The Humans

[Rissa O'Sullivan]

Humanity is an umbrella term covering three different sub-races: normals, shifters, and fae-blooded (also called fae-descendants). All of them are considered human, and shifters and humans have always lived together. They haven’t always lived peacefully, with different countries more or less friendly to certain shifters. However, unless they’re one of the few to have known about the fae before a month ago, no one knew about the fae-blooded.

Note – there are no half-breeds with shifters. One gene will always win out over the other. The only exception to this are the fae-blooded. Also, all human races have normal lifespans and healing.

One more note: those who shift will end up naked when they shift back. Clothes don't magically go with them.



Normals

As the term implies, these people are normal humans with no special characteristics. They make up roughly 40% of the population.

Shapeshifters

The other 60% of the population are various shifters. Dragon shifters have the fewest numbers, while mimics are the most common.


Dopplegangers

Dopplers for short, these shifters can mirror any person they meet. To completely mirror someone, they need a drop of blood. Otherwise, they'll only be able to mirror what they can see.

The one thing they can’t just magically mirror is a person’s mannerisms – they only get to mirror the physicality of a person. It takes time and effort to study someone long enough to truly be able to pass as someone else for a length of time, though it is possible. Many stunt doubles and doubles for important people are dopplers.

Mimics

They are predestined at birth to be able to shift into one specific animal. So far as people can tell, there is a slight correlation between bloodline and the species of animal, but it’s very slight.

In animal form they will have all the senses and instincts that their animal would have, though their human intelligence is always there. And in human form they'll have a little bit of the instincts of their chosen animal.

Regular Shifters

They can shift into any known species on earth that they’ve seen. The only exception are people – they can only shift into animal/insect/etc forms, never a fae or human.

As with mimics, in shifted form they will have the instincts and senses that their form has. However, in human form they do not have any lingering animal instincts.

Dragon Shifters

Their dragon form is long and sinuous, with a wingspan generally as long as the length of their body. They're not terribly large though - the longest is only about 30 feet, with the shortest not even reaching 15 feet. There are many different colors of dragons in their shifted form, which usually run in families. As a dragon their hearing and eyesight are greatly heightened, with a dulled ability to smell.

Dragons are an odd race of shifters, and there aren't many of them - maybe 5,000 total alive today. Some wonder if dragon shifters are truly human, or if they are the remnants of a species that migrated from another realm and intermingled with humans thousands upon thousands of years ago, but the general consensus today is that they are just as human as a shifter or norm.

Fae-Blooded

The fae-blooded are those with fae ancestors. The offspring of a fae/human pairing will be fae-blooded, and not fae. Any human race can be fae-blooded, but before The Collapse they would have had to hide their abilities. As much as perhaps 10% of the population today have some amount of fae blood in them, but only about 1% are affected by it and they are the ones considered fae-blooded. About 95% of the fae-blooded alive today are descended from fae many generations ago, and the other 5% of fae-blooded have fae ancestory that goes back three or fewer generations.

In general, the fae-blooded have a primary ability and then a weaker minor ability. The two are usually related somehow, and family lines usually carry similar abilities. For example, some families may tend to have mental abilities such as telepathy or empathy, while other families tend to have elemental abilities such as water manipulation. Also, they can see through some fae glamours, unlike other humans. They can't see through all glamours though, it would depend on the strength of the glamour.