On the Human Race as the Original Pattern

Humans have contributed their own theory to the subject, as one would expect, and it possesses the modest advantage of placing Humans at the centre of creation. According to this view, Humanity represents the original or “unaltered” pattern among the Principal Races, while Elves, Dwarves, Aesir, and Gremlins arose through subsequent magical alteration of Human stock. Elves were supposedly refined for longevity, Dwarves adapted for subterranean life, Aesir enlarged for northern climates, and Gremlins produced by some experiment which the theorists rarely describe without smirking.

The argument is circular in a wonderfully efficient fashion. Humans resemble all other races in various respects; therefore Humans must be ancestral. Wherever another race differs from Humans, the difference is declared an alteration; wherever Humans differ from another race, the Human feature is declared original. One might reverse the method with equal rigour and conclude that Humans are degenerate Elves with shortened lives, attenuated Aesir deprived of proper stature, poorly mineralised Dwarves, or tragically oversized Gremlins. No Human advocate of the theory has yet found this reversal persuasive.

The chief objection is chronological. Human remains do not reliably precede those of the other races, and in several regions the opposite appears to be true. Nor is there evidence of any global magical event capable of transforming one ancestral population into four stable and reproductively isolated lineages. Such an event would represent the greatest biological intervention in recorded or pre-recorded history and has, inconveniently, left behind no laboratory, no ritual complex, no transitional population, and no inscription reading WE HAVE NOW CREATED THE ELVES. This has not prevented several universities from funding expeditions to find one.