Reposting this here from The Writer's Group

Taxonomy & Biology

Humans are a sapient race, a part of the hominid family, alongside other sapients such as the sasquatch, yeti, ljosalfar and orangutan, and closely related to semi-sapients such as the chimpanzee, gorilla and cro magnon. The hominids are a part of the sapient super family simian, also called primates, which includes two other families, jotunids (sapient: svartalfar, trolls, orcs, gnomes, oni, semi: ogres, goblins, brownies) and catarrrhinids (sapient: kongs, gizmonks, semi: baboon).

Humans, alongside the ljosalfar and semisapient cro magnon, were once believed to belong to the jotunid family, due to shared trait of near hairlessness. A widescale fossil record and anatomical study of centuries past saw them shifted over to the hominids, as well as shifting the hirsute-heavy svartalfar and semi-sapient brownies the other way around.

As all species bearing the magic of intelligence, human have been elevated above and beyond the normal genetic bounds of primitive nature. The success of interracial breeding remains strongest within the simian superfamily. Humans are no dragons, however, and any race that strays further from their primitive ancestry requires magical aid to conceive.

Humans lack for an instinctual, outward expression for their magic, but do have an internal magic that is similar to the physical enhancements of earth ponies. For humans, this comes in the form of increased stamina, constitution and endurance, able to soldier on tirelessly through extreme conditions and extended periods. In outlier cases, particularly potent individuals have displayed nigh-invulnerability and regenerative abilities. This is believed to have aided in their primitive, pre-sapient days when they hunted prey by simply running it aground, as seen displayed by cro magnon tribes.

Individuals that carry a concentration of magic far above the norm, or an unusual form of it, are marked by a morphological deformity of the ears. Specifically, an elongation of the helix or upper portion of the ear. These individuals are commonly referred to as elves, a corruption of alfar, so named for the slight resemblance to the ljosalfar.

History & Politics

Any discussion about where and how humans live or have lived, with each other or other races, cannot be complete without a discussion of their racial curse, the wanderlust. The scholarly theory behind this behavior is vestigial instinct from their primitive, pre-sapient days, however their folklore around the world have a shared narrative of it being a curse from the spirit of chaos. Archaeological evidence suggests that the now extinct kender race shared in this curse.

The exact manifestation of this curse varies case by case. The majority of humans will go their lives without feeling its touch, as opposed to how it is suggested to have affected the kender, cited as a primary cause for their extinction. For those humans who suffer from it, it will normally happen relatively briefly, once in their lives (again, supposedly unlike the kender). For some, it will be an irresistible impulse to simply move as far away as possible. Others describe waking up with no memory of how they got where they were, where they are or how long it has been. This disorder normally strikes individuals, but has been known to take families and communities as well. There are legends of it even uprooting nations.

Therefore, an estimate half of all humans are citizens or inhabitants of non-human nations. Human nations, past and present, either existed over wide tracts of land, either unclaimed by other races or overlapping the territories of other nations, so wandering citizens settled within it borders, or large enough islands, where the ocean would trap normally trap a wandering soul.

The nations of man include the islands of Japalm/Neighpon, the ocean-locked continent of Ausapia/Thestralia, the northbound people Fingland/Horsway the imperial expanse of Humandar/Canteron and the near anarchic Uncontrolled Sovereignties Of Amanica. Every human nation pays some sort of homage to the Sovereigns Of Seasons, a quartet of ageless elves forever bound by the wanderlust, loosely following the seasons they are named for.

That a majority of human nations share their territories with pony nations is no coincidence. Old friendships, alliances and pacts between the ponies’ own Celestial Sisters and the Sovereigns’ Winter Mab and Summer Titania led to the construction of the Rainbow Bridge. Targeting humans almost fatally lost to the wanderlust, such victims are safely guided to pony populations, most especially Equestria. Only the presence of the Sisters, and humans’ nigh-universal fear of Celestia, or “Corona”, prevented the rise of a separatist movement that created a nation apart.

Humans “crossing” the Rainbow Bridge are guided by a combination of visions and chance encounters. The Bridge is primarily a creation of Mab and Titania, and their two-faced magic which must give as well as take. For example, humans guided to pony lands are cursed never to find their way home again. Humans will pick-up the local language unusually fast but are practically guaranteed to suffer awkward cultural mishaps for the time being. Lastly, misfortune favors the old while probability is tilted to the side of the young. In the case of wanderlust driven families, the Rainbow Bridge earned the epithet The Trail Of Orphans.

There is some amount of mythologization of the Celestial Sisters among humans, not unlike that seen in extent pony colonies and some other peoples outside Equestria, and even in Equestria. Humans revere Princess Luna as the Mare Of The Night, the Sacred Dark, who guides children from night terrors and brings succor from harsh reality for the lost.

They fear Princess Celestia, who is known as Corona, the Merciless Light, a mare of such virtue that all the world risked burning for its impurity by comparison. This was started or solidified, accounts disagree, by The Brotherhood Of Converts, an equine supremacist cult that primarily preyed upon humans and used horrid transmutation spells to turn humans into broken parodies of ponies. They preached Celestia’s divinity and claimed her blessing, a lie that did not shield them from her displeasure when she found them.

Celestia’s unearned reputation remains with humans from outside Equestria. They tell tales of how she banished her sister to the moon for failing to live up to her standards. Humans tend to make up a sizeable portion of the membership to the Lunar Republic groups and Moon cults. Princess Luna wavers between flattered from their praise and irritated to enraged by their whitewashing of her misdeeds.

Individuals

Leroy Bellflower is a small-time celebrity, better known by his stage name of Bellerophon Bluebeard or Bluebeard The Clown. He is one of the star attractions of Trumpet & Trombone’s Travelling Circus, their so-called “scary clown”, travelling with the troupe across Equestria. He tutors Molly the dancer in human language and culture, a human girl found by the troupe as a baby.

Danny “Carrot” Ironfinder was raised by rock farmers since he was very small when they found him in a crate labelled for carrots. He is now a well-liked police officer in Manehatten, and dating the Wonderbolt, Surprise.

Megan Williams is a reformed villainess who briefly terrorized Cloudsdale under the influence of a cursed artifact, the Empty Heart. It promised to take away the pain of her losing her family in exchange for silencing all of the songs A young pegasus named Cadance sang a funeral dirge to Megan, bringing her to tears, destroying the artifact and earning Cadance her horn. Since then, Megan has been endowed with an unpleasant gift of prophecy. At her own insistence, she was locked and hidden away, “imprisoned” in a palatial apartment, first in Canterlot Castle and then in the Crystal Imperial Palace, where Cadance’s singing eases her tormented dreams.

Garreth the Grey Spear, the Hunter, was a long ago spouse of Celestia, one of a very long line dating back to the solidification of Equestria. His innate magic is said to have been particularly strong, with one apocryphal tale claiming he hunted a traitor to the crown for a hundred miles through a winter storm.

Voltaire The Philosopher was known to have already been on the run when the wanderlust took him centuries ago. Exiled from his homeland for speaking out against the ruling class, the Bridge led him directly into Canterlot Castle where his sharp wit and skepticism endeared him to the princess. She kept him around as something of an advisor and a jester.

The Sorcerer King Richard was the father of Tirek and Scorpan. Drawing from his vigor, he practiced magical arts outside his instinctual grasp. He wanted heirs who would more easily grasp the arcane arts and used magic to father children on two different mares, a unicorn and a thestral. Both satyr brothers overthrew their tyrannical father and used magic to change their forms further before travelling westwards towards Equestria in search of further power.

Hydia and her daughters, Reeka and Draggle, are notorious criminals and sorceresses, blithely delving into many of the darker magics in search of power. They were brought to Equestria after following the ancient trail and notes of Tirek and have been plotting against the ponies there from the shadows ever since. One of their failed bids was supplying Megan with the Empty Heart.

Adam Apple is a strange addition to the Apple clan, an infant foundling adrift in a basket down a river. It’s thought that his mother was “tolled” by the Bridge in exchange for his own survival. He himself has been taken by the wanderlust some years ago but the spell has been relatively minor for him. He stays within Equestria and travels with a circus.

Anonymous is less of a person and more of an entity, or entities, bound to a wooden mask. Believed to have been made my Discord and harboring a legion of his lesser kin, the mask can only be worn by humans. When worn, they will become partially possessed by the spirits, themselves possessed of some shadow of Discord’s power. The possessed human is easily marked out by their green skin.