Exert from school books given to human children in developed towns.
A true history of Terraharia is one without humanity for the large part, as our species was only born in the last twelve hundred years, while the Orc’ha* Our sponsors and saviours have been around for hundreds of thousands of years.
To understand our place in this world, our relationship with our cousins the Orc’ha*, why we have cards as well as cores while our technology and even the world around us mostly only uses cores, and many other strange little details we first have to start with how we came to be.
Originally this world had four major sentient species, the Orc’ha who balanced the forests and roamed the plains, the Dragon-kin who cared for the mountains high and deep, the Elves who build cities and wonders beyond belief, and the Wild Blood who were a mixture of evolved magical creatures who developed sentience plus members of the other three whose bloodline caused them to become no longer one of their own as it advanced.
The why becomes quite mixed up and hard to tell the truth, as we only know what is left, but we know a few facts as they stand now. The Elves started to take slaves from the Orc people, then with the assistance of some members of the Wild Blood (It is important to note as an aside here that the Wild Blood have never been a unified people, and usually live within other societies or in smaller units, so the actions of one group should always be treated in isolation and not as a decision from the whole.) managed to breed Orc slaves with themselves, creating a child species that were born with cores that could be activated at adulthood like the Orc’ha but also the ability to merge cards into themselves like the Elves.
Eventually this led to a war, with some larger groups of the Wild Blood joining the Orc’ha along with the Dragon-kin who saw slavery as abhorrent. This lead to the decision, then actions, to commit a genocide against the Elvish people. There are many places to read about how this decision was made and the morality around it, as even at the time it was held against by many, and it is this author's opinion you should read those works before disagreeing, or worse, agreeing immediately with this decision. Such actions, even in the light of history, should never be considered lightly.
After this there remained a few loose ends to be tied up, and each was given to a different race based on their own skills, as it was seen as a problem they had all willinging stepped into and needed to resolve.
Firstly the issue of what to do with the Elvish cities and lands, this was given to the Dragon-kin, while they didn’t use the cores of wild creatures or Orc’ha, nor the cards of the Elves, they did have an initiate ability to manually craft spells related to the earth and sky. With this they tore down and restored the lands the Elves had crafted their cities in, and peered into the mana of all the artefacts they could find of the Elves related to slavery to destroy them.
We must pause for a moment when discussing the Dragon-kin effort here to recognise the group who destroyed the artefacts, a group who were named the Jokuist at formation, took a soul oath that once they had found and destroyed all artefacts reasonably believed to exist to end themselves. This was to ensure the knowledge they gained on how to create these tools never was passed on, they did create some tools and spells they left behind with every scholar group they could on how to break control magics however. This sacrifice cannot be understated and I strongly suggest further reading on their history to any who are inclined.
While this was being resolved the remaining issues were what to do with Humanity, and who would take care of them became the next issues.
What surprised most was the speech given by Wolki, one of the elder members of the Wild Blood people, a greater Skaldia*, gave the below speech.
“These creatures carry none of the Drakes magic, so they have no speaking here. They can use the Elves cards, but they are bad limb so we cut them off. We will give the books and cards of them to these creatures, so they learn. They have bloodline, not like weak Orc’ha who only have some kits with bloodline, or Drakes who control bloodline, but proper creatures like Skaldia, and other Wild Blood. So I speak to elders. They agree. We will give lands next to Orc’ha to Humans, we will acknowledge them as creatures like us, so they will have rights as a tribe. This is because we are sisters now. Orc’ha, seed was stolen but they are now your kits to, you will teach of cores they have, and help with making of things. This the elders have agreed to, either challenge or agree.”
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
Unsurprisingly this went forward without a lot of issue for a few reasons, while people treat the Wild Blood like they lack intelligence they are often surprised at how deftly they can navigate other groups politics with ease. The lands they offered? No one has been able to settle them because the Wild Blood has tribes who claim it as hunting grounds. The books and cards? No one else can use them except Humanity anyway. The drakes were already tasked with sorting a large issue the Elves left behind, and the Orc’ha had already made it clear all Humanity would be welcome as citizens if all else failed in their own lands.
The new lands were named Thos’rah, which in Orckar means land of freedom (Thos being Freedom, and Rah being land of/land for). This followed the same format of the Orc homeland Ghos’rah which means land of origin.
The history from here becomes long and dry, full of the struggles as humanity finds its place as the unwanted but loved child of the Orc’ha, the irritating but enthusiastic student eventually of the Dragon-kin colleges, and the strange but dedicated hunting partner of the wild blood.
While that history is dark, and I have been very light on the conditions those under the Elves were kept in, if you speak to any Orc historian as I have you will find they all credit their Human relatives as the only good thing the Elves left behind for them.
Most of this now only matters in political theory, but there is the fact that the system also took note of the fact that humanity could do more then even those original three races realised, as we have since found so long as we have a suitable merged core and card we can manipulate our own raw mana.
We are told that each other species has their own laws as well, which are fairly simple and documented below, but first below is the law humanity lives under within the system.
Law of Human Blood: Prospective balance.
Effect: As individual power grows along a specific path luck will influence things to make development more likely.
When developing settlements cores must be used to declare a space, once this is done danger equal to the power of the group multiplied by its potential average impact on the surrounding area over the next cycle will be introduced to test the group. This will take differing forms. Assistance from other species during formation of settlements will include them under the impact of this law for the duration they are part of the settlement founding.
While clearly very impactful, and the reason our culture has developed to try to build dozens if not hundreds of small settlements every year or two as suitable groups build up knowing most will fail, it is not as actively restrictive as other species.
Here are the other examples we know of:
Law of Orc Decent: Core formation Effect: All of the Orc descent will be granted a core with a class and system access at adulthood. They cannot use any magic or skill sources of other species, but instead gain additional experience when doing things in line with their core’s nature. This core will be formed based on the individual’s personality, talents, and experiences.
Law of Draconian legacy: Hoard keepers promise Effect: All carrying a Draconian Legacy get access to Earth and Air aspected mana, with the ability to manipulate it, from early adolescence. The further a mana aspect is from these the harder it is to use. They cannot use any magic or skill sources of other species.
Law of Wild Blood: May the mighty rule Effect: Any child born of one bearing the wild blood will be born with sentience and capacity relative to its parents, rather than biological species, hybrid species created this way may reproduce based on mana compatibility rather than physiological. This law affects anyone with a mutated bloodline that is active, and is not contained in another species law.
*Orc language (Orckar) uses ‘ha instead of ‘s for plural, when referring to their species or language even in other languages it is considered rude to not use this.
*A member of the Wild Blood people who visually resemble small Orc females but with soft white hair covering their entire bodies, famously skilled hunters and known for being ruthless tribal leaders and frequent leaders of groups in the Wild Blood.