Gathering of the Titans: The Tol Chronicles Book 2

by Robert G. Ferrell

  The rapid rotation, dramatic temperature differences, and high winds aloft also create extremely active oceanic currents that are capable of carrying an unpowered vessel along in excess of thirty knots. Moreover, two major currents, the Arctal and Austral, reverse themselves about every six months for the return trip. This makes for an efficient transportation conduit that allowed for the early development of trade routes supporting quite sophisticated civilizations. These early societies were composed of numerous races: goblins, gnomes, elves, dwarves, hobgoblins, bugbears, kobolds, ogres, and trolls chief among them—with isolated populations of gnarlignomes, titans, and orcs—and each experienced its own rich mythopoesis.

  Sociography and Anamorphology

  The races of N’plork all evolved, scholars believe, from a distant common ancestor and developed their particular morphologies in response to the demands of the environments in which they lived. As a result of this ancestral commonality each can theoretically hybridize with the others, although the only relatively common such interracial assignations seem to involve ogres, trolls, and goblins. Half-trolls and half-ogres are still somewhat rare in the general population, but in certain densely urban areas of Goblinopolis (Tragacanth), Aspolia (Solemadrina), and Uzplenq (Nerr), they are not an uncommon sight.

  N’plork as a planet is subject to dramatic geological and meteorological phenomena on a regular basis. Combine this with the active intellects possessed by all N’plorkian races and the stage is set for the development of quite robust mythologies, which are as varied and multifaceted as the races themselves.

  In order to understand more fully the basis for mythogenesis on N’plork it is necessary first to establish the mechanism by which the races evolved. As mentioned earlier, all sentient races on N’plork can trace their lineage to a single ancestor in the dim past, during the era scholars refer to as the Protocene. It is presently unknown where the bipedal form first emerged on N’plork; there is some archaeological evidence to suggest that the heavily forested areas of Tantatku, Turmia are a prime candidate. The woodland edges grade into grasslands dotted with treed hillocks, which scholars generally agree are the ideal conditions for bipedal evolution. There were myriad species of both vegetation and small animals here in great abundance, access to which as food sources and subsequent increase in reproductive success was presumably somehow enhanced by assumption of the bipedal stance.

  At some point during the late Protocene the great migrations began, as the tribes of paleocestors (pre-differentiated bipeds) began to disperse across the continents. There are two competing schools of thought concerning the impetus for this relatively sudden expansionism: one holds that food supplies were dwindling in the area and dispersal was an attempt to find new hunting grounds; the other contends that, on the contrary, food supplies were so abundant that paleocestor numbers exploded, leaving intolerably high population density as the driving force for dispersal.

  Whatever the reason, the evidence for dispersion is quite clear, as there are tantalizing artifacts from numerous camps established over the next thousand years in ever-widening concentric circles with Tantatku at the center. Precisely when the anatomical divergences began is also a point of contention, but the general consensus is that the original populations dispersed into four or more geographic locations with distinctly different requirements for survival and reproductive success. It is likely that the first mariners were the group who developed into goblins, as their artifacts begin to show up on Bazgush about a thousand years after the putative primary dispersion event (PDE).

  Eventually all four continents were inhabited, with the goblins dominating Bazgush and then northern Esmia. Gnomes had a small presence on Bazgush as well, but the epicenter of ancient gnome culture was on Turmia, in the region that became known as Solemadrina. About 300 years after the goblin migration to Tragacanth in northern Esmia, estimated at approximately 4,200 years ago, the gnomes followed and established colonies in what was to become Galanga, which occupies the central land mass of Esmia.

  Hobgoblins and kobolds were never very numerous; they thrived primarily in manual labor niches—occupations generally ignored by the goblins and gnomes—such as fisheries, mines, timber-cutting, and produce harvesting. They were centered in two small clusters: one in Spleroste, Litria, and the other on Turmia, in the dense tropical forests of Rublosq. As with almost all the other races, they eventually established themselves on every continent and nation of N’plork.

  Dwarves are quite a minority in the modern era, although ample evidence exists to suggest that they were far more common a few millennia previous. Though they have a reputation for being gruff and somewhat combative among strangers, within their family and social units they are kind, hospitable to a fault, and more inclined to laughter than argument. Dwarves are short in stature but exceedingly strong, with almost supernatural endurance. They live for the most part in forested areas, where their oral and written histories tell of massive complexes crafted from the living trees themselves, although little proof of these is known, at least to non-dwarven scholars. Legends tell of an ancient alliance between dwarves and forest titans; again there are no known historical records concerning this.

  Gnarlignomes are something of a mystery to anamorphologists, the scholars who study the races and their development. They have many of the physical characteristics of gnomes, but are smaller and significantly less cerebral. There are theories that the gnarlignomes are all descended from one isolated polymutant gnome cluster in Tantatku or Rublosq, but insufficient corroborating evidence has been discovered to solidify these claims. Socially gnarlignomes tend to be loners, or to live in small, distinctly monoracial communities.

  Trolls and titans are most likely related, with titans being essentially giantized trolls. There is only one race of titans, genetically, but they tended to be named by local populations according to their preferred habitats: rock, sea, forest, or canyon. There is some evidence to suggest that a fifth group, storm titans, exist or once existed, but the references are all purely anecdotal. Titans with high-quality food resources in their habitats could exceed four meters in height (there is one set of bones that seems to have been from a storm titan over five meters tall, but scholars haven’t totally accepted the legitimacy of that finding as of this writing). Modern trolls range from two and a half to just under three meters. They are intelligent to a point, but do not tend to be independently creative. Once you have earned their loyalty, however, they are extremely diligent in carrying out assigned tasks, even relatively complex ones.

  Trolls are obviously suited for the heaviest of labor, and often find themselves in demand at construction sites and any other venue where immense strength is a benefit. One of the most striking of all attributes of troll society is their universal devotion to the truth. Trolls do not lie. If they find themselves in a situation where telling the truth might endanger someone, they simply say nothing at all. A troll who does not want to talk is not going to talk, and anyone who thinks differently will discover how deeply ingrained this reticence is.

  Ogres are probably a subgroup of trolls with smaller morphology, although genetic evidence suggests that there may be goblin and even hobgoblin blood intermixed. Whatever the case, ogres are wont to be crude and somewhat lugubrious. They often react to stressful situations with violence and as such are frequently shunned by the races who consider themselves more civilized. Ogres are tribal and live in loosely-structured enclaves, usually in fairly isolated areas, although a few groups have adapted to urban life with varying degrees of success. They possess, as a race, traits that often make them successful criminals, although they are not necessarily of criminal aspect by nature.

  Orcs are the wildcard in N’plorkian anamorphology. They resemble no other race phenotypically, yet show genotypic similarities to both elves and goblins. They seem to be congenitally bipolar, as an orc can go from calmly genial to insanely, murderously aggressive in the time it takes to draw a breath. This unpredictability, combined
with their militaristic tendencies, resulted in a protracted war between the orcs and everyone else they came in contact with, with the eventual result that they were virtually eradicated as a race. The paltry number of survivors were confined to a few scattered reservations that for many years were little more than concentration camps.

  As time passed the concertina wire came down and the guard towers were abandoned, but any perceived movement of a group of orcs (i.e., three or more) much beyond their established territory was nevertheless treated with swift and decisive interdiction. Orcs were ostracized in mainstream society because no one trusted them, and for good reason. A very few had managed to keep their explosive aggressive tendencies under control and live on the fringes of populated areas, but even after many years there they were still treated with some suspicion.

  Elves are a racial anomaly. Unlike all the other peoples, they do not appear to have experienced any significant evolutionary changes in the fossil records of N’plork. The earliest appearance of their artifacts is in the very late Protocene, and this record begins quite abruptly. There are theories—considered by most of the established scholastic community to be somewhat crackpot—that the elvish race may be descended from alien colonists, but their genetic similarity to the other races militates against that. However, explaining their sudden appearance in the fossil record is problematic, to the point that an entire sub-branch of archaeoanamorphology, Elven Protohistory, sprang up devoted to the subject.

  Interestingly, most of the Elven Protohistory researchers are not of the elvish race. The elves themselves seem curiously reluctant to talk about the distant past of their kind, although relating their chronicled history is quite another matter. They are quite accomplished historians as a race and keep meticulous journals of even their most mundane activities. Most elvish children can recite detailed life stories of a dozen heroes or more.

  The Dawn of Magic

  Somewhere between 500 and 1000 years after the PDE, a small group of early goblin parasciencers (pre-mages) who had migrated to the eastern coast of what eventually became Tragacanth were successful in establishing a link to the vast pool of hitherto unknown extradimensional energy they named, in Protogoblish, Ta’slizh’I or ‘energy source.’ Over time this name evolved into The Slice.

  Precisely how they managed this connection, or discovered the existence of The Slice itself, is one of the central unsolved questions of the History of Magic and has been the subject of no fewer than thirty-one disquisitions submitted to CoME by supplicants for the rarified accolade of Doctor of Apotropaic Arts. The parasciencers kept meticulous notes concerning everything they did with the exception of the actual event that resulted in first contact with The Slice. On that topic they are strangely and uncharacteristically silent, almost as though they were fearful or otherwise reluctant to chronicle it, although one reference does exist to something or someplace known as Qillopot. Its significance is unknown.

  A scant two years after discovering The Slice, they had created the twenty-four Specula Arcanis Majoris and begun the process of enchanting them with inviolability spells, some of the strongest magic known even to this day. How they went from passive researchers speculating on the very existence of magic to masters of exceedingly powerful magic in this ridiculously short time is quite difficult to grasp; despite several hypotheses set forth over the ages no substantially workable theory has emerged. All that is really known is that they experienced some dramatic episode of enlightenment.

  Once the Specula were in place the practice of magic began to spread: slowly at first, but then accelerating rapidly. By the third generation following discovery and connection with The Slice (an event referred to simply as the Inception), there were mages and societies devoted to magic use on every continent of N’plork. The first goblin to take the title of ‘Archmage’ was Bazmura, who lived over a thousand years after the Inception. If the Society of Sages and Mages in truth possesses any records pertaining to the earliest days of magic on N’plork (they claim they do not), they have not shared them with CoME or either of the principal organizations dedicated to researching and preserving the histories of magic and technology.

  Deities and Pantheons

  Goblins are somewhat ambiguous from a spirituality standpoint. They have a basic belief in the supernatural, but as with most sentients who have a scholarly class, that belief is tempered by skepticism about the presence of any power or entity that cannot be experienced using one of the fundamental six senses. The pantheon of Goblin deities consists primarily of Plegma, the All-Goblin or Almighty, Gammag Palindromia, the god of truth, meditation, and justice, and Mordik, the god of fertility, childbirth, and relationships. There are other minor deities worshipped by scattered cults, such as Hork, the goddess of ridicule, and Grund, the patron deity of orators, but the big three draw the overwhelming majority of goblin religious rites. It is somewhat relevant to note that goblin deities have no set gender, and may be prayed to using any pronoun one wishes, including the decidedly impersonal.

  Hobgoblins tend toward functional atheism, as devoting themselves to any goal but self-aggrandizement runs contrary to their nature as a race. There is a pantheon ascribed to ancient hobgoblin society, but the only deities that have survived to this day are T’jeld, the god of stealth and thievery, and Kleska, the goddess of luck and gamblers. Worship of these holdovers is concentrated in a very small priestly class who operate more like bookies than spiritual leaders. For a sliding scale fee they will intervene with the gods on behalf of an applicant, but no promises of success are given. You roll the dice with god in Hobgoblin society, as you do with every other aspect of their culture.

  Elves subscribe to a complex, deeply interwoven belief system that is based on the principle of Zar’bux, or concentric layers of spiritual growth. Progressing through these layers of self- awareness and improvement requires meditation, control over both the physical and mental bodies, and copious quantities of a drink called k’ppajeau (known to goblins as Aylis Tea) made from boiling the dried leaves of the Red-tipped Lysergia, a shrub found natively along semi-arid streambeds in Nerr, although it now was raised in vast greenhouses on every continent. Elves begin their spiritual journeys at the age of twenty, about five years before they reach sexual maturity. They spend two hours a day in meditation, preceded and followed by a large bowl of k’ppajeau.

  As Elves progress through the spiritual levels, they are expected to worship different entities (they aren’t really classified as ‘gods’ in the traditional sense) who represent stages along the continuum to mastery of the living soul. Primulat oversees the bottom rung, Precept. Most elves traverse Precept in two to four years, depending on their natural abilities and the level of support from their familial environment. Upon completion they are allowed to use the title Prellus.

  The next level is Procept, ruled by Sofricia the Beneficent. The upper boundary of this stage is as far along the path as most adult elves choose to travel. Those who have mastered Procept are considered fully mature and ready to lead lives of quiet contemplation and doing good works. Successful students take the title Mellus.

  The third level is Concept, under the protection of Belfragos the Blind. During this phase of the journey, students must look only within themselves; the outside world ceases to exist for them. They are brought their meals and do not leave their small, windowless cells. For this reason, and because attainment can take as long as twenty years, only priests and those who seek high levels of spiritual enlightenment for other reasons will customarily enter into Concept. On average ten to fifteen students per year are admitted into the stage; of these only three or four will complete the training. Those who attain all aspects of Concept are addressed as Stellus.

  There is a rarified fourth level, Transept, which has no patron deity. Stella who enter into Transept will serve as their own instructors and spiritual guides. They shed all possessions except a hooded robe and a walking stick they harvest and carve from a tree that grows only above ten tho
usand meters on two adjacent peaks in the Folmnissi Mountains of Turmia. Once they get their breath back, they then wander N’plork as beggars, meditating all the while. The Transeptian Pilgrimage, as it is called, may take the entirety of a candidate’s life to complete, if indeed it is completed at all. Those vanishingly few who do complete Transept are designated Elevatus and treated as demi-gods. As of this writing there are only three known living Elevata. None of them are able to walk very far on their own.

  Dwarves are ‘reformed monotheists’ in that they once worshipped the god Acerbicon as a race, but after mass prayer failed to halt an epidemic that virtually wiped that race from the face of N’plork, the survivors turned their back on their deity and became confirmed agnostics. Now they get up on worship day and play ‘Supplicate This,’ a game involving hitting the many statues and stone murals of Acerbicon with as large a rock as possible while cheering and jeering. It does not seem to have brought about any further mishap to them. If Acerbicon exists and is watching, he may in fact be entertained by the ritual.

  Gnome spirituality is not easily understood by outsiders. To the other races agnosticism, or rather strict antitheism seems to be an instinctive gnome behavior, but that is driven more by privacy than theology. Gnome domestic life can in fact be fraught with spiritual content, but is of a type that manifests in myriad superstition- like activities that are easily overlooked or misinterpreted by the unindoctrinated. Instead of formal worship rituals, for example, gnomes leave food, drink, and used (‘blessed’) containers for their domestic deities on designated altars called t’Vtraiz. To casual observers this simply looks like sloppy housekeeping. Gnomes invoke their deities by name only when agitated, ecstatic, or grieving. Unfortunately, researchers have been unable to make out what is being uttered on these occasions and so that aspect of gnome culture is still unknown to the rest of society. It may be that no one has thought simply to ask them. Gnomes can be rather terse when they think you are being too personal, which is almost always.