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Humans are one of Avendar's most adaptable races, with at least some humans living in most all of the land's various locales. Humans trace their origin to a time following the fall of the alatharya, with their first civilizations appearing near the Dantaron river valley.

The aelin provide the first written records of humanity, portraying them as savages 'on the border of beginning a civilized existence'. The aelin generally left the humans to themselves, though a few tribes seem to have traded with smaller aelin cities.

Humanity's progress towards a more settled mode of existence was interrupted, however, by events in the lowlands of Avendar. The srryn appeared with the magics of fire, transforming them from a race of itinerant raiders to potential warlords. The humans were faced with a choice that was none too difficult to the primitive mind -- ally with the srryn and their magics, or be driven into forced servitude.

The humans proved apt pupils for the magics of fire, and with their aid, the srryn brought upon the aelin the conflict that was known as the War of Fire. The war at first went extremely well for the srryn and their human allies, with aelin cities toppling before the new and destructive magic of fire.

Given time, however, the aelin organized a staunch resisting, rallying their collection of ancient artifacts to aid them in battle. At the same time, the new human warlords gained a keener insight into the motivations of the srryn, and were less eager to sacrifice their own people when they became aware of the srryn's rapacity. So, while the war still was in the favor of the humans and the srryn, the pace and manner of their victories had slowed, giving the aelin more time.

It was this time which was the aelin's salvation. A rogue band of the humans, dissatisfied with a life of bloody conquest, departed from the main body of the human forces, daring to seek protection from the aelin. For their part, the aelin were willing to accept the rogue humans, who offered aid to the aelin in defending their cities.

The humans were to prove more useful to the aelin that just more defenders for their city walls, however. The scholars among the aelin had access to the prophecies given in the last days of the alatharya, along with the most potent of magical artifacts. Forseeing destruction if any other course were followed, the aelin sent the humans among them on a journey to the frozen northlands.

This journey, now legendary, was made by the humans to find and awaken the ancient god Jolinn, Lord of the Seas. The journey is recorded in detail in other texts [See Tyalin's work, "The Quest of Aramril", or the epic poem of the same name by the poet Quarentis], but suffice it to say the humans were successful in their task, and as a consequence brought the magics of water to Avendar. Along with these new magics, the humans also succeeding in enlisting the aid of the Titans, who agreed to return with the humans to fight the srryn.

With their newfound allies, the aelin fought a series of cataclysmic battles, driving the srryn back to their swamps. The leaders of the humans who had allied with the srryn were all slain in battle, or executed by the victorious forces.

The aelin cooperated with their human allies in creating a new human government, with the heroes of the quest situated in key positions of power. And, truth be told, most of the humans who had fought with the srryn had done so under duress, and even those who had been eager for battle were now in a position to appreciate the consequences of war. Avendar's surface had been ravaged by the last battles of the war, laying waste to fertile lands and inundanting barren deserts.

The period following the war, however, was one of sustained prosperity. The humans established trade with the aelin, who were eager to have access to the fertile natural resources of the lowlands. In return, the humans had a fondness for the mineral wealth of the mountains which were the home of the aelin.

Culturally, the humans were greatly influenced by the aelin's unique style of government (the Republic), as well as the development of the magics of earth, a gift of the caladarans, a people who came to the Dantaron valley from the lands to the east. These factors all lead to the development the first of the great human cities, Earendam.

From Earendam grew what today we now know as the Republic of Earendam. The Republic became a mainstay of Avendar's political landscape, offering protection and peace to numerous human kingdoms, which inevitably became incorporated as provinces. With the increasing human expansion, the aelin seemed more inclined to isolate themselves. To many, this marked the end of the golden age of aelin civilization and the beginning of human dominance.

During the heyday of the Republic, the extent of territory was vast, stretching from the icy wastes of the north to the southern jungles, and from the Sea of Lidreau in the west to the mountains of the Rim in the east. What the leaders of the Republic had no way of realizing, however, was that policy of unbridled expansion would imperil the very existence of their way of life.

Mining ever more deeply into the Brintors, humans eventually came upon the subterranean world of the shuddeni. Eyeless and unspeakably evil, the shuddeni at first sought to establish diplomatic ties with the Republic, attempting to insinuate themselves into surface life. The decadence of life in the Republic proved easily susceptible to the temptations of the shuddeni, who brought with them the magics of the void.

And, when the shuddeni felt they had sufficiently infiltrated human society, they brought their armies to the surface, passing unseen to a hidden place in the Brintors, where they began their conquest. Backed by legions of their brute chaja slaves, the shuddeni also had the aid of various demon lords, summoned to wreak havoc among their foes.

The first winter of the War of Night marked the beginning of the shuddeni offensive. Striking quickly, and under cover of night, they struck at the human cities and settlements in the Brintors. They brought with them the magics of void, striking terror in the hearts of their opponents, who were often sacrificed to the shuddeni's gods. Taking advantage of the closing of the passes into and out of the Brintors during winter, the shuddeni fortified their new holdings, taking advantage of the delay afforded them by the weather to move the bulk of their armies to the surface.

Elsewhere in Avendar, the Republic had to cope with internal dissent from humans with a vested interest in its fall. The srryn, eager to take advantage of the new threat, rallied for battle, harrying human forces as they assembled to deal with the shuddeni menace.

With spring came an escalation of conflict, as the forces of Earendam met the shuddeni army in a series of bloody battles. Unused to fighting the magics of the void and demonkind, the humans lost the first battles of the war, often forced to flee far behind their own lines. This continued for the first two years of the war, with humans making only marginal gains against the invaders.

Given time, though, the humans adapted to some of the shuddeni's battle tactics. After the second year of war, the humans began to hold their own in the battles, if gaining very little net territory. With the coming of aelin warriors from across the sea, the humans seemed prepared to hold their own for some time to come.

Eager not to become in a protracted war, the shuddeni turned once more to their dark magics. Calling together the archmages, the shuddeni attempted a great Summoning. Whether the result was a magical accident or predestined is a matter of debate, but what is known is that the human's fortunes turned that day. The ch'taren came through the great shuddeni nexus, bringing the magics of spirit, and doom to the shuddeni forces.

Battles still remained to be fought, but with the aid of the ch'taren and their magic, the humans were able to systematically drive the shuddeni back beneath the surface of Avendar.

After the war, however, the Republic did not possess the same stength and unity it once had. Various provinces had been forced to fend for themselves during the war, giving rise to a patchwork of independent states, each with a charasmatic ruler who had lead it through the war. Var Bandor, the city nearest Earendam, severed its ties, recognizing Earendam as a trade rival without the military forces to make firm its control. In Gogoth, a king ruled, refusing to turn control of his country's rich farmlands over to the tax assessers of Earendam. And, in the Brintors, the shuddeni still had footholds here and there in the high places of the mountains.

Despite these problems, the Republic continued as the reigning human institution for the next two and a half centuries. It was the kankorans who rang the death knell for the Republic, invading from the icy wastes in the north of Avendar. Militarily and financially ill-equipped to defend against what amounted to a full scale invasion, the senate was forced to withdraw the armies of the Republic to the inlying provinces. The kankoran horde fought its way to Earendam itself until it met its final end.

After this period of barbarian invasion, the Republic underwent one final collapse. Coming under the leadership of a Patrician, Earendam became an independent city state, finally severing its ties with eastern provinces it could no longer protect and trade monopolies in the Crimson Sands it could no longer maintain.

For a time, human society completely fragmented, with each city jealously guarding its holdings against roving bandits. In recent years, however, humanity, while politically divided, has gained a certain strength in its ability to cope and deal with Avendar's other races. Less isolated than the aelin, violent than the kankorans, or dangerous as the shuddeni, the humans have succeeded both as diplomats and as rulers in many portions of Avendar, leaving them still as the dominant race.

An excerpt from "A History of Earendam the Grand: Portrait of a City and its Times.." - by Jofis Tabr, historian and scholar:

"The fortunes of Earendam in the centuries following the War of Night would bring it from Republic to city-state, from feared to contented, and from mythic to legendary. And yet, despite its decline in fortunes, this city was and continues to remain the heart of human culture in Avendar.

Purported to have been founded after the War of Fire, it is certainly the oldest known city founded by humans. Beginning as a fishing village built on the banks of the Dantaron, and near the shores of the Uthlin, Earendam had long been a center for trade and council among primitive men, even before the War of Fire.

After the war, the human templars and sorcerers who had lead their people against the aelin met with death and exiles. The vast majority of humanity, tired of war and conflict, settled with relative ease under the leadership of the likes of Aramril and Salyra.

Modeling their cities government in part on the aelin republics, as well as in part the moral teachings of the god Jolinn, the walls of Earendam were raised on the Dantaron. With its founding, humanity met the caladarans, who brought with them a written language and law which the humans adapted to their own uses, becoming the principle basis for the common tongue.

Earendam's rise to power is not the subject of this treatise, but it is sufficient to know that those who associated with the ancient banner of the blue and white rose brought with them more than force of arms, or powerful magic. With them rode the tide of culture, and the force of its coming changed the face of Avendar.

By the time of the War of Night, the Republic embraced most of the main continent of Avendar, with ties to the mountain strongholds of the aelin, and the more primitive ethron. Moralists among the priests of Jolinn and Iandir decried the onset of decadence in the people and the government of Earendam. With most frontiers closed, the eyes of Earendam turned inward, desperately seeking some novelty, some new thing, to come from within.

Perhaps it is because of this very tendency that the Republic were so unprepared for the threat that the shuddeni posed, and the treachery that dogged the forces of the light in the war against them. At the same time, some point to the War of Night as Earendam's greatest triumph. Often besieged but never defeated, the city lasted through the ravages of that war, when lesser places were conquered.

At the war's end, some predicted a new golden age for the Republic, supported by the new magics of spirits and united by the threat of the shuddeni. Few counted on these very factors forming the foundation for the fall of the Republic.

The new magics used in the War of Night had a deeper influence on the culture of the Republic than might have been expected. It was not a matter of citizens summoning demons or speaking to dead relatives, but rather the more subtle powers of the magic that began the process. The simpler magics of void allowed for easy travel across vast distances, as well as the similar powers of the scholars of spirit. Knowledge traveled quickly and easily between cities, and fractious and dissident thought proliferated. When the magics of air came into the second century, traditional trading practices also were turned on their head, with a proliferation of free-lance traders and handlers of goods.

At the same time, the threat of the shuddeni actually served to increase factionalism in the Republic. Different city-states offered varying proposals for dealing with their defeated enemies. Most supported some variety of a containment policy, but more radical opinions ranged from conciliation (often heard from those cities occupied by the shuddeni) to a campaign of extermination (as advocated by extreme elements in the clergy of Jolinn). The political divisions over the "shuddeni" problem lead to Earendam being forced to garrison fortresses such as Kor Thrandir with their own troops and supplies, greatly weakening an already diminished military.

This period of decline continued until circa three centuries ago, when a ten year period of long winters and poor harvests intensified political unrest in the Republic to the breaking point. Provinces in the south began to revolt, refusing to supply the already overpopulated Earendam with the tribute and food it desperately needed. In the north, a new breed of kankorans had migrated from across the Uthlin, lead by fierce far leaders and fighting with a fanatical desperation. Trade disputes with Var Bandor further alienated Earendam from the western provinces, and turmoil over the open worship of the dark gods caused a furor in Earendam itself.

When the kankorans began a long and bloody series of campaigns in the northlands, Earendam's military proved unable to satisfactorily deal with the menace. Caught unprepared, and lead by generals who had never had actual experience in battle. Caught in the itinerant raids lead by barbarian warlords, Earendam's army was defeated in a long series of bloody battles, and driven back to the walls of the city itself.

In what is most likely the low point of Earendam's history, most of the ruling Senate fled the city, fearing for their own lives. The citizens rallied under the leadership of a man named Corvandil Novis, head of one of the city's oldest noble houses. While the ensuing battle ravaged the northern half of Earendam, the battle put an end to the kankoran presence in the area for the next two hundred years.

In the aftermath of what became known as the First Kankoran War, Earendam was forced out of political necessity to cede its claim to the far reaching provinces of the Republic, and the leadership of the city passed from the Senate (now in disgrace) to a ruling Patrician, which became a lifetime leader selected from among the city's nobility.

For those that balk at the thought of the social institutions of a Republic changing so thoroughly, let us not forget the stresses Earendam faced, and the fact that the institution of the Patrician mimicked the long-standing familial order of the city-dwellers, where a single rich noblemen would support many by his largesse. For these reasons, some have gone beyond the claim that the office was born of necessity, but rather, the role of the Patrician was a cultural inevitability.

Despite these changes, the unified voice that the Patrician brought to Earendam's politics lead to an unprecedented growth. The north side of the city was rebuilt, in part using the magics of earth, and changes in the laws regarded trade resulting in a small merchant class flourishing. Artisans and scholars once more came to Earendam, viewing it once more as a bastion of culture. [In this humble author's opinion, Var Bandorian scholars choose to live in a cesspool].

Today, while the day's of Earendam's political hegemony have passed, it reigns as a center for art and culture in Avendar. Scholars still travel to the city for training, and artisans come to learn the making of all manner of things. What Earendam has been is done, but what it has yet to be has just begun.