Stock humans are the most common characters. They are like us in nearly every way, though they are perhaps somewhat hardier than the people of the modern Western world, and possess the same infinite potential. Despite the competition from other races, mutants in particular, stock humans may yet reclaim their position as the dominant species.
APPEARANCE
Nearly any combination of human features can be found among the communities of the Gamma World.
COMMUNITIES
Most stock humans form communities ranging in size from a few hundred to a few thousand individuals. Smaller communities exist, such as farmsteads, and plantations, and a few large cities dot the landscape. Given the ever-present dangers of the time, most human communities are walled and protected by some form of police force or militia. Community leaders are soldiers as often as they are politicians, and forms of government vary considerably. However, for every tight-fisted dictatorship or near-anarchist community, there are ten with effective, if imperfect, systems of government. Democratic representation, feudalism, and oligarchy are the three most common forms of government among Gamma World humans.
RELATIONS
Stock humans are the most numerous inhabitants of the Gamma World, and come into regular contact with not only one another but with the other genotypes as well. While opinions regarding pure-strain humans, mutants, and synthetics vary from community to community, and individual to individual, human nature provides some generalities. Stock-human and pure-strain human communities tend to have antagonistic or even adversarial relations. Stock humans find pure-strains to be aloof, elitist and insular, while pure-strains believe that stock humans have become somewhat less than human. Individuals and groups may establish trade deals and even form genuine friendships while still viewing all three of the other kind with suspicion.
Stock humans view mutants with varying degrees of fear, envy, and attraction. The more monstrous a mutant appears, the more fearful or violent the response; the opposite is true of unusually attractive mutants. Prolonged contact is the only common cure for this immediate bias; when mutants and humans live nearby, they often end up cooperating on common goals, once the shock of first contact wears off. Most mid-sized and larger communities in the Gamma World have mingled populations of stock humans and mutants, particularly in the lower echelons of society.
Many stock humans believe that because synthetics were built to serve—whether in war or sport or pleasure—they remain property. These people make no distinction between the intelligent, fully self-aware android and the mindless TrashBot3000. Even relatively unbiased, open-minded humans have difficulty grasping the idea that a machine can be a living, thinking entity with goals of its own. This is particularly true of synthetics that become spontaneously self-aware, since there may be many examples of the very same machine with no intelligence at all. Of course, some synthetics think as little, or less, of humans.
ALLEGIANCES
Stock humans tend to place families, friends, and community above other aspects of life, in that order. Faith and duty are often intricately tied to those three, and follow closely. Some individuals find strength in allegiance to certain philosophical ideals such as “good” or “evil”; many others put earthly matters such as wealth and pleasure in the forefront. Overall, stock humans of the Gamma World are as varied as humans have ever been, with allegiances influence by and shifting during their entire lives.
STOCK HUMAN RACIAL TRAITS
Abilities: Stock human characters get a +2 bonus to one ability score of the player’s choice at creation to represent their varied nature.
Size: Stock humans are Medium creatures and have no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Normal Speed: Stock humans have a base speed of 30 feet.
Bonus Feat: Stock humans gain a bonus feat at first level.
Skilled: Stock humans receive 1 extra skill rank every level.
