Though the exact origins of humanity and its various sub-races have been lost to the vastness of time, most scholars believe that modern humans are the descendants of a bastard race of giants that roamed the mountains of northern Canthia before the Schism. However, by the time of that cataclysmic event, the giant race had been weakened or inbred enough to be reduced to their present form. There are a few scholars who lie upon the fringe of the archaeological sciences that believe humanity to be distantly related to the Eolar, a race of half-gods who ruled the former continent of Eokadaer and worshipped their god-father, Eoruun.

Whatever their beginnings, the archaeological record shows that humans first settled in the Nuaruun province of southern Aei Shass around 600 years before the Schism. In those days, the Aei'kar referred to humans by their tribal name, the Har'wen which came to be a reference to the whole southern section of Aei Shass where humanity made its home.

Ruins of the human's first city, Riverdeep, are still considered a holy place and are visited regularly by worshippers of Eoruun and Tuir, the two patron deities of humanity.

The Har'wen Exodus
After the Schism, many of the human leaders allied themselves with the remnants of the Aei'kar Empire hoping to maintain their power over the Har'wen region. However, despite being assured a place as equals by the Aei'kar leadership, many of these tribes were instead assimilated and enslaved by the more powerful and numerous Aei'kar. In 2E 240AS, the Aei'kar grew weary of the constant rebelling and rioting of their human subjects and brought a large military force into the Har'wen province in hopes of pacifying those responsible for the violence. Unfortunately, after thirteen years of heavy engagement and little success, the Aei'kar were forced to relinquish some of their extensive control over the region and allow the humans a semblance of self-governance.

Knowing that the Aei'kar would only wait for their strength to be replenished and attack again, the human chieftains Hatharson of Norn and Vaeren of Aris led their people to the shores near Riverdeep and built a massive flotilla in secret. In 2E 278AS, they completed their fleet and set sail to the west. Dubbed the Har'wen Exodus by later historians, the fleet numbered over a hundred ships and almost 250,000 souls.

The voyage west was one fraught with dangers too numerous to account for in this brief summary. The Exodus was chronicled by the sage, Merdanus in The Elder Travels in greater detail. By the time the humans made landfall they were left with only forty-six ships and under a hundred thousand survivors.

Their landing found them at a fjord, which they named Dagger's Landing due to its shape. There they repurposed their ships into makeshifts homes and established the first buildings of what would soon become Brightshore, the current capitol of the Kingdom of Vaelorn. It should be interesting to note that the island was not named until almost twenty years later by Hatharson's descendants.

Affinity for Magic
Among the races of Canthia, humans seem to have developed the highest rate of Gifted to Mundane with every 1 in 1,000 persons being Gifted in one way or another. Even their rate of Tier One Gifted is much higher than other races at a rate of around 1 in 65,000. In recent years, they have begun to swarm the Spire and related magical education institutions far outnumbering the other races as students. Most attribute this sudden influx to the recent Crownless Lands rebellion which has loosened restrictions on magical testing that the Kingdom of Vaelorn had previously established.

Nations of Humanity
The Kingdom of Vaelorn

The Crownless Lands

The Principality of Straegard

The Narceean Sanctity