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Regarding the Half-Krolvin
 Drawn
from the collected libraries of Illistim by:
Meachreasim Illistim, First Master of Lore
First Published: 15 Jastatos of the year 5103
Modern Era
The Isle of
Glaoveln, located somewhere in the arctic waters
far west of the trading post of Pinefar, is inhabited by
a large faction of Krolvin. The Krolvin are a barbaric, militaristic
people. Frequent raids to other parts of Elanthia bring in
slaves, foodstuffs and other bounty, upon which the Krolvin
people survive. Krolvin have no actual government and are
not generally ruled by any specific individuals.
The more prosperous Krolvin are the ones who own the most
slaves, return from raids with the most bounty or kill the
most people. One such Krolvin, known as Krintaur, owned his
own ship and many slaves. He also had quite a large following
of other Krolvin, since he'd proven himself to be extremely
dangerous to rival ship owners as well as being savagely fierce
in battle raids. Krintaur was also known for being fiercely
ambitious and slightly more adept at thinking than the average
Krolvin.
Geographica of the Isle of Glaoveln
(the Birthplace)
Landscape
Surrounding the military stronghold of Glaoveln are pristine
beaches and rocky cliffs, starkly black and white. The landscape
is tinged with a hint of steely blue-grey reflecting from
the icy waters surrounding the island. Only the occasional
rotting corpse and other debris of war mar the short expanse
of rocky beach. Fairly well-maintained watchtowers preside
over slaver-ships and warships of the mercenary navy. Krolvin
soldiers occupy the watchtowers, their beady eyes scanning
the horizon for invaders from the sea. Deadly catapults guard
the ships and ports, manned by Krolvin soldiers, their ammunition
stocked by slaves.
Ice formations cling to the cliffs and rocky beaches of this
foreboding isle, the temperature obviously unfit for tropical
beings. The Krolvin occupants, their grayish-blue skin blending
into the surrounding frozen terrain, appear oblivious to the
cold. Not so for the many slaves inhabiting the island, their
freezing forms wrapped with mismatched layers of cloth and
poorly tanned fur.
Rocky beaches, covered in ice and snow, give way to a ring
of thick forestation. Icicles hang from the branches of the
trees like stalactites in a frozen cave, ever ready to impale
an unfortunate adventurer. The forest is deathly silent, though
definitely not uninhabited. It forms a sound-muffling barrier
to the inner island and a perfect trap for invaders, as evidenced
by the weather-beaten arrows of past incursions protruding
from the snow and trunks of trees.
As the forest thins out, wild fields of hay and crude wooden
pens holding ragged, but hearty livestock comprise the landscape.
A multitude of slaves completely covered from head to toe
against the cold, attend to the animals for their Krolvin
masters. Krolvin guards, their thick, blue-white hair blowing
in the freezing wind, patrol the roads leading into the fortified
city.
The walls of the city are constructed of layers of rough
stone from the rocky island itself. Slaves can be seen hauling
rock to the outer walls for repair, their Krolvin masters
cracking their whips and grunting their guttural language
loudly at them. Krolvin soldiers patrol the battlements and
gates into the city proper.
 The
City of Glaeve
The Isle of Glaoveln is not large enough to support a truly
sprawling population. As a result there was never a need for
the population to spread beyond one main city that is used
as a location for trade and commerce. This central city goes
by the name of Glaeve.
What could be called a city square serves the market area
for the majority of Krolvin trade, including the slave market
that provides the laborers upon which the Krolvin existence
relies. A large, primitive platform in the middle of the square
is used to display slaves for sale as well as serving as the
site of countless executions. Surrounding the square are ragged
tents and stalls offering goods for sale or trade.
Beyond the market area are crude stone dwellings. Most of
these larger homes are occupied by those who most likely owned
enough slaves get them built as well as the current leaders
of the groups bringing in the most booty from raids or other
mercenary activities. Circling away from the square down dirt-filled
alleyways are smaller cave-like homes, taverns, inns, and
other buildings, their shapes all blending together into the
characteristically short, blunt shapes of Krolvin architecture.
Each of the buildings boasts little to distinguish it from
its neighbor beyond the occasional hanging sign -- the
buildings have no trim or facing, no paint or carving. No
bright flowers or hearty plants enliven the small plots of
snow-swept ground that each building squats upon.
The city square bustles with Krolvin traders, soldiers, mercenaries
and slaves. The slave trade and near prosperity of the island
increases as Krolvin ships bring in more and more slaves captured
in their many successful raids upon the peoples of Elanthia.
The Typical Krolvin Dwelling
Crude and strong, sums up Krolvin architecture as displayed
on the Isle of Glaoveln. As a warring, barbaric people, solid
construction proves necessary for survival and the natural
rock of the Island, is extremely useful for this purpose.
Dwellings were built with more of an eye to
defense and protection than any other purpose. Towers, if
they existed at all, were built as lookouts and a high ground
for archers -- not for the potential ornamentation to
the structure they might present. Most Krolvin architecture
was primarily built on the square or rectangle, as these shapes
made the most use of available land and building materials.
Ornamentation on rooflines or gateposts or walls was simply
not present, after all, something that frivolous could obscure
a guard's view or give an opponent a potential handhold.
The larger rock dwellings were built haphazardly around the
market area with the outermost buildings inhabited by average
soldiers, sailors and workers of the slave and ship owners.
Crude rock storage buildings were also interspersed within
the other buildings for holding weapons, food and other spoils
of war. It is said that tunnels were also built beneath the
more prosperous Krolvin dwellings which held stockpiles of
supplies against siege as well as their more precious items
stolen in raids, such as gems or silvers. Krintaur was one
such Krolvin who had built a series of cellar-like rooms beneath
his dwelling. Explorations into the cellars beneath Krintaur's
home revealed that his cellars extended nearly to the outer
walls of the city. Holding pens and cells provided evidence
that these cellars were used for other purposes than just
storage.
The Breeding of the Half-Krolvin
 The
beginnings of Half-Krolvins, as a race, dates back to around
4050 M.E., just after the Krolvin flotilla began military
aggression against River's Rest. As slaves, captured in raids
and brought back to the Krolvin home island of Glaoveln, became
more and more common, startling discoveries came to light.
Certain Krolvin began to use captured females of predominantly
human descent as concubines and inevitably, the first of many
half-breed children were born. Human slave women produced
half-breed children to their Krolvin masters with little more
difficulty than a regular pregnancy and delivery posed. Giantman
women were captured rarely, but of those few captives, it
seemed they too could occasionally bear children to the Krolvin
with little more danger to their health than bearing a child
to a Giantman man posed in the ordinary course of things.
Although elven women were captured as well, they did not
last long once they were forced into the bed of a Krolvin.
Apparently, though the elven women became pregnant shockingly
quickly (the mix of Krolvin and elf was extremely likely to
result in conception) the pregnancies led to certain death
or permanent barrenness for the elven women. Around the fourth
or fifth month of pregnancy the elven maids would miscarry
a hugely developed and terribly disfigured child. In most
cases, the miscarriage would mean the end of the elven maid's
life, and if they survived the miscarriage, without fail they
were barren from then on.
Halfling slaves subjected to these violations did not survive
even as long as the elven women, their bodies rejected the
Krolvin spawn violently, ending the unfortunate halfling's
life shortly after any conception occurred.
Contrarily, those of Dwarven stock did not seem to suffer
any of the dangers the elven and halfling women faced. Throughout
all the verbal lore of those taken captive by the Krolvin,
there is not a single mention of any Dwarven maid being impregnated
by a Krolvin -- it would seem that Dwarf and Krolvin
are completely unable to reproduce together.
The Krolvin slaver, Krintaur was apparently more capable
than the average Krolvin occupying Glaoveln. He kept notes,
and in one passage of those notes was the story of one of
the lower ranking Krolvin guards, a promising young Krol by
the name of Tryagke, who became secretly involved with a Dwarven
woman who went by the name Marleynta. Marleynta was captured
along with many others from her village, as well as her two
children she had borne to a Dwarven husband. The relationship
was apparently a love match on both sides, one of those hopeless
romances doomed to a sad end. Krintaur notes that he watched
the couple's entanglement from afar, allowing it to
continue to see if the relationship would bear fruit. There
is no record of a child being born of this union, though Krintaur's
notes indicate that Tryagke had sired several bastard children
on human slaves. From this evidence, as well as the failure
of his experiments to ever produce a child of Dwarf/Krolvin
stock, Krintaur concluded (correctly it seems) that it was
impossible for the two races to mix.
Any Half-Krolvin child born on the Isle of Glaoveln was automatically
considered a slave by other Krolvin. Only the non-Krolvin
parentage was taken into consideration, and any non-Krolvin
on that island was considered property.
Details of Krintaur's Story
Krintaur was fairly prosperous by Krolvin standards. He
owned his own ship, many slaves and had a rather large Krolvin
following. Krintaur's fierceness in battle raids and
his penchant for thought, allowed him to amass a small fortune.
With his many slaves, he caused a fairly large dwelling to
be built, as well as tunnels and cellars beneath it. Krintaur
took special note of the rising numbers of Half-Krolvin children
in service to various households and began studying these
half-breeds.
During his studies, he noticed the innate quickness, their
ability to be trained and the ease with which they picked
up cantrips as well as games of physical agility. He realized
that though they would never rival those of pure Krolvin blood
for sheer power, they could be shaped into a flexible, multi-talented
force worth reckoning with.
Information gleaned from Krintaur's notes reveal that he
began to buy up newly arrived human and giantman slaves. He
also began buying the half-breeds as they became available
for auction (many Krolvin slave-owners did not wish to keep
their half-breed children, as a faint stigma was attached
to those Krolvin households that sheltered the half-breeds).
Thus, Krintaur's breeding program began.
The majority of the experimental births were engineered through
a loyal Krolvin male of low rank being granted a female slave
for his own use. The results of these unions became the property
of the Krintaur. There are only a handful of recorded instances
of a Krolvin woman giving birth to a half-breed child.
The Story of Krintull
One such Krolvin woman, as noted in Krintaur's journals,
did appear to have several half-breed children. Krintull,
apparently a sibling of Krintaur, became enamored of a human
male slave of her own. Krintaur speaks of this relationship
in disgust and repulsion, but it did not stop him from taking
the children of Krintull and using them in his growing army
of half-breeds.
From the stories handed down and from some cryptic records,
it seems that Krintaur intended to breed an army of Half-Krolvin
answerable only to him, and with it, make the Isle of Glaoveln
his own, as the first ruler of the Krolvin people. Unfortunately
for him, before he had the time to breed enough soldiers,
certain jealous ship owners became suspicious of his slave
buying and breeding habits and planned a raid upon Krintaur's
home to confiscate his slaves and goods for their own.
Krintaur got wind of the planned raid through certain contacts
that remained loyal to him and he and his "experiments"
boarded ship that same night and fled before dawn.
As the sun rose, spyglasses trained back on the Isle of Glaoveln
showed that they had left none too soon. Krintaur's
home was marked by a brilliant red-orange glow on the barren
cliff line of Glaoveln - his dwelling and possessions were
being burned to the ground in the icy dawn.
The New Home: The Isle of Krint
Krintaur sailed from Glaoveln and eventually landed on another
cold, rocky, desolate island in the same arctic seas. Reminding
him of his home isle of Glaoveln, now forever denied to him,
he decided to stay there and continue his breeding program,
using his existing slaves and their half-breed children to
construct a new home and provide him with the labor necessary
to build his domain.
Many years after establishing the island as the new home,
Krintaur's breeding program resulted in a veritable
population explosion. As Krintaur' s breeding program
continued and the older slaves eventually became feeble or
died out, the majority of the population on the island shifted
until it was comprised of Half-Krolvins who were born and
matured on Krintaur's island. As time passed, these
half-breeds naturally began to gravitate to each other and
form small bands or clans. One clan, known to the other Half-Krolvin
as the Gob'tak, were more aggressive than the other
clans and began to devise a plan to rid themselves of their
oppressor, Krintaur and gain their freedom. When the other
clans, the Bar'toth (a clan of mostly builders and artisans),
the Hos'tau (made up primarily of those more adept at
magic), and the Swu'lin (the caretakers and growers)
heard about what the Gob'tak had planned, they too joined
in the conspiracy. Once these clans banded together, they
did, indeed, become a formidable force and easily vanquished
their oppressors, including their former master, Krintaur.
Upon the death of their oppressors, the colony of half-breeds
flourished on the small island. They continued to practice
the skills Krintaur had forced them to learn; magic, swordsmanship,
archery, building and the basics of engineering among others
and were a formidable force in their own right. Eventually,
their numbers began to expand beyond what the resources of
the
small island could support.
Many of the older adults remembered tales they'd heard
passed down from their natural mothers -- the original
slaves captured by the Krolvin forces. They recalled hearing
of a vast and rich land, where they surmised that even half-breeds
could find their fortune. Using the skills they learned as
slaves, they built and outfitted enough ships to carry them
to what they
hoped would be a land of plenty.
Eventually, a cold, icy storm blew them to ground somewhere
in the northern wastes. Fortunately, their hearty upbringings
on the frozen island of Glaoveln, and later on Krintaur's
island inured them to the cold. As well, their native Krolvin
blood and long exposure to the northern sea storms bred a
certain amount of immunity to cold into them.
In the northern glaciers they formed a small outpost to serve
as a base while they ventured out into the world. Eventually,
curiosity led them to venture south along the coastline until
they began to encounter settlements, where they were unfailingly
met with hostility. In those travels, they inevitably stumbled
across other Half-Krolvins, always the result of rapes, usually
during a raid or battle and its aftermath. Through those encounters
they discovered that theirs was the only Half-Krolvin outpost
known to exist.
About Half-Krolvin:
Attributes
Half-Krolvin most often wear their heritage in their bodies,
an undeniable badge of identification. Most Half-Krolvin have
pale skin, but their skin tones are within the range considered
"normal" on a human, except that they often support
a blue or blue-grey tinge, as you see on a human who has been
overexposed to the cold. They also tend to be hairier than
the average human, and much hairier than the average elf.
Many Half-Krolvin tend to have out-of-proportionally long
arms ending in long hands with elongated fingers and swollen-looking
knuckles.
Often the elegance and delicacy of their fingers is remarked
upon, along with some comment as to how the swollen knuckles
mar the beauty of the hand. Also, in profile it becomes apparent
that the forehead of Half-Krolvins tends to slope backward
slightly into the hairline and they often have a concave chin
shape. The most obvious attribute that is used to prove
Half-Krolvin heritage is slight hair growth from the top four
vertebrae of the spine. This is obviously easy to cover with
clothing in most circumstances, but can be construed as damning
evidence if a being's heritage is called into question of
having Krolvin blood.
Professional Inclinations
Half-Krolvins excel at physical tasks, but are also passable
at magical endeavors, though they are not as gifted in that
area as the elves. They will never be among the most powerful
mages or sorcerers, but if the occasion calls for it, they
are capable of learning the arcane arts.
Half-Krolvin tend to be least suited to the more spiritual
arts of the cleric or empath, though there are, of course,
exceptions to every rule. Krolvins are superior warriors and
physical rogues, though they have a harder time with lockpicking
and magic skills that some rogues use than other races might.
Their descendant's hearty stock afforded them a natural
talent for physical, outdoor skills as well as a slight resistance
to cold.
Religion
The Half-Krolvin as a race do not have separate religious
convictions from the rest of Elanthia, nor do they have a
patron god or goddess. It is most common for Half-Krolvins
to have no particular deity that they follow, however, when
they do follow a deity is it most common for it to be one
of the Arkati that is devoted to violent or war-like pursuits.
Their Krolvin bloodlines (and the penchant for war and conquering
attendant thereto) and typically violent and terrible childhoods
lend themselves to these beliefs.
Government
There has not been an organized enclave of Half-Krolvin
with any purpose beyond that of continued existence, since
Krintaur was killed, other than a normal clan-type unity.
As a result, there is no formal government of any sort among
them. Their government is that of whatever city or town they
happen to live in, insofar as each individual Half-Krolvin
chooses to follow
the government's edicts.
Even though the people of the original clans have been spread
out among the general population of Elanthia, there are many
Half-Krolvin that still cling to their clans and clan names
as the only heritage they've ever known.
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