HUMAN CULTURES IN VAR SARLIR

Human cultures evolved on a very different path in Var Sarlir than on Earth. The first humans were of all different races, and had even wider variable traits including skin so dark as to contain no color at all, and so pale as to nearly be translucent. Humans are split into three particularly noticeable categories, the Eslen, the Druwan, and the Maran. Maran are what we would know as ‘standard’ humans, whereas Druwan are stockier and shorter, and Eslen are taller, slender, and have long ears. Yes, they are dwarves and elves, shut up. All three are considered ‘humans’ however, and are capable of interbreeding. There is little to no mixture of these traits, however; a human’s status in any of these categories is determined by the mother. A person born to an Eslen mother is simply considered Eslen, and so on. These distinctions are purely scientific—culturally, almost no separation exists between them, and the terms are rarely used outside of scientific literature and discussion.

Of course, humans exhibit the same variation in skin color and other racial traits as they do on Earth, but these differences are likewise completely immaterial to most humans. A black man is no different than a white man to almost everyone; between humans, racism flatly does not exist in this world. Some cultures are predominantly one race or another purely because of geographic location (and as a proper recognition of the culture that they belong to), but ease of transportation and exploration has lead to mixing in many cases. There are analogues on Var Sarlir of existing human cultures; I may not write about them as much, purely because I don’t know enough about them to write them respectfully! However, if one were to write in the universe and ask “does my culture exist in this world?” the answer is almost certainly yes, adapted as it must be to the setting. Because of the scattered nature of Var Sarlir’s technological advancement and the relative short span of human existence, very few major empires have ever existed. The only major human empire to have existed, the Dominion of Mere, existed only for a totality of 200 years as a major player and collapsed almost instantaneously on a historical timescale. The Dominion of Mere was able to rise as quickly as it did only by being one of the oldest human colonies to begin with, and because it had taken the resource-rich and heavily defensible Worldseam as its heartland.

Thus, most cultures existed either as nomadic groups, widely spread but thinly spread tribes, townships or colonies, or as singular, monolithic cities and little more. The idea of nations is mostly alien to Var Sarlir despite the technology that people have access to; as the world approached the idea of nations, much of society was torn down and restructured in well-justified fear that consolidation of power in the hands of few would be disastrous. People envisioned things very much like what happened on Earth, with sprawling, domineering superpowers not unlike the British Empire or even the modern United States. Anarchist doctrine is very common on Var Sarlir, and perhaps the dominant mode of thought; the majority of people believe it is best to find safety in small, self-regulated communities than in masses under leaders. Perhaps this was aided by broad access to magic.

Much of Var Sarlir’s current writing revolves around western Elstren, predominantly containing a mishmash of early U.S. and Victorian culture and architecture. Here, the towering Woodveil Forest and the summits of the Worldseam clash, between the remnants of the Dominion of Mere, a sort of British Empire analogue, and the heavily populated but loosely organized Woodveil Forest, a place where witches, rural towns and wilderness abounds. The Dominion of Mere was particularly prejudiced against other races, but found them to be an insurmountable challenge; their hubris, as well as their archaic power structure, was their downfall. Many humans who came from the Dominion of Mere were plagued by this prejudice, embodied by Merekax, a God representing human supremacy and dominion, now rightly dying a slow death in small, isolated towns. Others, though, turned to the Humanity’s Reprise, a group lead by a priestess of the human god of light and mercy, Fanekh. These folk are devoted to helping find most of the refugees of the Dominion new homes, and to righting many of the wrongs committed by the Dominion over its lifespan.

Of note, also, is that sexism does not exist on Var Sarlir in any form either. The concept of gender on Var Sarlir is very loose for the majority of cultures, and nonbinary folk are common and accepted without question in most places.