The Lore of Men

Of all the Noble Peoples, men are the most numerous.
Men can be found everywhere, from the most verdant
valley to the harshest environment, anywhere a living
can be scratched from the land. In blazing deserts, the
frozen north, jungle, plain and mountain, men dwell.
They exhibit a bewildering array of outer forms and skin
colour, and the palette of their emotions is equally as
varied. Men can be black of heart or as pure as snow.
Men have been known as great Elf Friends, men have
been known to embrace and serve the Abyss willingly.
Men are anything but predictable.

Men were once more inclined to good than they are
now. The Republic of Primovantor was the apogee of
human civilisation, a grand coalition of nations ruled
by an elected senate and headed by the High Consul.
The men of this time were long-lived and keen-minded.
Nearly a thousand years after the republic collapsed,
its feats of magic and art have yet to be matched. The
Primovantians learned much from the Elves, and gave
them much in return. From their mountain home of
Primovantia, the early Primovantians brought as many
lands into their Republic by diplomacy as by conquest.
All citizens were treated equally under her laws, no
matter whether they willingly joined or their country had
been defeated in war, and it flourished because of it.

Every man who fought for Primovantor did so willingly,
to protect a land they were proud to call their own.

Winter’s war finished the Republic, already severely
weakened by the God War. The provinces north of the
Dragon’s Teeth mountains were ground to clay under
the ice, its rich southlands drowned by the sea. Whereas
once Primovantor was a mountain kingdom looking over
fertile plains, it is now a peninsula.

The memory of this noble state lives on in Basilea,
the largest and most powerful of today’s nations. The
Basileans are adherents of the Shining Ones, and large
numbers of paladins, warrior monks and battle nuns are
found in their armies. The angelic Elohi fly above the hosts
of Basilea, lending their pure voices to the battle hymns
of holy warriors, and their strength to the army’s assault.
The Successor Kingdoms are descended from Primovantor
also, but the similarity to Basilea ends there, for they have
been much influenced by admixtures of culture and thought
from other lands and have followed their own path. There
are as many as a hundred of these small statelets, ranging
from independent cities to large dukedoms, and the genuine
kingdom of Valentica. These small lands are in a constant
state of rivalry. War between them is not uncommon. As a
result of this the city-states are vital places, breeding brave
men who range far in their ships.

In other places men live in conditions ranging from great
culture to orcish barbarism, and everywhere in between.
Dark Ophidia is the home of vile sorcery. To the far north,
hordes of horsemen fight over the herds of mammoth
and bison with Goblins. On the icy seashores beyond the
Bitter Islands, reavers set sail in longships, raiding and
trading as far south as Elvenholme and Basilea. Upon
the contested plain of Ardovikia, new lands reclaimed
from the ice’s retreat are founded. Caravans of camels
criss-cross the deserts of the south between desert oases
and dry cities, bringing exotic wares from cultures so far
afield what is known of them by the nations around the
Infant Sea is more legend than fact.

Naturally, man’s method of war differs from place to place.
The Successor Kingdoms are the homes of engineers and
wizard-scholars, and their armies reflect this. Gunpowder
weapons such as cannon and primitive handguns are
common there. Basilea also possesses this technology,
but relies more on divine magic and armoured horsemen
to win its wars, backed up by Griffins and the Elohi.
All the kingdoms born from Primovantor’s ruins favour
blocks of pikemen, a weapon used for millennia.

The Ophidians can draw upon a wide range of troops
from across their empire; including desert-horsemen,
fierce tribal warriors from the green south and all
manner of light troops suited for their harsh land,
supported by heavy infantry and horse drawn from the
Ophidian cities. The Ophidians also enslave desert spirits
to fight for them, and make use of legions of undead
skeletons. The northern tribes are less disciplined, but
formidable nonetheless. Whether steppe rider or sea
raider, all are raised as warriors from childhood, and they
are consequently skilled individual fighters.

As a whole, men have a somewhat ambivalent
relationship with the other speaking races of Mantica.
Several states have very close ties with the Elves, the
Valenticans in particular, with two great Elven cities
actually being part of it, and Elven quarters in every
other city besides. Dwarfs live throughout man’s lands,
descendants of refugees from the fall of the northern
holds and, more recently, King Golloch’s reign. The
northern tribes sometimes make common cause with the
Orcs or the Abyssal Dwarfs, or are else forced to fight for
them as slaves. The great alliances of the past may be
fading memories, men are as likely to fight shoulder to
shoulder with the Elves and Dwarfs as they are to oppose
them, and on many occasions men have fought on both
sides of the battle in these grand alliances.

Men however most often fight other men, whether
through greed or hatred or honour or just through
misunderstanding. Men are hot-blooded, and not always
wise, their vivacity is a curse as much as it is a blessing.