The Races - Humans of Cerestowe

An excerpt taken from the well loved book ‘Knowing our Neighbours’ written by Chronogate’s leading Anthropologist, Bartholomew Devitt, who lives a quiet and esteemed life in Chronogate’s Upper City.

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We humans are a strange folk, being, in equal parts, both loving and hateful, as can be seen by our somewhat rocky history. But you cannot grow without first learning from your mistakes, and this sentiment is made all the more important when meeting new neighbours, especially those of different race, culture, or class than yourself. We are afraid of the things that we do not understand and yet so many of us these days dedicate our entire lives to revealing the unknown, and that is where anthropologists like myself come into play. We study people not solely in the present day, but also those that came before us, and those that will be here long after we are gone, focusing on our many different behavioural patterns, biology, societies and languages. Now, I may sound a little biased here, but these studies are one of the most important studies of our time. Simply put, how can we grow as a civilisation, without first understanding those that inhabit it?

Up until quite recently, relatively speaking, humans have made up the main bulk of Cerestowe’s population, so it is no real surprise, and rather understandable, that when a new race of sentient beings was not only discovered, but also introduced into our day to day lives, that we were not all welcoming, and in face many of us became quite defensive. Nowadays, however, our lovely neighbours the Khronos make up almost half of our population across Cerestowe, and here in Chronogate, now that they are allowed to set up business and own property, you only have to step outside your front door to see it. Why, a lovely old Stoat Khronos lady now owns my local bakery and I can state as an absolute fact that her rock buns are the best I’ve had in all my years, just delightful!

As stated beforehand, and as is evident in the way we live our lives today, we learn from our mistakes, and despite our flaws, humans have achieved some truly wonderful things over the years… From founding Chronogate, our most esteemed capital, to establishing our first ever structured government, to great technological advances in mass production and airship travel, to the exploration of Cerestowe’s many other incredible islands!

Just take a stroll through Chronogate’s bustling trade docks and you’ll see for yourself how far humankind has come, where it's going, and how far it has left to go in this great journey we call life. And believe me when I say it, we are going to need the help of all our new neighbours to achieve our goals, human or not.