Sages traditionally define the cultured races as "a race possessing hands, speech, as well as a language and a society of their own".
Humans have grouped the cultured races into four main cathegories.
First and foremost, there is humanity, the most numerous and adaptable race, surely destined to inherit the earth.
Secondly, there are the dactyli - the small folk. Rarely taller than four feet, the dactyli include dwarves, gnomes, and fauns, and probably the southron troglodytes and pygmies.
Thirdly, there are the giantkin.The giantkin include ogres, zoocephales, centaurs and giants. Some also include trolls among the giantkin as well.
Fourthly, kobalae - the tall rogues: elves and goblins.
A chart of terms for referring to the cultured beings by race and sex
Abnormal Size - Dwarvism (manikinism) and Giantism
Humans are somewhat taller than five feet, erect and five-fingered.
Compared to the other races, the most striking characteristics of the humans are that they are prolific and versatile.
Humans seem to outnumber all the other races combined, several times over. They breed at a prolific rate, and under favourable conditions they can triple in number in a single generation.
Humans are extremely versatile; They learn from other races and come up with their own ideas. Their societies and personalities are protean, assuming a multitude of shapes that is bewildering to the other races. They are also more capable of getting along with other races than any other race except the gnomes.
Most familiar to humanity are the Small Folk, who may even live in the same settlements as humans, and are willing to trade and cooperate with them.
As both dwarves and gnomes are shorter than humans, and often live close to one another, humans often think of them as a group, and some sages speculate that they may be related. Dwarves tend to react to such generalizations by grasping the largest weapon they have handy and glaring meaningfully, while gnomes just look at one another and chuckle.
Humans note that elves and goblins are are tall, pointy-eared, dangerous and rarely seen. When they are seen it is invariably in the wilderness or at night. Usually, sighting a member of these races is bad news. Both the tall races are individually formidable (though inferior to human heroes) but vastly outnumbered by the fecund humans, and thus reduced to skulking roguishly along the fringes of human society, in particular hiding in the deep forests, coming forth at night to steal and mislead.
Members of the giantkin races weigh about as much as three to four humans. These hulks are far stronger than the other races, but are weak-spirited, impulsive, foolish, and easily fooled.
The giantkin are reckoned to be remnants of a primitive age, created by the gods and later spurned by them, though it is argued that the capricious centaurs may be chaos-tainted.
In civilized lands they are almost extinct, found only in remote, wild areas, or as slaves (the latter mainly in the Cargan Empire and the Confederacy).