From then until never

Part 2, Trolls

"Older is always better"
-Non-Stonic Trolls

In the age of something, the first Troll evolved from an ingenious rock, becoming the first sapient being living on the back of the dead Afreet Huom. This first Troll, known as the General Troll, became an Afreet in hän's own right after being adopted by the god Sidem.

The Troll race was created by this first Troll, something the demi-god would come to regret with acceptance. The Trolls multiplied through the ritual of returning to the stone, a part of Stonicism philosophy. If done right a fully formed Troll would sprout from the ground of the sandstone desert that was once Huom's single eye.

With the first core race, unofficially, also came the two first peoples, philosophers and sorcerers. This is not accepted particularly by sorcerers of other races, but also no by some philosophers. Extra surprising perhaps since as a core race some of the sentient races, Giants, Humans, and Dwarfs, are all direct descendants of Trolls. That the Trolls separated into these two peoples was a fairly surprising. Considering that a Troll heart, an ingenious rock, was to some degree resistant to both magick and philosophy.

Less surprising was the unified separation into Trolls and Sea-Trolls. Technically, they were living rocks. As such, they had no need to breath like other races. They were also very resilient to shifts in temperature, as long as its not to quick, which can make them crack. Combine this with their resilience to changes in pressure, they are comfortable living on land or under the sea. Anywhere that was once the single eye of the dead Afreet Huom.

What made the General Troll retreat into exile on top of a sandstone cliff was the neophobic attitude of all Trolls. They weren't exactly afraid of new things, just overly resistant. Something the Afreet found deeply disappointing and not at all in line with the Stonicism ideal of quiet acceptance. I wasn't just resistance of the new. Once something was accepted as being old enough, those same Trolls would argue it had to stay the same forever.

In the age of solitude the General Troll went into exile to 'think things through' and has since worn down a number of giant sandstone cliffs in hän's quest for ideal Stonicism, ideal inactivity. However, for a brief time in the age of displacement hän was conscious long enough to tell the Stonics to help a runaway from the Zig-Zig prison in Zenon.

Until the conflict of thinking that led to two new philosophies, Ystin and Hubad, all Trolls went by the pronoun hän. Since they sprouted out of the ground and were completely sexless none of them had ever considered it could be any other way. Nevertheless, with the General Troll in exile, some of the leaderless Stonics started coming up with all sorts of ideas, and the conflict of thinking was a big one. It started the third age of solitude. In time these two ideas splintered from each other so much that two sexes were created.

The regular Trolls resisted in the beginning. Still, once the genders became old it was considered standard. Still, all Trolls can feel the nagging sensation of a unity lost, and some have been looking for a way to put the sexes back in the bottle ever since.

Eventually, all Troll philosophers return to the stone — a philosophical practise that was the essence of Stonicism — sometimes they came back rejuvenated. Some came back with the old gender hän. Some created new Trolls. Some just went into the ground and never came back. These and many more are different methods of returning to the stone. Only the General Troll knew all the methods and hän was no longer willing to teach them.

Over time almost all the methods were lost, the ones they never lost was how to make new Trolls and how to die. Eventually some Stonics started rediscovering some of the old methods. Like becoming a hän. The sexes worked well for the new races who had never known anything different, but the Stonic Trolls wanted to once again become hän. An ideal they can only achieve through the dedication of several lifetimes.