College of War

Second of the two posts that deal with issues that haven’t really been properly talked about.

There are many ways people deal with racial issues in the world of College of War. I’ll explain the few dominant ones. First one is the “modern Gerenian thinking,” which suggests that there is no such thing as a pure human or a pure elf, and because of that that categorizing people by their race serves no purpose. (As every person has different quantities of each racial qualities in them.)

The other quite common way to relate to race is the way popularized by the Fieon, Hisperans and the Anardi - “the middle ground” way of thought, which translates to “if it looks different, it’s a lesser being.” This line of thinking suggests that any high deviations from the norm indicate that there is some essential qualities missing from the person. A man with lots of elven qualities is viewed as incapable of logical thought and a woman with elemental characteristics will be treated as incapable of any sort of proper feeling. Quite many people who think this way don’t bother with the explanations or reasoning - they just treat everyone who looks different as a weirdo while maintaining that they are in fact the best the world should offer by being a good mix of everything.

The other end of the same spectrum is a line of thinking called “Imperan re-separationism” by those in the academics. It it preached and practiced by people who believe that in order to become better, everyone should start focusing on strengthening the characteristics they own - those with elven heritage should breed with others of same qualities, those with Earth elemental aspects should find a mate with Earthen aspects as well. This, in their view, will bring people closer to something they have lost during the ages. While many find the theory noble in practice, those who practice it are quite obsessive about it and are in many cases worse racists than those who swear to the “middle ground” thinking.

Every fantasy world is easy to distinguish by the races that inhabit it. As fantasy worlds are usually metaphors for real life, the races tell quite much about the way the game wants us to mirror real world through it.

College of War has always had only a handful of races running around, each being quite alike to humans in appearance. This means that the concept of race has become closer to what it is in real life - it’s about the tone of your skin, color of your hair, shape of your eyes and the genetic heritage. Also worth noting is that there is no such thing as a pure member of a race anymore. Each and every person out there has a bit of mixed heritage in their genetics. I’ll return to that in a few moments.

The “core races” are - Humans, Elves and Elementals. You’ll notice a lot of triangular (and other geometric) shapes in College of War universe as you learn more about it. This is the first one you’ll come across, and it also represents the core trinity of magics each race is geared towards

The human race is singular in the genetic “destiny” it possessed. A pure human would be a machine of destruction, driving towards annihilation of himself and his friends in his need for power. Luckily, the last pure humans died a long time ago. But there is a hint of that selfishness in every person on the campus, and on the world. The magic diluted from this is usually referred as “Void”, “Nil” or “Null” magic, as it usually involves destroying stuff, with or without explosions. Those with human blood strong in their veins are easily distinguishable by their irises that are large and saturated with bright colors - blue, green, yellow, red and so on.

Compared to the single-mindedness of humans, elves are highly dualistic - their blood is divided to a constant struggle of their hopes and fears. Pure elf would be a chaotic creature with no means to separate his dreams from reality - inspiring and despairing all around them. The angels of myth have most likely been elves, who have embraced their hopes, devils being those that have surrendered to their fears. The magic that comes from this ancestry is unpredictable, usually letting the subconscious mind produce the actual effects rather than the logical side of the brain. A good way to recognize an elf-blooded person is to take a look at his eyes. Elves have very large pupils in their eyes, a pure-blood would have completely black eyes. Very high levels of elven blood would also result in pointy ears and unnervingly smooth features.

Elementals, as their name suggest, are in touch with the material world. In the world of College of War, this means the 5 elements - Air, Astral, Earth, Fire and Water. A pure elemental would be a drone in a mass of million other elementals, almost impossible to distinguish from the “non-living” element they represent. Creature without identity, only serving a primal function to shape the world. There is much speculation that there might be such colonies out there somewhere, but this has never been proven. The magic connected to this race is highly organized and logical, almost mathematical in nature. It follows strict paths and works predictably, even if the effects aren’t as flashy as the other magics usually are. And like the other blood-types, the eyes give away a lot. The more white your eyes are, the more elemental blood there is running in your veins. A highly elemental person would show some traits of their element (rugged skin, very flowing hair … or in the case of astrals, near-invisibility of the soft tissue (which is just about as creepy as you think))

After these short introductions, it should be reminded again, that a person might fall into the category of “an elf” because he has the physical characteristics that are associated with elves, but he’s still a genetic mash-up of the 3 creature types - a person with the will to live, have dreams and fears and be willing to push himself a bit further to survive.

So, from a metaphoric sense - a person is always unique, even if he can be branded with some social stigma.