Santharian Development

Basically, I want to make the trolls of the Caaehl Mountains (http://santharia.com/places/caaehl_mountains.htm) into their own tribe. Too much time has passed and there's too much distance between them and the Kloighut trolls of the Troll Mountains to still consider them of the same tribe, imo.

I also want the chance at giving them a full tribe entry. Aaghut ("War Tribe") from the Trultrul vocab seems appropriate.

I would welcome more development on the Caael'heroth trolls, Vesk. When I was writing the entry for the mountains, I thought trolls would make an excellent addition in that area because those mountains are so untamed and rugged.

Without any active troll tribe devs at the time (*ahem* you!), I simply moved an entire tribe into a previously unknown area! So I hope that was alright.  ;)

I'm more than happy to revise the entry with any new information on the Aaghut, as well as any future development.  :clap2:

I'm not complaining! :P

It's just that I was working the Caael'heroth trolls into the Kloighut entry at first. It felt like cheating them, however, for them to only have what amounted to an honorable mention.

I overlooked the Third Sarvonian War (embarrassing to miss an entire war...) when I was deciding which tribes would be where.

Does the history of the trolls' arrival make sense? Any new entries on the trolls in Caaehl'heroth will need to take into account how they got there. I have several entries making mention of this and that, some of which contradict I'm sure  :P

They now live in old orcen ruins (the ancient orcs having been original tribes from Fá'áv'cál'âr). These original orcs came to call themselves the "Ah'Os'the'r'oc" and split into different clans, one of which is the current Osther'Oc.

Now the question! Were trolls original migrants from Fá'áv'cál'âr too? Or did they exist in the Caaehl from some other land and were subjugated by the dark elves?

Now that a troll expert is around, I can finally answer that question and settle some dev issues I've had for awhile.  :)

I'm working on the question off dialects or offshoots of the TRULTRUL spoken by the Kloighut, maybe this seventh tribe, in addition to the Ereghut Trolls might be two early offshoots of TRULTRUL, so that the language is somewhat alike but has some characteristic differences, probably related to the different types of body and surroundings. What do you think?

@Ishy: You're thinking forward instead of backward. The Kloighut would be an offshoot of this "new" tribe. The trolls of the Caaehl Mountains took part in the Third Sarvonian War as darkfriends, so perhaps Marghoghut ("Night Tribe") would be more appropriate for them. So, the Ghereghut (and their language) are an offshoot of the Kloighut. It's been about 1100 years since the split. In turn, the Kloighut would be an offshoot of the Marghoghut with about 2,000 years separating them.

The Kloighut would still be the easiest for a Santharian scholar to study. They exist in a kind of troll paradise (the Troll Mountains) so they remain a good example of a "typical" troll, as the Marghoghut retain their darkfriend roots and war against the Osther-Oc orcs.

The reasoning is simply that the Third Sarvonian War came first. The invasion of Santharia ended near the Troll Mountains. So, the split occurs when some trolls escape into the mountains whereas others are driven back alongside the dark elves and orcs. The Troll Mountains become a trollish paradise and all that the trolls learned from the dark elves is lost during the following 2,000 years.

@Azhira: No. Trolls never lived in Fá'áv'cál'âr. Instead of following the elves when the Tree of Life burned, the trolls opted to follow and trust their own kind instead. They settled in the Imlith Mountains, just to the north of Fá'áv'cál'âr. During the Great Sundering, the dark elves and orcs migrating north managed to subjugate some of the trolls. This incursion disturbed the remaining troll population, splintering them into different migratory groups.

So, basically.

Imlith trolls (splintered, no longer exists as a group) -> Marghoghut -> Kloighut -> Ghereghut
Imlith trolls -> Ighmeshut (snow trolls) -> Hameshut (ice trolls)
Imlith trolls -> Ighut (stone trolls)
Imlith trolls -> Niknikut (forest trolls)

It's worth mentioning that these details are mostly in my head, as a writer. The trolls are difficult in that they have no recorded history of their own. So, my job is to work with the existing histories of other races that mention them. There are just three places in the history where they're mentioned: the creation of the races, the Third Sarvonian War, and the Troll War. The trouble with the Third Sarvonian War is that the trolls are mentioned as darkfriends (which is not their typical religion). But, I like the idea of placing a tribe in the Caael Mountains and giving that tribe a former subjugation to dark elves, so they're easily incorporated into the war. The war also provides a vehicle to bring the trolls into Santharia and the opportunity to leave an offshoot tribe there.

So, no troll could state that his ancestors lived in the Imlith Mountains. Vesk the researcher couldn't say with certainty that the trolls once lived there. But, he might guess it from the trolls' oral history of being taken by the dark elves as they moved north.

Yeah, I suggest starting a timeline to keep it all straight because I'm still confused.  :buck:

Also check here on Jonael's revision (http://www.santharia.com/dev/index.php/topic,14947.0.html) for accuracy.

I'm not sure more than a rough timeline is possible for the trolls.

Written histories including them only happen when another race records that history. Since they've been mentioned only a few times in the history, the assumption is that they've largely been either isolated or reduced to very minor roles in events. Even the trolls only know their own history through oral tradition, so nothing is nailed down with exact dates. So, the basic and general assumptions that can be made...

Trolls created at Tree of Life
-> trolls migrate as a group when the Tree burns, sticking only to their own kind (assumed from their spoken myth about their creation)
-> trolls settle in a mountainous, otherwise unoccupied area (assumed to be the Imlith Mountains)
-> dark elves subjugate some of the trolls as the dark elves migrate north from Fá'áv'cál'âr (this part will have to be supported by Marghoghut oral tradition... unless someone's willing to let me dabble in the dark elf history and add it there)
-> the rest of the troll settlement splinters with this invasion, creating three different migratory groups (they later become the snow trolls, the forest trolls, and the stone trolls)
-> at some point, the snow trolls splinter further, some of them becoming ice trolls (Cyhalloi is fairly underdeveloped, so the when is shaky atm)
-> the trolls taken north by the dark elves are enslaved by them, they become the Marghoghut
-> the Marghoghut take part in the Third Sarvonian War
-> with the defeat of the dark elves, most of the Marghoghut are driven back into Northern Sarvonia
-> a few escape into the Troll Mountains however, becoming the Kloighut
-> the Gob-Oc emerge from tunnels in the Troll Mountains during the Troll War
-> the trolls that take part in the war are mostly driven into tunnels alongside the goblins and later become the Ghereghut when the tunnels are opened in the Tandalas decades later

See? None of that is confusing...

Thank you for pointing out Jonael's revision to me. It doesn't change anything historically for the trolls. The Kloighut and Ghereghut shouldn't be mentioned as living together in the entry... but that's a comment to be made on the actual entry when he finishes it.

Again, this stuff isn't exactly set in stone. I'm considered the troll expert mostly because they let me take over writing them.

Any comments are welcome. There shouldn't be anything in the histories of other races that contradicts what I've in mind for the origins of the trolls, but it's always possible that I'm overlooking something.

Should I add Ice Trolls into the races of Cyhalloi, then? I had thought it was snow trolls there, though.

Cyhalloi has both Ice Trolls and Snow Trolls.

One school of thought is that the Ice Trolls are an offshoot of the Snow Trolls, while the other is that Ice Trolls are a different kind of beast entirely and only resemble trolls.

You shouldn't need exact dates right now. A general timeline of events from a developer stand point is a good start.  :thumbup: The troll race is an important one and impacts many Northern tribes, so this is a good foundation already.

-> Are you keeping the Aaghut name for the Caaehl clans? It's already been uploaded in the new map description  :cool:

-> Nothing you have contradicts as far as I know. The only reason I am actively watching this is because you are working trolls up in my area of development (which is awesome!)

-> Why couldn't Ice trolls and Snow trolls be combined into a single race? This would eliminate confusion with an overabundance of troll tribes. And the Ice troll descriptions are so vague, they seem like an after thought and wouldn't really be missed if they were absorbed into the Snow trolls.

Another idea! Azzy and Athviaro's long lost Ice Biter monster. (http://www.santharia.com/dev/index.php/topic,14595.0.html) Would be a perfect fit, and territory could be changed easily.

You make a good point about the ice trolls. They exist purely because the six tribes (as they stand on the site atm) were already created when I took over developing the trolls. But, the only mention of them on the site would be the troll entry itself. It's a good idea to remove them entirely. There's no need even to combine them with snow trolls... ice trolls were basically just pseudo polar bears. The ice biter doesn't even need to be adjusted to take the place of the ice trolls, as no holes are left by the removal of the trolls.

No, not Aaghut. I'm sorry, that was just my original rough idea for a name. I've been reading up more on the Third Sarvonian War. The trolls are mentioned among the darkfriends (which is problematic, the trolls have an ancestor belief, not a belief in Coor). But, the solution I see is to have the trolls that are subjugated by the dark elves to be converted by them as well (probably with a simpler view of their belief). So, Marghoghut ("Night Tribe") is the new name.

But, don't hold me to a name just yet. I'd like Ishy's input on it. I'm just going from the existing troll vocab... whereas he's the one that created the language. If I'm reading it right (no guarantee of that), then the troll word for night has to do with the death of the sun/day, which makes it fitting for worshipers of Coor (thinking they won't worship the god so much as they will the idea of destruction).

I'm working on more Trollish vocabulary as we speak!  :thumbup: :cool:

I think Marghoghut would be appropiate yes; you read the entry correct that MARGHOGH at least has the death/die! part MARGH in it. The -OGH part is as of yet untranslatable, but looking at the other words it might: 

a. have a feminin quality to it (cf. MOGH = feminin, femaleness). Maybe something like 'Lady Death' would be a terrible poetic human translation which would make trolls puke in distate, but it approaches the semantic load a little bit. 

b. be a further developped form of an early MARGHGHRUAGH "death fire/light" > MARGHRUAGH > MARGHROGH > MARGHOGH. I actually like this possibility better than a. as it hints both at the heritage of the troll language (i.e. it has had a history of sound change and historical simplification due to next to impossible consonant-clusters, GHGH > GH) and it describes better the idea of night as being the absence of light/fire.

I'm game for both interpretations, although I like the second one better. :)