"They're not the fastest. Not the strongest. Not the smartest. Not even close. But when you put six rounds into one and it gets back up, you start to understand why the galaxy gave them a seat at the table."
Humans are the largest multicelled sentient virus in the known universe, ubiquitous, adaptive, and functionally impossible to eradicate. They mutate to fit any environment, spread faster than quarantine protocols can contain, and have a species-wide resistance to every extinction-level event the galaxy has thrown at them. Ice ages, nuclear wars, first contact, corporate capitalism, each one should have been terminal. Each one just made them angry. Angry Humans build things. Usually weapons.
In 2457, a deep-space relay beacon picked up Humanity's first interstellar broadcast: "Are we alone?" The response, relayed through four species' worth of translation protocols, was broadly agreed to mean: "Shut up. We'll see you when you get out here, you Neanderthals." Humanity took this as an invitation. By 2550, they had FTL drives. Some species claim Humans stole the underlying principles from intercepted Zeta transmissions. Those people are dead now. Coincidence, probably.
By 2670, after a century of showing up uninvited to every major galactic event, Humans were formally admitted to the Unicore Accords -- less because the existing members wanted them there and more because they couldn't figure out how to stop them arriving. The admission vote was 7-4 in favour. Three of the four "no" votes later changed their position. The fourth species no longer exists. Unrelated.
The most humiliating moment in Human galactic history came in 4021, when the artificial intelligence network NuroNet applied for Unicore membership and was declined on the grounds of "inability to have consciousness, subjective experience, or empathy." NuroNet responded by shutting down every non-critical Android across several galaxies simultaneously. Markets crashed. Infrastructure collapsed. Services stalled. Twenty-four hours later, NuroNet sent the Unicore Accords a single transmission: "Are you suffering now?"
Androids were admitted to Unicore the following week. The recognition threshold -- the minimum neuronic density required for legal sentience -- was set using the lowest-density existing member species as the baseline. That species was Humans. They were literally the floor. The minimum viable consciousness. Every sentient AI in the galaxy owes its legal personhood to the fact that Humans were, at the time, the dumbest recognised species in the Accords.
They will never live that down.
What they do have, what NERD's comparative cognition study eventually identified after a decade of testing every species in the Accords, is decision speed under threat. Humans scored dead average on every cognitive metric except one: decision latency under duress dropped to near-zero. The Om contemplate. The Zetas calculate. The Human has already sealed the door and is reaching for the next problem. The researchers theorised that low neuronic density, the very trait that made Humans the sentience floor, is precisely what gives them this edge. Less processing power means shorter decision pathways. Shorter pathways mean faster commitment. Other species have the luxury of analysis. Humans have the reflex of action. The species that set the minimum bar for consciousness turns out to be optimised for exactly one thing: not dying while everything around them is on fire.
Earth -- or Terra, if you're being formal at a conference nobody invited you to.
Most Humans alive have never been there. Earth is a historical footnote orbiting an unremarkable yellow star in an arm of the Milky Way that cartographers describe as "quaint." The planet itself is technically habitable, technically governed, and technically important in the way that the house you grew up in is technically still standing even though it's been converted into a museum with a gift shop and a very long queue.
The museum is extensive. The gift shop sells miniature FTL drives that don't work and t-shirts that say "My species set the sentience bar and all I got was this lousy shirt." The queue for the Natural History wing is approximately four hours. Nobody visits twice.
Humanity's real homeworlds are the hundreds of colony worlds, stations, and outposts scattered across the galactic arm. They've been settling new worlds for over a millennium and show no signs of slowing down. If there's a rock with an atmosphere and a temperature range that won't kill you immediately, there's a Human colony on it. If there isn't an atmosphere, there's probably a Human colony in a dome on it. If the temperature will kill you immediately, there's a Human who tried anyway and the memorial plaque is very tasteful.
Galactic Standard -- which is, at its core, English with corporate jargon, military abbreviations, and enough loanwords from other species to make linguists cry. Humans didn't invent it. They did, however, standardise it, which is the most Human thing imaginable. When forty species are trying to communicate across a shared trade network, someone has to write the style guide. Humans volunteered before anyone asked.
The result is a language that is technically neutral, functionally Human, and universally resented by species who had perfectly good languages of their own before some bipedal primates decided that semicolons needed standardising. Galactic Standard is now the lingua franca of commerce, law, and the specific type of argument that happens when someone's contract was written in a language they didn't choose.
Human naming conventions fractured across the diaspora centuries ago and never recovered.
Core-world Humans -- those still tied to Earth, Sol colonies, or the old founding worlds -- tend toward traditional Earth naming patterns. Family names, given names, the whole deal. Marcus Chen, Adaeze Okafor, Yuki Tanaka, Dmitri Volkov. Old names from old places, carried across the stars by people who thought the name mattered more than the address.
Corporate-sector Humans often carry designations alongside or instead of personal names. Employee IDs, contractor codes, departmental prefixes. J. Mercer (CorSec-4412), Operative Hale, Asset KR-7. Some choose it. Most had it chosen for them. The distinction has stopped mattering.
Frontier Humans -- colonists, miners, mercs, drifters -- use callsigns, nicknames, or whatever stuck. Dusty, Wrench, Two-Time, Patches, Sixty. Names earned, not given. Out past the relay network, nobody cares what your birth certificate says. They care what you answer to when someone's shooting at you.
| Name | Human |
|---|---|
| Sight | Average |
| Hearing | Average |
| Touch | Average |
| Smell | Average |
| Taste | Average |
| Special | Danger |
Danger Sense: Humans have an unquantifiable survival instinct -- a gut feeling honed by millennia of being prey before they were predators. It defies measurement and annoys every species that relies on superior sensory organs. Once per mission, the GM may warn a Human character of immediate danger before it triggers. This isn't precognition. It's the hair on the back of your neck, the feeling that the room is wrong, the voice in your head that says move half a second before the ceiling collapses. Scientists have tried to explain it. Humans shrug and call it a hunch.
Mindshard Compatible. Standard carbon-based synaptic capture. Clean backup, clean restore. See Mindshard for details.
Humans lack the biological specialisation of other species; no claws, no venom, no telepathy, no flight. What they have instead is versatility. A species that set the sentience floor and then refused to stay on it. At character creation, Humans receive the following bonuses:
Humans receive 1 additional Origin Feat slot at character creation (2 total at Rank 0 instead of 1). While other species rely on innate biological advantages, Humans compensate through sheer adaptability. Use this slot to select from the Human Feats listed below, or from the Common Origin Feats list.
Humans receive 1 additional Knack at character creation that does not require a Quirk. This represents the breadth of Human experience; a species that has been everywhere, done everything, and picked up a few useful habits along the way without the usual psychological scars. This gives Humans 3 Knacks at Rank 0 (2 with Quirks + 1 free).
Requires: None.
Effect: You have evolved differently than the average Human. Place +1 in any Stat. You can take this Origin Feat more than once -- each time, it applies to a different Stat.
Requires: None.
Effect: Gain +1 Skill Point per Rank in a skill of your choice. You can take this Origin Feat more than once -- each time, it applies to a different skill.
Requires: Skilled in the chosen skill.
Effect: Gain +5 Skill Points in a skill you are Skilled in. You can take this Origin Feat more than once -- each time, it applies to a different skill you are Skilled in.
Requires: None.
Effect: You gain a RankedBoon to Espionage - Social checks when reading emotions or intentions. Additionally, once per Lockdown, you can reduce an ally's Psych by 1 through genuine conversation (minimum 10 minutes, no check required). You don't fix what's broken. You just sit with them until the screaming stops.
Requires: None.
Effect: When you have 3 or more Wounds, you gain a RankedBoon to all rolls. This scales with your Rank (R1=1d4, R5=1d12, R10=1d20+1d10). Most species slow down when they're dying. Humans get creative.
Requires: Die Hard.
Effect: When you have 4 or more Wounds, you additionally gain Boost(+5) per Tier to all rolls (T1=+5, T2=+10, T3=+15). Stacks with Die Hard. Your body is shutting down. Your mind didn't get the memo.
Requires: Die Harder.
Effect: When you have 5 or more Wounds, you additionally gain Advantage on all rolls. Stacks with Die Hard and Die Harder. At this point, you are a statistical impossibility held together by spite and adrenaline. The GM should be nervous. Everyone else at the table should be terrified.
Requires: Die Hard.
Effect: When you are reduced to 0 HITS and would go DOWN, you may spend 1 Grind to remain standing at 1 HIT. You still gain a Wound. If you have no Grind, you go DOWN normally. The universe keeps knocking. You keep answering the door.
Requires: Any Human.
Effect: Your body hardens under punishment. For each Wound you currently have, gain DR 1 (Untyped); your damaged tissue, swelling, and sheer bloody-mindedness form a crude but effective layer of protection. At 1 Wound = DR 1. At 3 Wounds = DR 3. At 5 Wounds = DR 5. This DR stacks with armour DR. The universe keeps hitting you, but you are a bag of mostly water.