Characters in Shadowrun can be humans, orks, trolls, elves and dwarves, as well as certain diverging subspecies (known as metavariants) such as gnomes, giants, minotaurs, etc. As magic returned to the world, Humans began to give birth to infants of these races, a phenomenon called Unexplained Genetic Expression, or "UGE" in 2011. Then in 2021, some juvenile and adult humans "goblinized" into other races (mostly orks, but also some trolls). The term metahuman is used either to refer to humanity as a whole, including all races, or to refer specifically to non-human races, depending on context. With the return of Haley's Comet, new human variants called "changelings" arose. While not as many people were affected by this change as the previous "Goblinizations", it was enough to spark new contr