It’s been suggested I talk a bit about one of the unusual ‘mundane’ races in our universe. And with my brain unable to give me a better topic to talk about, I shall talk about this instead.
The Dimidians
Perhaps I’ll start with what I mean exactly by “unusual ‘mundane’”. Within the context of the real world, these things would be fairly unusual, though they aren’t too terribly different from humans. Within the context of the World in Shadow, they are a fairly normal thing to see on a day-to-day basis.
Dimidians are an umbrella term for the various sub-species of humanoids found on the Alternate Earth. Essentially, they are humans that have certain animal features. Most often, this means that they have similar ears and a tail like the variety of animal they are kin to. Sometimes it can include eyes and a nose, or more in extreme cases. Their outward appearance reflects some heightened senses, but otherwise they are almost identical to their human cousins. They make up between 5 and 9% of the world’s population and live among humans without trouble, in most areas.
The origin of the Dimidians is murky at best. There are several theories on their origin, but sadly little edivdence of any is available.
One theory states that the Dimidians are not, in fact, humans at all, and all share a common ancestor that ended up following a parallel evolutionary course as humans. The propenents of these claims use them to throw the Dimidian’s status as people into question and is still the most widely accepted theory of their origin.
Another theory states that they are a product of an extra-terrestrial experiment to combine the best parts of the most promising species on the planet into one creature. The main downfall of this theory is that the people who most believe in it also are the ones that are ostracized for their beliefs in aliens capable of performing such experiments.
A third theory, held among the magic users of AltEarth, is that several thousand years ago, shamans attempted to give their peoples a better chance to survive by magically enhancing themselves and their communities with magics. The communities were given some animalistic traits, such as sharper eyesight, hearing and smell in order to make them more efficient at gathering food to survive. Some more recent magic users have attempted to duplicate these rituals, but with limited success.
Dimidians are an unusual part of the world that we have created and will appear in some of the stories that we are writing and will write in the future. I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into the World in Shadow.