Races of Hyperborea

Overview

Many races settle on Hyperborea, all of them created by their gods. The ancestral gods rising up to divinity and making their people in their own image.
But people are people and hard to keep away from each other, they soon fell in love and wanted children of their own. A human and a human will always have a human baby, if not interfered with, nothing will ever change that. But what happens when those couples from different races want a child of their own?
In the beginning, the gods simply did not allow it, until Dorok - The Divine Hammer heard the plea of his children. He did not understand why a dwarf would want to live with an elf, but he would welcome anyone into the family that was accepted by his children. So he went out and negotiated with Cerunna of the Woods, to make this possible. No one truly knows what has been said or done, but eventually she relented and allowed for the mixing to happen.
Soon after many other couples petitioned Dorok, even if they were not his children. As a family man himself, he took the duty upon himself and worked tirelessly to convince the other deities to allow for the mixing of the races.
After many years a divine agreement was struck. The four ancestral races would remain as they are, if they mixed, a new one would emerge but it would never go further. From the mixed families, the ancestral races would be able to be recreated. Nobody knows why, but Cerunna and Kruum agreed that they would never mix their children among each other, families always giving birth to either an orcish or elven baby, but never a hybrid.

The Ancestral Races

Among the ancestral races can be found:

Humans

Elves

Dwarves

Orcs

The Mixed Races

Among the mixed races can be found:

Halflings

Half-Elves

Half-Orcs

Gnomes

Goblins

Magical Interferrence

If a developing baby is close to a particular strong source of magic, it may change and deviate from the fate planned for by the gods. The most famous example of these are the Tieflings, who are influenced by strong infernal magic, the Dragonborn have the magic of strong dragons coursing through them, while the Genasi are connected to the elemental planes.
It still heavily debated if the Goliaths are supposed to fit into this category or not.