The Zermans are an elusive race of humanoid, sentient creatures which originate from the boreal forests in the northern part of the Great Dividing Range. Though eluding human civilisation for thousands of years, "demon hunters" and secret societies always on their tails, many Zermans managed to make their living as assassins, spies, black market traders or other such professions which allowed their societies to stay out of sight. With the British Empire came their debut to the world stage, generating an enormous debacle amongst the biologists of the era; if apes which could not think were animals, are the Zermans (much further apart anatomically), who can reason as well as a human being, therefore human? In the Oceanykan Constitution, they share the classification of "xenohuman" with the Ferozen, being of equal status to Homo Sapiens. However, anti-Zerman sentiment remains strong. These peoples are of great interest to those of the rising star of science that is genetics, though only about 1,200,000 exist for them to study.
Zermans were able to evade the attention of human civilisation for so long thanks to their extensive settlement of the Underdown and the interior of the Great Dividing Range, mastering underground agriculture and construction. In today's industrial economy, their fairly advanced cities usually dedicate to mining and manufacturing.