Something to think about with the Elder Races – memory. The green and brown elves live 200 to 300 years, and dryads even longer. There are plenty of elderly elves who remember the Inhuman Occupation and when the Orlanthi settlers first returned to Dragon Pass. The political squabbles of human groups means little to them. Who can really distinguish between those humans that follow the Red Moon and those of Sartar Dwarffriend?
Although dark trolls only live a little longer than humans, Mistress Race Trolls are immortal. Most Mistress Race Trolls were born in Wonderhome, before the Dawn. The race was already diminishing in the First Age before the Curse of Kin. Arkat and his companions were the last MIstress Race Trolls born in Time, until recently.
That means the Mistress Race make the Antediluvians from Vampire games look like spring chickens. Some are many thousands of years old. They barely recognize the dark trolls as their descendants – the trollkin are hated mockeries. The Mistress Race remember Osentalka! They remember the Broken Council! They remember the betrayal of the dwarves and elves, the fickleness of the dragonewts.
But the prize goes to the dwarfs. They are all immortal, unless they deviate from their function. But most dwarfs have no interest at all in human society and cannot tell one human from another. If the price is right, they will work for whoever, but that price is always very high. And all of the remaining True Mostali (like The Dwarf) are from the Godtime and predate the dwarves. And the Mistress Race.
This personal recollection of history and mythic events makes the Elder Races societies quite different from humans. Some of the Mistress Race recall the Lesser Darkness and survived the Greater Darkness.Even the elves are far more longer lived than any human society ever (including our own). And some elves have been replanted or reseeded, and recall events from the Second or even First Age.But this memory also means that old feuds and betrayal are not forgotten. Humans are a secondary concern – the other Elder Races are existential threats.
Elves generally live 200 to 300 years.
A Mistress Race Troll should be a terrifying encounter – likely to occur only in the deepest Darkness of a troll stronghold. She is a dark, rumbling thing, constantly hungry, utterly without mercy, and those with Second Sight will wish they did not. Sure she has dozens of Rune points but most have also wrested strange powers from gods and spirits. Your human tribe, kingdom, or empire is irrelevant to her, unless she learns that it is tied to something she experienced and still cares about.
MOB – “Arkat and his companions were the last Mistress Race Trolls born in Time, until recently.” A lot to unpack in that sentence!
