(Note: This discussion will cover the race generally known to Black Steel personnel as humans; other races of the same species -- i.e. who can bear fertile children with humans -- will be described in more detail in another post.)
Perhaps the most adaptible and versatile creatures in the world, humans are more adept than any other known sentient race -- with the possible exception of shadow elves -- at forming large and coherent societies with highly specialized individual roles. Though some insect colonies demonstrate an even greater level of specialization, humankind's exceptional intelligence allows individuals to change roles effectively to fulfill important and unexpected needs, and allows the society at large to develop advanced tools that permit a single human to perform a wide range of specialized tasks more effectively than the most naturally-specialized animal or insect. Some races and species may have developed tools of magical or physical nature more advanced and specialized than humans', but none appear to do so with such a wide range of purposes, and in such a wide range of habitats. Extreme enviornments such as underground caves, steep mountains, dense forests, and frozen tundra may harbor races or species better adapted to their singular needs, but none can adapt as well as humans to them all -- and even without overspecialization, humankind rules undisputed over the world's most fertile hills and plains. Dragons can challenge any race and species in any single battle, anywhere in the world, but they are few in number, and have not been tested in true war against the bulk of humanity.
A physical description of human beings is on the whole so well known to Black Steel personnel that any description would be superfluous; over ninety percent of Black Steel's membership, and over ninety percent of the population of The Scabbard and The Edge, after all, is strictly human. Moreover, Black Steel is among the most welcoming of essentially-human nations to other sentient populations, and in most countries with which Black Steel has dealings, the human population comprises well over ninety-nine percent of all legal citizens. Notable exceptions include the nation of Korv and the city of Kolmarch; Tornbring Vale has almost no human population, and is the only sizable non-human nation of which Black Steel leadership is definitely aware. Indeed, the only nation known to Black Steel personnel to incorporate so many different races as Black Steel itself, in nearly such great numbers relative to the dominant population, is the city of Illenia in the far northwest. This might be due in part to the quiet influence of Night Harbor, Illenia's sister-city or nemesis (depending on who you ask) across its bay, whose population is so diverse and mixed as to defy any attempt to name a dominant species.
Human populations do vary considerably in appearance from region to region, but in spite of ill-informed stories to the contrary, such hereditary differences appear to be virtually confined to superficial appearance. The stories in question, when based on anything more than sheer invention and prejudice, find their kernels of truth in cultural and environmental differences between the humans of different regions. It was long claimed, for instance, that the dark-skinned people of Grat'ha were physically stronger and hardier, but less intelligent and less capable of wielding magic, than the lighter-skinned people who live further north, and even that the people who live in the Grat'han interior were more physically powerful than the Grat'hans of the coastal plains. Increased exploration of Grat'ha however, and especially commerce with the tribes of that region, has exploded these myths. The "superhuman strength" of Grat'han natives, for instance, is in fact an invention of storytellers to explain those peoples' ability to survive in the dangerous and hostile jungles without discovering -- or perhaps without admitting -- the skill, experience, traditions, and training that give Grat'han humans their real advantages in their native environment. The rarity of sorcerous power among humans in Grat'ha is almost certainly attributable to their relatively isolated, tribal existence, as the rarity and non-hereditary nature of sorcerous potential among human beings, together with the necessity of extensive education to bring such potential to reality, renders it virtually impossible for a sorcerous tradition to develop without extensive, tolerant, and thorough means of communication across a large human population.
By the nearest estimates Black Steel personnel have been able to discover, roughly one percent of humans are born with the potential to consciously interact with the sorcerous world, and thus to weave sorcery. Of these, perhaps one in ten in the civilized world will eventually learn to control and use this ability in a meaningful way, as most lack the extraordinary mental discipline and capacity for learning and intuition required to weave magic effectively, and it is not unusual for a potential wizard to go undiscovered, or simply to refrain from the intensive course of study necessary to apply sorcerous gifts. It is interesting to note that the potential for a human being to become a wizard does not appear to be influenced by any yet-discovered environmental factors, nor does it follow lines of heredity, apart from the rare cases of humans with recent elven ancestry. Indeed, very rare cases have been reported of humans who lacked the potential to weave sorcery developing that potential later in life, under circumstances difficult to characterize due to the uncertainty of the records and their extreme rarity. For now, whether at birth or otherwise, the cause of sorcerous potential among humans remains a mystery.
In spite -- or perhaps because -- of their rarity, human wizards often grow more skilled in their art than those of races or species more naturally steeped in the world of sorcery. While it may be that great wizards among elven peoples do exist, merely avoiding interaction with the outside world (or never interacting to this point with Black Steel personnel at least) this appears to be another case of humanity's predilection for opportunistic specialization giving them a foothold and even a position of strength in a realm to which others are better adapted naturally.
