Four millennia ago the world was nearly destroyed by a war the likes of which had never been seen. Continents were torn apart. Entire cities were wiped out in the blink of an eye. Elder gods battled across the world of Argan, nearly tearing it a sunder in their quest to vanquish their foes.
At the war’s climax both sides met in a titanic battle at the heart of what is now known as The Blasted Lands. That battle ended with an explosion that scoured the land clean of all life for thousands of miles.
Every Elder god present was killed by the explosion. This left their few mortal followers alone in a shattered world, where there only choice was to rebuild on the ashes of all that had come before.
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The Birth of the Catalysts
The force of the magical blast flung the corpses of the Elder gods to the far corners of the world. Even in death their bodies contained vast reserves of magical energy known as Life. When the mortal scions of the gods found their bodies they discovered a curious phenomenon.
Simply being in the presence of a god’s corpse granted them potent magical abilities. They dubbed these corpses Catalysts and named the process of gaining their powers Catalization.
Word of the fabulous powers quickly spread across the world, and before long kingdoms were vying for control of the Catalysts. Unfortunately they were not the only ones interested in controlling them.
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The Trolls
In the centuries leading up to the godswar the gods used their vast magical power to shape dozens of races. They competed endlessly to create the perfect progeny. Some valued violence. Others beauty. Regardless, each race was spawned from a common template.
This template was created specifically to be morphed into whatever form an Elder God wished. These templates were called trolls. In their untyped state trolls are short and hairless with pale grey skin.
As they feed on Life they begin to evolve, and over a period of years they will eventually mature into radically different races depending on what type of Life they ingest.
Humans, Elfen, Orokh and a host of other races were all shaped from trolls by the Elder Gods. At first these races required a constant infusion of Life to survive, something that irked the gods to no end. They desired their children to be independent of them, to be able to live without their constant attention.
This was finally accomplished when Reevanthara discovered a way for the races to procreate on their own. The races that accomplished this feat were said to have bred true.
They ceased to be trolls, no longer needing Life to survive. They’d finally become independent of their creators, and were now free to flourish and spread across the world. This process took centuries, and in some cases millennia to accomplish.
When the gods died millions of trolls were left without the divine guidance required to evolve. All they could do was gather at the corpses of their progenitors, worshipping them and trying to restore them to their former glory.
One of the phrases commonly uttered in Shattered Gods is ‘as sure as trolls’, because it is a virtual certainty that you will encounter them at a Catalyst. These trolls have been shaped both by their surroundings and by the unconscious will of the god they gather near, so the forms they evolve into can be as varied as your imagination.
This provides a great tool for Game Masters. Want to insert minotaurs? Lizardmen? Dark Elves? With trolls you can create any race you can imagine. Large parts of the west have been left intentionally vague so you can insert Catalysts of your creation, complete with troll races to worship them. This gives your player characters a never-ending source of adventure, allowing you to come up with quite literally any story you wish.
