The Exodus from Homeworld

The Exodus from Homeworld
Early in the rise of human civilization, several other races of Homeworld—including the elves, dwarves, dragons, genies and giants—recognized that this race, with its short lives but rapid count of generations, could overrun life on that planet. For that reason, having learned of and even practiced aetherial travel, those others decided to start new colonies in other locations. Detailed below are some of the most notable examples.

• Elves built bigger and bigger aetherships, exploring first the moons of Thunar and Kronos, and eventually exploring beyond the limits of the Sol System. Using their arkships they transported animal life with which to craft new ecosystems, too. Currently their most notable settlement is Starfort Station on Eceladus.
• Dwarves developed small vessels that they could use to tow asteroids as mobile mining and smithing facilities, and thus began to explore the valuable ores of the Belt.
• The giants used stolen ships and teams of slaves to build new strongholds on the planet Wodan, staying to the regions on the boundary between intolerable heat and extreme cold, but using groundling aetherships drawn by beasts of burden to explore other areas.
• Using their magic, the genies began carving dwellings from the floating rock islands of the planet Freya.
• Finally, the dragons found a new world to settle as their own, via their exploration of the strange tunnel-like disturbances that would come to be known as wyrmholes. It should also be noted that they took various tribes of kobolds with them, along with dragon-blooded humanoids (particularly sorcerers) and half-dragon spawned creatures.

Not all the races of Homeworld departed, of course.

• For the most part, the various humanoid races—goblins, orcs, hobgoblins and the like—were left behind because other races would not share with them the secrets of constructing and utilizing aetherships.
• The drakes, being less intelligent and powerful, and thus not so ambitious as other types of dragons, did not depart, but instead stepped into some of the positions vacated by their distant and disappearing kin. 
• Eastern dragons, on the other hand, chose not to leave because they have a different type of interaction with people in that part of Homeworld from that of their relations in the west.
• The gnomes were split into two separate factions, those who retreated into the wild, fey regions of Homeworld, and those who wished to stay closer to human society due to their fascination with emerging technological developments.
• Halflings chose to stay close to human society, too, since they feel pretty comfortable in it.
• Certain offshoots of races that had grown accustomed to living deep underground—such as the duergar, derro and svirfneblin—also missed out on chances to leave Homeworld, but due to their distance from civilized society also did not wish to emigrate.
• The same goes for underwater races such as the merfolk, locathah and sahuagin, which could go about their lives with little danger of disruption.
• Some types of creatures, especially undead, choose to continue residing on Homeworld in secret—but one can only imagine the terrible possibilities if they should ever seek to create new colonies of their own on other planets or in deep space.