Racial matters

"If man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live."

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Before we cover Changelings and other matters relating to one's birth, let us delve further into the matter of one's race. While the term race in a roleplaying game, such as Midian, typically means species, that is an unfamiliar concept to the common folk. While a loremaster may understand that the Ghoul and Dwarf couple—while they may love each other dearly—will never have children, but to their neighbours, they are not very different than the Goth and Fourmourian couple who live next door and are "blessed" with seven children. Occasionally you might hear the word Human used outside of academic circles to mean the collective of the Bizzannite, Fourmourian, Gothic, and Heldanic people, especially from a non-Human. Along the same lines, you might hear Trolls referred to collectively rather than the separate groupings of Black, Cave, Ice, Rock, or Mountain, but you rarely hear a Troll use the term collectively—to her there is just as great a difference between Cave Trolls and Ice Trolls as there is between Humans and Elves. This is essentially a social concern, for game mechanics, only the differences in species are typically used, as the differences between Heldans and Bizzannites, for example, are largely cosmetic or purely social. Further complicating the issue, especially with Humans, is that racial and national lines are often blurred. That is, a Formourian may be racially Formourian, or may be a citizen whose ancestry was Gothic or Dwarven. To put it in other words, someone in our world who is French may be from France—regardless of ancestry, descended from the Frankish tribe who settled there, or both. Likewise, a Bizzannite may be from the Empire of Byzant, or of Bizzannite stock; it is worth noting that those with Bizzannite ancestry are not the clear majority in the Empire, as Formourian Humans are in that land. Similarly, a citizen of the Killian Empire may be referred to as a Killian even if that person is a Gaijin, or even a Troll. Of course, since the Killian people are synonymous with the Killian Empire (hence the clever name), they the term is commonly used only in racial terms, even in their homeland. It gets quite annoying when a native-born Killian Troll is repeatedly asked, "So, where are you from?" by her Killian neighbours.