Sapients

A thousand years ago humans discovered that the world is larger than they thought - and then they then marched to war against terrors whose very existence warped reality into forms unrecognizable by sapients of flesh. The war was terrible, but humans triumphed - only to go extinct soon after, at their own hands.   While 'humans' today are counted in tens of billions (if not low hundreds), they are no longer the same species as they used to be in before the Great Multiversal War. Today the multiverse is inhabited by numerous species of posthuman sapients, modified by either their own hands or by whimsical hands of the System or their Gods. Humans of now might share the general shape of their predecessors, but that's where similarities end.   There are hundreds of types of sapients out there today, with the term 'posthuman' mostly fading out during the centuries that passed.

The biological evolution of Mankind is a concept that was thrown to the dustbin of history together with the advent of the System. There are no longer any natural changes, for the System ensures the general adherence to the genetic frameworks stored in its all-encompassing databases. Random mutations rarely bring any meaningful changes (and if they do, they tend to vanish mysteriously), and passing your genes further rarely is influenced by how 'adapted' your genes are.   Today the 'evolutionary stages' of Mankind are all about how much you diverged from the biology and how deep you delved into the realm of magic. There are three levels of that, each being less and less what we would recognize as a species today. This is, in the end, a curse as much as a blessing - the higher you get, the more diverged from humanity of old you are (even in mind) and the less common and fertile you are - and the less likely you are to be encountered in the Vassal World. Because of that the multiverse is generally dominated by those theoretically weakest.   The first category are the Quarters, sometimes referred to as First Order species. Name indicates that they 1/4 magic, but this isn't incorrect - if anything, they are anywhere from 1/10 to 1/4 magic, scattered throughout that spectrum apparently at random. Modern humans are here too - no longer fully biological, yet far from being very magical. Quarters form the bulk of the population of the multiverse (especially in the Vassal Worlds), as they are the most fertile of all stages.   There might be weaker individually than the other stages, yes. Their starting attributes are typically the lowest. Crushing majority of them is mediocre in terms of talent, and with limited lifespan it's hard for them to become truly powerful. However, there are massive in numbers, and with enough hard work they can measure up to Halves, sometimes even Fulls.   The second category are the Halves (or Second Order species) who actually are somewhere around 1/4-1/2 magic (with biology filling the rest). They are naturally powerful but rare - still numerous enough to have civilizations in the Throne Worlds (and sometimes, to a small degree, in Vassal Worlds), but they are typically outnumbered by quarters.   They can be much more powerful than the average for Quarters. They are however much less fertile (although typically live significantly longer), and thus much less likely to survive large scale damage to their population. They also tend to suffer from being overly specialized in certain forms of magic, and their own altered mentality.   On the other hand, they are magical enough to be able to be summoned to the Vassal Worlds from the Throne Worlds (though not all of them are interested in that, and some species are especially notorious on that field to the point when their summoning is unheard of). A lot of them can be encountered as summons, as a result.   The third and last category are the Fulls, who contrary to the logic of the former two levels tend to be on or near the 100% magical component. They do not form civilizations, because it's extremely rare for more than one of them to be anywhere at once. Some of them aren't even capable of procreating, instead being replenished by quarters and halves managing to abandon the vestiges of their mortality   Those that can procreate aren't without issues on the field. Their rarity means that the other side is typically from another species (and of lower stage), meaning that their children are of different species altogether (if they even happen). Most of them that survive until middle age can be expected to become a natural living boss monsters equivalent.   They are powerful by nature, but extremely rare. You can expect them to either live in their own secretive foldspace lair in the middle of nowhere (where they have spirits and some contracted sapients to keep the riff-raff at bay) or actually managed to make themselves into the rulers of the lesser civilizations (or perhaps both at once).

Mankind diverged greatly from its origin - mostly due to the nature of magic. The Throne Worlds are infused with the power of the Dark Lords (which also acts as the source of all magic in the multiverse) to the point, where everything that lives there is 'irradiated' with their influence. It wasn't a problem in the past, but for the thousand years the tide of power grew to the point where System decided that adaptation of local colonists - and 'channeling' of the influence into manageable forms instead of spending time countering the mutations it brought) was a good idea.   The result was the split of Mankind into dozens of posthuman species, assembled into twelve main Branches. Each of the branches is connected to a single Throne World (with only the Void lacking a branch of its own), and is thoroughly permeated by the lingering influence of its magic.   Humans are what remains of humans of old. They are the dominant species in most of the Vassal Worlds, and share the old Mankind's general shape and looks. However they broke to thousands of subraces throughout the multiverse, each slightly different in looks and sometimes in their adaptation to the world. They might lack magical power of any of their rivals, but they have numbers and tenacity behind them.   Artificials is the posthumanity branch derived from Ferra, the ancient cradle of Mankind. Most artificials used to be humans but have abandoned the chains of flesh in favour or perfect, robotic recreations of their bodies (or, to be exact, with how they wanted their own body to look like). They mostly reside in their homeworld (the lack of technology outside of it being a bane of them, in a way), and rarely involve themselves in the matters of the multiverse.   Elysians [commonly referred to as celestials] are the posthumans from Elysium. The most widespread of their species (classified as lesser spirits) are the celestials - winged humanoids of sublime beauty, incredibly powerful light magic and natural empathic link to all sapient life in their vicinity. They pretty such the theme for the other members of this branch - light, beauty, natural goodness (though rarely softness), powerful magic (and only a bit less powerful physique) and often the ability to fly are rather common among the elysians.   Demons are the posthumans from the realm of Gehenna. Their most common factors are ability to see in the dark, lack of conscience (sometimes reaching the level of complete disdain for morals and readiness to commited war crimes for your own enjoyment) and dark/fire themed magic. The bulk of them are either succubi/incubi, devils or fiends - each of them dedicated to messing with people in their own horrible ways. Above them situations gets even less nice.   Sylvans are posthumans from Alfheim. They are characterized by their deep connection to forests and nature, especially the plantlife (but to animals too). Their civilizations tends to be deeply intertwined with the nature, often to the point when outsiders wouldn't even notice that they are within their settlement. The most common species of the Fae are the mundane-staged elves, with the higher stages including creatures such as fairies, dryads and nymphs.   Dvergars are inhabitants of the realm of Nidavellir. They are connected to the stone and ground just like the sylvans are to forests, with most of them dwelling deep underground of their world. Most notable group of theirs are the dwarves, but you can also find giants, halflings, and a handful of similar creatures amidst them - very few of them are more or less human-sized, it's always either higher or smaller than them.   Undead are inhabitants of Terminus. They are, in short words, the undead of the settings in their numerous forms. You get the relatively simply deathless, vampires, liches, revenants, ghosts, all of them posthumans, although also being a rare case of someone being 'converted' from one branch to another (normally you need to move to the Throne World - and even then, only your children will be converted).   Drakons are inhabitants of the Drakhrun. Their ranks include dragonborn, dragons and high dragons - all three in numerous subspecies defining their exact type of powers. They are all known for their never-ending quest to expand their hoards (at least partially influencing their strength), and unending strive to be on top of whatever place they live in (they are ambitious individuals almost uniformly).   Aberrants (sometimes referred to as abyssals) are posthumans from the Abyss, known mostly for their eldritch natures and steadily growing issue of finding a common language with the rest of Mankind. While 'wrong', they aren't necessarily evil - but they do tend to prefer dark colours, which probably influenced their names. The most common species of this branch are the metamorphic shoggoths, disgustingly alluring deep sirens, and the strangely human watchers.   Elementals are posthumans from the realm of Chaos. They are best summed up as elementals, living bits of fire, water, air or earth (plus in rarer cases of sound, ice, magma, smoke, etc), who normally spend time in their own realm waging endless (yet largely irrelevant) battles for supremacy of their own element. While increasingly divergent from baseline Mankind, many of them are still human enough to be encountered traveling through the Vassal Worlds.   Merfolk are posthumans from the Throne World of Loqua. They are, in short, a large variety of sapient entities dwelling in the seas and other large bodies of water. This includes everything from mermaids to much weirder creatures. The common factor among them is that while sapient and capable of understanding humans, their different environment makes them sometimes as incomprehensible as the weirdest of the aberrants.   Irans are the inhabitants of Navira. Through the influence of the ragestorms decimating the endless plains of that world, their civilization collapsed into one of savage nomads. Their ranks include goblins, orcs, and ogres, their various improved forms (such as hobgoblins, uruks and high ogres), and also some species that fit the general theme of the world (such as centaurs). They are all distinguished by rather short temper, tight-knit communities and prefering to not stay anywhere for too long.   Bestials are the posthumanity branch from Furya. Their common theme is a merge of humans and animals. Men of Wilds have their own three branches (mammalians, avians and reptilians), and are divided between subspecies such as the beastfolk (part human part animal), beastmen (mostly animal), beastkin (mostly human), with the human-to-beast ratio influencing their behaviour and available classes.

One of the most glaring issues with the Mankind diverging into numerous species is the problem with interspecies relationships. For centuries this was simply impossible, meaning that for example elves could only have children with other elves. The result were many unfulfilled relationships and general trend towards self-segregation. After all, if you weren't exposed to another species, you could fall in love - one that would never lead to having children, something that (when overused) has actually brought some of such population to the edge of extinction.   Eventually the System decided that it cannot stand and have reorganized Reality in one of its updates. From this point onward interspecies procreation between species of the same branch is possible, although with certain limitations. To begin with, chances of procreation are much lower than between two members of the same species. The chances drop even more when both sides of the equations are from different stages. Also the higher you go, the lesser the baseline fertility.   The second rule to remember about interspecies pairings is that the System is the one responsible for the species inheritance, and his programming tells him to avoid unecessary human deaths. As a result, when faced with two options, it will always pick the one that promises less casualties. Due to that you can expect the children of two species radically varied in size to typically have offspring of the smaller species (as having something very small give birth to something rather big would be... dangerous for the mother).   When it comes to pairings that transcend the borders between the posthuman branches, situation is a bit more complicated. Normally procreation is simply impossible. However System has left a small loophole. Namely, gods. Fertility Gods the Cults of the Ascended, the fertility Demi-Archons of the Temple of the Seven and some 'familial' Saints of the Church of the Highmost can all 'bless' sufficiently devoted pair of their worshippers.   When it occurs, the mother will conceive a single child, which will inherit either of the parents' species. If parents are of different grades, the child will (in most cases) inherit the lesser one. The mechanism, however, is mostly concerned with (once again) the biological compatibility when it comes to giving birth. However, gods will rarely agree to giving their blessing multiple times to a single pair, which means that such pairings are still less fertile in general than the ones with two parents of identical species.   There are, however, exceptions to all of that. Some species have their procreation wired out differently - an example might be some single-gendered species, that require partners from another species to procreate. This isn't common, and tends to happen from Half stage onward (since you need a significant amount of magic in your blood to make such a species 'work'.

Non-human sapients is different from baseline humans not only in flesh and abilities but also in their minds. Each branch has its own general theme of mental changes - for example, demons tend towards being evil, drakons are greedy and ambitious, and elysians are kind and empathetic. However, every subspecies of branch will have some (sometimes minuscule to the point of not being noticeable) twists on that field.   The general rule, however, is that the higher your stage, the stronger the changes. For example, a demon Half will merely lack conscience (which doesn't stop him or her from developing certain rules of conduct which might or might not be good from outsider's point of view). However a demon Full will have their morality effectively reversed - to describe in a perhaps too colourful way, they do not need a reason to rape and murder someone - they need a reason to NOT do that (which might be their need to remain unseen or the target's dangerous level of strength). Half drakons will enjoy power, fame and wealth, while Full drakon will have it hard to consider other humans as something intrinsically different than other forms of wealth to own (it might refer to you as he or she, but inside his or her mind you will always be 'it').   Quarters are almost untouched by this issue, as their magical component and attunement to the energies of the Throne Worlds is simply too weak to cause significant changes.

By general rule, you can advance to a higher evolutionary stage. However you cannot advance from a Quarter to Half stage - but you can jump to Full from either Quarter or Half stage. This is a source of creatures such as liches, or the dragonblooded becoming full-blown Dragons.   It is extremely hard to achieve, however, and typically happens to people who are already demigods or close to that level(it's possible through their divine power, if they gather enough of it). Otherwise it's still enough of an achievement to almost certainly exaltation to such a status after the deed is done.   There are also certain species whose 'special' mechanics allows them to 'spread' their species to others. Here the best example are the undead created from someone's corpse through necromancy (or changed into a vampire even without dying). There are more cases, though. Such species aren't common, however, and changing others is typically a costly endeavour to them.   The last form of species change is through the act of the Divines. There are cases of newly manifested pantheons of Gods 'customizing' their first followers. Here an example might be the sea elves, the result of gods of merfolk origin altering their elven followers. This, once again, tends to be something that happened in the far past (when various countries of the world were established), but sometimes happens when a newly emerging pantheon takes over some decimated ruin of another pantheon's dreams.