Common men in Hyperborea have by far the greatest variety of eye and hair colors of any race, plus a number of possible complexions. I thought it might be fun to consider what portions of their putative ancestry might be responsible for this variety, and to look for anomalies. Note that I was the one who created the eye, hair, and complexion tables for the 3e rulebook (though heavily based on earlier work by Jeff and Colin Chapman), so part of this will basically be me arguing with myself. Won’t that be fun? Let’s begin!
 
According to the rulebook, the most common ancestry for common men comes from Kelts, Kimmerians, Picts, and Vikings (all of whom will be bolded in the discussion below). Other races listed as ancestors are Anglo-Saxons, Greeks, Lapps, Romans, and Yakuts. (I would also speculate, based on similarity of appearance, that Amazons, Carolingian Franks, and Kimmeri-Kelts might play a role. However, since these races don’t exhibit any coloration not found in races already being considered, nothing is lost by ignoring them.) Interestingly, all of these races are basically “European” types except for the East Asian Yakuts. The presence of some Yakut ancestry in these mainly “European” types may mean a more frequent appearance of epicanthic folds than their coloring might otherwise suggest (which happens with Scandinavians and Lapps anyway, for similar reasons), which is a cool detail.
 
EYE COLORS OF COMMON MEN
 
Dark amber and light amber (1% each): None of the typical ancestors of common men exhibit these eye colors, a unique anomaly in this discussion (if I’d been thinking about this when I made the tables, I would have probably given Yakuts a chance of amber eyes, but it’s too late now!). This suggests the presence of ancestry from one or more races not listed, perhaps as grandparents or great-grandparents. The races that can have amber eyes are Esquimaux, Esqumaux-Ixians, Lemurians, Half-Blood Picts, and Tlingits. Any of these could contribute ancestry to common men, but I would judge Esquimaux and Half-Blood Picts to be the most likely, based on their numbers and presence on mainland Hyperborea (I want to say Esquimaux were even mentioned as contributing ancestry to common men in an earlier edition, but I’m too lazy to go back and look).
 
Dark brown and light brown (23% each): Greeks and Yakuts can have these eye colors. Both of these eye colors combined account for almost half of all common men, despite neither Greeks nor Yakuts being listed as major parent races. I would therefore speculate that at least one of these races (probably the Greeks, since it sounds like Yakuts were never that numerous in Hyperborea) is a major unacknowledged contributor to ancestry. I would speculate that there were once a large number of Hyperborean Greeks (perhaps slaves of the true Hyperboreans?) who were absorbed into the common ancestry pool and forgotten.
 
Dark hazel (5%): This is a very widespread ancestral eye color, found in Anglo-Saxons, Greeks, Kelts, Lapps, Romans, and Vikings.
 
Light hazel (5%): This is also a widespread ancestral eye color, found in Anglo-Saxons, Kelts, Lapps, Romans, and Vikings.
 
Dark green and light green (2% each): These eye colors are found in Anglo-Saxons, Kelts, Lapps, Picts, and Romans.
 
Dark blue and light blue (13% each): These very widespread ancestral eye colors are found in Anglo-Saxons, Kelts, Lapps, Picts, Romans, and Vikings.
 
Dark grey (6%): This eye color is found in Anglo-Saxons, Kimmerians, Lapps, and Romans.
 
Light grey (6%): This eye color is found in Anglo-Saxons, Lapps, and Romans. None of these are considered major parent races of common men, but perhaps combined they could reasonably account for a one sixteenth frequency of eye color.
 
Ancestral eye colors not found in common men: None.
 
Other eye colors not found in common men: Black, dark yellow, light yellow, emerald green, dark violet, light violet.
 
HAIR COLORS OF COMMON MEN
 
Black (20%): This widespread ancestral hair color is found in Greeks, Kimmerians, Picts (very rarely), Romans, and Yakuts.
 
Dark brown (10%): This hair color is found in Anglo-Saxons, Greeks, Romans, and Yakuts. None of these are considered major parent races, but I continue to speculate that Greeks are an unacknowledged major ancestor of common men, rendered invisible by their ubiquity.
 
Medium brown (10%): This hair color is found in Anglo-Saxons, Kelts, Lapps, and Yakuts.
 
Light brown (10%): This hair color is found in Anglo-Saxons, Kelts, and Lapps. Half of common men have either black or brown hair, which (combined with the fact that almost half have brown eyes) continues to suggest a considerable unacknowledged Greek ancestry to me.
 
Dark auburn (3%): This hair color is found in Anglo-Saxons, Kelts, and Lapps.
 
Medium auburn (3%): This hair color is found in Anglo-Saxons, Kelts, Lapps, and Picts.
 
Light auburn (4%): This hair color is also found in Anglo-Saxons, Kelts, Lapps, and Picts.
 
Dark red, medium red, and light red (2% each): These hair colors are found in Anglo-Saxons, Kelts, Lapps, and Vikings. Much of the brown to red hair in common men probably comes from Keltic ancestry, with some contribution from Picts and Vikings.
 
Dark blond (4%) – This hair color is found in Anglo-Saxons, Lapps, and Vikings.
 
Medium blond (15%) – This hair color is found in Lapps and Vikings.
 
Light blond (10%) – This hair color is also found in Lapps and Vikings.
 
White (5%) – Only Vikings have white hair. It’s likely that Viking ancestry is responsible for most of the blond hair seen in common men, along with a good portion of the red.
 
Ancestral hair colors not found in common men: Dark red-orange, medium red-orange, and light red-orange, all of which are found in Picts.
 
Other hair colors not found in common men: Blue-black, pale golden, rich golden, silvery-white.
 
COMPLEXIONS OF COMMON MEN
 
Olive: This widespread ancestral complexion is displayed by Greeks, Kimmerians, Lapps, Romans, and Yakuts.
 
Ruddy and fair: These extremely widespread ancestral complexions are displayed by all of the races considered ancestral to common men.
 
Note: All three complexions are equally likely.
 
Ancestral complexions not displayed by common men: Bronzed (displayed by Kimmerians, Lapps, and Yakuts) as well as tan and dusky (displayed only by Yakuts). I would speculate that these complexions are washed out to olive by the substantial lighter-complexioned portion of common ancestry. (It’s worth mentioning that, at one point in the evolution of the tables, common men had the same range as Kimmerians, meaning that fewer had fair complexions and some were bronzed. I ultimately changed this because it didn’t seem to accord with the fact that three of the four major ancestral races of common men were very fair-skinned.)
 
Other complexions not displayed by common men: Ebony, dark brown, medium brown, light brown, coppery, glaucous, jaundiced, milky-white, albino. Clearly the range of complexions typically seen in common men is not nearly as wide as the range of eye and hair colors.

Last edited by Blackadder23 (4/19/2024 1:01 pm)