Races & Languages

Races

Since the reemergence after the Great Dragon War a thousand years ago, the races of the world crawled back from extinction. Even with the slow advancements of technology, some races left their mark in the Old World. Working together with each other, under the guidance of the Platinum Court and Wild Lords, these races set out to become the society we have today.

There are many other races that live within the Monster Hunter Universe. Many of these races fought alongside or against the humans, elves, and all the other races in one of the two wars. Their origins all begin with being created by one god or another. They are rarely seen in civilized society, nor do they tend to join organizations like the Hunter's Guild.

The monstrous races of the Old World were born in many different ways. Many of them were born when Fatalis and the other corrupted gods attempted to influence the races of the world. The kobolds were once dragonborns that were twisted into the scrawny-like creatures of today. The orcs were once goliaths and humans; the goblins, halflings; firbolg became bugbears and tritons were molded into sahuagin.

Not all of the monstrous races were created in this way though, many of them were created from the corruption themselves. Hobgoblins and yuan-ti were all created in such a way.

Languages

Among the civilized races, Common is the universal mode of conversation. But many of the races have their own racial dialects that have become removed enough from each other to count as unique languages, even if they still share a script.

Draconic is possibly the oldest existing language and is seen as the language of religious scripture and of scholars, with Wyverian being a less formal offshoot of it.

Lynian is best known as the language used by the civilized Felyne and Melynx. However, many of the independent tribes speak offshoots of the language, that sound different, but are still close enough to the civilized Lynian, that someone fluent in the language could communicate with the tribes. Civilized Lynian uses the common script, but the various tribes have developed their own, often pictographic scripts. The study and translation of these is a respected field among Lynian Researchers.

The corrupted races have their own languages, far removed offshoots from Dwarvish and Elvish. Some industrious merchants go through the trouble of learning the languages, as well as some military commanders, and of course certain researchers. It is rare to come across someone fluent in them however, since these races have kept largely themselves since the reemergence.

Lastly, any of the extra-planar languages are so rare, they are not heard or read outside of the most secure libraries of research institutes. Outside of Infernal, with devils seen as hostile forces last around 1000 years ago, most knowledge of extra-planar languages and other planes is little more than theoretical and generally highly confidential.