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PostPosted: May 5th, 2016, 4:06 am 
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I'm working on the background lore for my character, Brother Mark Stefan from The Imperial Isle. Through a series of events, he found his way to the Order of St. Creptos monastery in Arnum, a village in Casadia.

I want this character to be a human, of a stock in real world terms that is broadly North Germanic/English/Scandinavian.

Which human nobles in all of the empire would best represent his background, ethnically?

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PostPosted: May 5th, 2016, 4:23 am 
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This thread might help:

viewtopic.php?f=42&t=386

It details the appearance of many of the prominent races and ethnic groups native to Hermertia.

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PostPosted: May 5th, 2016, 4:26 am 
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Thanks, I could have sworn I saw that a day or two ago but couldn't find it again.

Fairly limited information, however :(

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PostPosted: May 5th, 2016, 5:09 am 
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Hmm. Great question!

Broadly, I would say that Mark Stefan is Mercurian or at least descended from a Mercurian ancestry - the Mercurians are essentially our 'humans' who originated in the far reaches of the Old World and came to compose a great amount of its population. Looking into a specific stock, however, gets interesting.

I have a thought. If Mark Stefan is from the Imperial Isle originally, is it possible that his family lived there for generations? If so, I think a compelling case could be made that he is descended from an Old World family who traveled to New Hermertia, settled on the Isle (home to several small, peaceful settlements then as now), and lived there until the present day when we are introduced to Mark. So if he is a direct descent of an immigrant family, we can reach into the vast lore and varied realms of the Old World and try to speculate as to where that family may have originated and what roots might have been passed down to Mark today.

Mark's ancestors might perhaps have originally hailed from the Old World's Channoria or New Thoth; off the top of my head, those two realms were somewhat identifiable with an English roots. Really, if you're looking at a European influence you should look towards the oldest and central Old Kingdoms: Minerva, Perth and Valtoros, Channoria, etc. These were some of the main kingdoms founded by the earliest nobles of Hermertia, with the notable exceptions of realms like Hottonotochi (populated by native tribes) and West Dermurgia/today's Isilioth (with a deep-rooted stock of sea elves).

So, in conclusion, I suggest taking a look at the older realms to get a sense of where Mark's noble ancestors may have left to travel to the New World. The rulers of the respective realms could weigh in on this far more adeptly than I ever could, of course.

Just some food for thought.

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PostPosted: May 5th, 2016, 5:46 am 
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That makes sense, and thanks for the info.

Considering his religion, I had considered that he could be of Valyrian stock (considering his religion)- however, I know little about the "ethnicity" of such peoples.

How does the breakdown work with the Mercurians, as in, are they the pre-cursors to other groups, and no longer exist except as a broad concept? Are they a separate race that still exists, but with no nobles that control any holdings, and as so are just peasants?

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PostPosted: May 5th, 2016, 12:59 pm 
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It is indeed limited info, it would help if our fellow Hermertians helped fill the blanks... wink wink nudge nudge =)

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PostPosted: May 5th, 2016, 5:09 pm 
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King

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The actual origins of the Mercurian peoples are shrouded in mystery directly as a result of how we lorified the creation of the server way back in 2010. Here's the 5-minute version:

Image

Hermertia actually began in 2010 as a 'survivial island' world for a group of friends (Regent, Kyn and Scrios, etc) to play and LAN party on. That island, as you can see from the above map of the Old World (just south of Channoria), was Mercury Isle. As the server slowly attracted interest from the outside world, player unaffiliated with that original group began to join. I, along with Sam and Gimpy and a few others, joined in 2013 well after Hermertia had been truly established as a lore-based rpg world.

That first group wrote much of the only half-history, half-mythos that we have about the time before the first settlers landed on Mercury Isle. That information was housed within the Old Imperial Library, and has been restored by our intrepid scholars here.

Gameplay began in the Cycle of the Owl; all events before that are considered historical in that they were not derived from in-game actions but written as lore to explain the origins of our world. It seems that no one will ever truly know what occurred at the dawn of time, but the first widespread race we know anything much about are the elves - this race was populated by multiple species, most of whom survive today with varying degrees of prominence and activity and have played important roles over the course of our history in both the Old and New Worlds. The elves grew into a vast empire, but sought greater riches: their genetic experimentations on early humans created the orcs, a chaotic species that played an important role in Old World war and politics but did not venture to the New World.Other species at the time include the dwarves: a much more mysterious race and one rarely heard from, with the rare exception.

But I'm getting off topic. After the trials of the Cycle of the Moon, humans gained power for the first time and established the Empire of Man. From what very little we know and have passed down over aeons, the Empire as a precursor to our own was a cruel and chaotic one; it subsumed other cultures, often by force, and led to bickering and infighting amongst lords and nobles. After an indeterminate time, a blight we know almost nothing of but that scattered references have referred to as The Strife began to spread through the Empire; communication collapsed and chaos reigned as disasters both natural (great storms) and mythological (great serpents rising from the seas) overtook the Empire. The people began fleeing to the very outer edges of the Empire; one colonisation ship sailed past the extreme edges of the known world. Generations later that ship would run aground on Mercury Isle, and the descendants of the last ship of the old Empire would name themselves the Mercurians. This brings us full circle.

So to answer your questions:

- The Mercurians are the ancient descendants of the Empire of Man; they originally formed the Old Kingdoms but are now so spread out among the reams of Hermertia, so intermixed, that they are no longer of a particular culture or Kingdom. The overall ethnic composition of realms varies dramatically: Wysteria holds Mercurians, Ertians, Marseeans, etc, while a realms such as Dawnstar is heavily populated by snow elves.

- We don't really have an analogous nobility system in the way you describe it; Mercurians are both nobles and serfs in Hermertia. Unless I'm just misunderstanding your question, aha.

- So to say that Mark Stefan was Valyrian and Mercurian would be correct, for sure.

Hope this helps! Some great questions here that really encourage us to go back and take a look at our history ;)

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PostPosted: May 5th, 2016, 5:50 pm 
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Very helpful indeed.

What I meant: Are any of the nobility (dukes, kings, counts, etc. ) straight up Mercurian? As in, they have no other "race" that they fall into?

But I think you've answered that. From what I gather, the term Mercurian is the equivalent of saying European when talking about Germans, French, Swiss, etc. Is this true?

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PostPosted: May 5th, 2016, 6:15 pm 
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Yeah, that's a fairly good comparison. By and large, our national identity is indeed separate from our ethnic identity. There is no longer a Kingdom of Mercuria (it used to exist but was absorbed into Minerva long ago), so Mercurian is not a nationality but an ethnicity. So Hermertia's nobility can identify by both ethnicity and nationality, and most (if not all?) do.

I myself am not Mercurian but what I chose to identify as Mercurian-Ertian, as result of my family including many Ertians over the years but myself still identifying strongly with my Mercurian roots on my father's side in the Old World; just about every other noble I can think of identifies both by ethnicity (Ignis as a Pyrencian [fixed], Sam as an Aethen/Snow Elf) and nationality (Ignis as Pyrencian, Sam as Dawnstaren).

In fact, most races are associated with a specific realm - even if they are no longer living solely within that realm - mostly as a result of these races journeying to Hermertia after our world was established; the Ertians, the Kairites, etc are examples of these. THis might be the roots of the conflagration between nationality and ethnicity, but as we've discovered Mercurian is the key exception: because it predates our concept of modern realms, it is much more akin to being "European" than "German".

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PostPosted: May 5th, 2016, 6:19 pm 
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... Ignis does not identify as kairatite... kairatite and pyrencian are both ethnicities.

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