"Crossborn" was a term used to define Mortalkind of mixed heritage, and was widely used across Somnum. The term was typically applied to those of partial Human, Dwarf, Elf, or Orc ancestry, who could breed under rare circumstances; additionally, it was also applied to children of Gnome and Halfling crossbreeding.
Across Commona, crossborn were treated according to local custom rather than any shared law or creed. In some realms they were accepted without comment, folded into households and guilds as ordinary members so long as they upheld local obligations. Elsewhere they were viewed with suspicion, regarded as living reminders of old conflicts or uneasy unions, and were often denied inheritance, office, or the protection of custom. Certain border regions valued crossborn as intermediaries, believing them better suited to negotiate between peoples, while more insular communities treated them as permanent outsiders regardless of conduct.
Many colloquial names were given to crossborn, most prevalent being considered "Half-"; for instance, a child of a human and an elf might be considered a "half-elf". Some gave the title to the race of the mother, while others evaluated the spawn of the blended smallfolk and defaulted the title to the lineage that possessed more notable traits. Critics of this term concept believed that it was biased to assume that humans were the "default" type of mortalkind, and that the definitions of the term made little sense in other cases, such as if a dwarf crossed with an orc.