Font-Raillet is a bustling metropolis where people of all possible sorts live side-by-side; Revolutionary ideologies have largely led to an integrationist culture where most people lean into a unified “Railliene” identity rather than (publicly) embracing ancestral backgrounds and cultures. However, being such a bustling city, it does receive foreign visitors and such; thus, a run-down of how the various thinking species fit into the world may be justified.

Note that no species is truly a monoculture; the following is a simplified primer on the individuals one is likely to meet in the city, rather than a scholarly treatise on the world.

Though there were scattered Human settlements in Gallia before Armastin’s invasion, most modern Humans in the area are descended from his invaders or from later immigrants. At this point they’re the most populous race, particularly in Font-Raillet, though they don’t have a true majority even including Elves and more exotic nobles. Most Gallian Humans display slight Elven traits, though a “Pureblood” movement has begun to form in the wake of the Revolution, celebrating “Humanity unsullied by the overindulgence of the nobility”.

These species don’t exist as coherent species; rather, specific noble bloodlines have taken on their traits over the years, thanks to the magic funneled into their blood. The older the bloodline, the more inhuman they look. In general, these traits only “breed true” for recognized heirs of the bloodline; for instance, any child of a Tiefling lord or lady will generally look just as Tiefling-like as their Tiefling parent (or even more so), while the child of a bastard or an unlanded second child will look like a natural blend of their parents, with smaller horns and less strongly tinted skin, and if they go on have a child with a human, that child will be exactly as ¼ Tiefling as you might expect, and so on.

In terms of terminology, most of these individuals would still be referred to as Human or Elven; they may cite their specific bloodline if pressed about their appearance, but wouldn’t consider that a species or racial distinction. However, they may face some prejudice from Revolutionary hardliners or preferential treatment from Royalists, even if they themselves are a bastard or otherwise have no reason to bear Royalist sympathies.

As most other nations don’t use Gallia’s system of enchanted nobility, people with these traits are seldom found outside of Gallia.

The traits that define an “Elf” are simply the first ones to manifest in a new noble bloodline, and the ones that tend to stick around after generations of interbreeding between the scions of vastly different noble bloodlines and human commoners. As such, it’s quite common for Elves to have minor traits of a more recent noble ancestor, such as horn nubs, hints of exotic coloration, or oddly-shaped pupils. The traces of magic in their blood grant an extended lifespan, keen senses, and often an affinity for magecraft.

Most of the upper class, particularly unlanded gentry and younger noble bloodlines, are Elves, but there are also plenty of Elves among the lower classes, given the nigh-universal noble proclivity for siring bastards.

Most people consider "Elf" to simply be a descriptive term for Humans with particularly pronounced Elven features, rather than being distinct from "Human" in any meaningful way.

As most other nations don’t use Gallia’s system of enchanted nobility, people with these traits are seldom found outside of Gallia. ¹⁾

Dwarves live underground, mine things, and work metal and stone. They’re particularly fond of hearty drink and flavorful food, though in pursuit of each they sometimes use ingredients that other species find inedible. Outside of Gallia, their tunnels and deepholds span entire continents and more. For longer trips, traveling the Underroads is almost always faster and safer than traveling overland, but significantly more expensive due to effective monopolies on supplies and lodging, and not all routes are guaranteed to be wagon-passable.

The Dwarven kings withdrew from under Gallia in the early decades of King Armastin’s centuries-long reign, claiming that he and his nobility were “stealing the very life from the stone” and making it too dangerous to live there. Their tunnels and holds quickly fell into disrepair and many were inhabited by far more dangerous things, often things driven from the surface by the spreading light of Civilization. Dwarves that were topside when they left were largely left behind; many chose to stay and integrate into Gallian surface society.

In recent years - since the Revolution - a group of foreign Dwarves has been working with Railliene locals to reclaim the Gallian underroads. However, it’s slow going - as yet they’ve primarily been focused on simply establishing a functioning outpost beneath Font-Raillet, in the entrance to what was a bustling deephold long before the city was even founded.

Long ago driven from their ancestral homelands, the Orcs found a new home on the sea - many as wayfaring sailors, but others on the vast floating patchworks of ships and rafts they call “homesteads”. Their culture is loud and flamboyant, as are their clothes, incorporating silks and dyes from around the world along with the plentiful fish and shark leather from their homesteads. While they have a reputation as mercenaries and pirates, the majority of them outside their homesteads are honest traders, fishers, or serve as sailors under captains of other species.

Though Font-Raillet is technically landlocked, the Chavaut river that runs from it to the sea is navigable by small-to-medium ocean-going vessels, and the wealth of the city means that it’s a popular destination for merchants. As such, it’s not uncommon to see Orcish crews, particularly in the taverns near the dock district on the south side of the city.

Descended from homunculi created by wizards as household labor, Goblins have come to form their own culture, with colonies on the outskirts of most inhabited regions. They tend to pay lip service to the nearest ruler, while quietly raiding other settlements for supplies. They’re unusually canny, though, and these thefts can almost never be traced back to them beyond hearsay. All the same, they tend to be considered bad luck in groups and most communities will “encourage” them to move on, if they can muster the force to do so.

A collective term including Aarakocra, Tabaxi, Golynn, Harengon, and so on. Many of these were the original inhabitants of Gallia even before King Armastin and his armies arrived, and many are still working the same lands as their ancestors despite the changes in leadership. The Revolution theoretically ended serfdom and redistributed the ownership of farmland, but predatory sharecropping schemes and such are all too common, leading many younger Beastfolk to leave their families and seek their fortunes in cities instead. Lacking capital or qualifications, they often find themselves working odd jobs or falling back on their racial strengths - Aarakocra as couriers, Golynn as stevedores or in construction, and so on.

Gnomes are native to the domesticated forests of Lucamber far to the south. Through centuries of ingenuity and toil, they’ve bent these tropical woodlands to their will, turning the canopy into a glistening city of perfectly laid out treehouses, connected by bridges, gondolas, and the occasional zipline. The forest floor, however, is full of hunters and mushroom farmers just barely getting by. Topsider gnomes are often encountered in Font-Raillet as traders, while the gnomes that inhabit the Little Lucamber neighborhood of the city are largely Grounded immigrants and their descendants seeking a better life.

By all accounts, the Halfling Moors are an exceedingly comfortable place to live, so long as you’re under four feet tall and enjoy mutton, rye, and small-town politics. It takes quite a lot to get a Halfling to leave the Moors, with the result that any Halfling you’re likely to meet in Font-Raillet will be far from typical for the species. These trouble-makers, adventure-seekers, and outcasts tend to work as cutpurses, adventurers, sailors, burglars, and such, and tend to cultivate larger-than-life personalities, perhaps out of sensitivity to their small size.

A “thinking construct” is often held to be the highest ideal of runecraft, in the same way that alchemists seek to turn lead to gold, but thus far nobody’s really managed to put together anything capable of more than the most basic password-based guard duty.

The most advanced known constructs were the Warforged, a platoon of experimental soldier constructs deployed by the Royal army in their defense of Soudinfret in one of the last true engagements of the Revolution; even these had to be led by a human command team. After the deaths of the command team, the remaining Warforged showed no capability for diplomacy or surrender and continued following their final order of “make them pay in blood for every inch”; every one of them had to be destroyed.

Their salvaged remains kicked off a renewed flurry of research into thinking constructs, but this died down as the consensus grew that they were merely well-programmed constructs rather than a true paradigm shift into “thought”.