: This one is easy. It has _all_ been melted. I'm guessing
: that someone who could turn the entire countryside
: around Muithemne into desert when he was a powerful
: evil could do the same to the lands around the Trow
: when he was a powerful good.
: As for why Trows got into their basements...
: When its hailing FIRE you go inside. As inside as you can
: get.
: oh and hi everyone.
: They're not living on glaciers. When you live far enough
: North there is a permanent layer of ice just under the
: surface of the ground, permafrost. It never thaws and
: is rock solid. I think the Trow retreated to the far
: North so that they could be isolated from all the
: other races. Their little Civilization of Solitude.
You know, I really like this solution. I picture this...
Trow civilization once spread much further than what we know if it. They had civilizations all over the world, having once ranged over all the lands of what would eventually become the countryside of the Cath Bruig Empire aka The Downs or later The Barrier. They had civilizations in what would become the Dire Marsh, which was at that time far less marshy. What we came to call the Provinces were also once their territory, and they had great mines in the Cloudspine. The Downs and Province territories were sources of lumber, hewing down the great forests of the ancient world to fuel their furnaces, and the greatest furnace of all was the inside of Tharsis itself.
But their homeland was in the wet, cold clay of the North, where they were first formed. It was here that they build their temples to Nyx. Their outposts in what would become the Dire Marsh were the southern borders of those lands, and served to keep any interlopers away, particularly the Myrkridia, who huddled the Gjol River, amidst the putrid forests of Gower, whose scrawny and mossy trees make for poor fire-wood and were not worth cutting, despite their proximity to the Trow lands. The Trow were like humans in the woods of ancient Europe - cutting them down to build their centers of civilization, leaving huge swaths of unoccupied countryside around them, and all the while, hounded by wolves, the Myrkridia, who picked off at their slave labor and were a great annoyance, but no real threat to the true dominant species of the time. A this time the Forest Heart still extended further north than what we know of it, nearly bordering the Cath Bruig lands, though its southeastern edges had once long ago been eaten away by the Dwarven civilizations of old. Likewise, the Ermine forest extended westward to the coast where the Free Cities of the North would eventually lie. But the north of the eastern lands and the south of the western lands had been levelled by the Trow and now only open fields stood in their wake, trampled by Trow hauling iron from the mountains.
Mankind dwelt mostly beyond those open countrysides which once were great woodlands... far across the Provinces on the western coast in Juniper (Covenant), or south of the downs in Llancarfan (Muirthemne), and so stayed for the most part out of the Trow's way. A few stragglers eeked out a living in the barren hills of the Twelve Duns or in the wicked woods of Gower - and others perhaps once hid beyond the Chalk Cliffs in the west, though they are now gone the way of the great Yer-Ks empire of old west, destroyed by the returning darkness along with Juniper, where our narrator originates from.
Ok, so, stage is set. The Trow dominate the world in a broad swath running diagonally across the map, but mostly just pass through the open lands of the Downs and the Provinces, ignore petty human "civilization", and are mighty annoyed by the Myrkridia. We've already detailed Connacht's discovery and rise to power, how the Myrkridia gather on Muirthemne and are defeated with the Tain, followed by the Undead, who attract the attention of the Trow. Now, here is another interesting bit - the Dark began overrunning the west with Juniper when our story began. What if the Leveller has already destroyed Trow civilization out there (it was their weakest holding after all), and that is what has brought their attention to the battle at Muirthemne. Not just "oh look a giant army of the undead about to crush human civilization", but instead, "OMG WTF U KILD MI FORGES MB I KIK U MB!!!" In that battle both the Dark and the Trow lose to each other and Muirthemne barely survives the chaos, the Leveller Moagim is rendered mortal and chased back into the West, and the Trow abandon those lands for the time being, though leaving Connacht et al with a grudge against them. Myrdred goes to pay a visit to some Oghres.
Fast forward thirty years. The Trow have abandoned the Downs as well (which the Cath Bruig have since claimed), and moved to focus their forces on the Oghre rebellion in the northeastern lands. The battle rages as the Oghres are pushed back from the Twelve Duns, Avernus, and the ice-covered surface of what would become The Deep, retreating into Gower (the humans of which retreat into Cath Bruig territory), and finally pushing them into a single months-long confrontation in the Valley of the Red Seal, around the Great Devoid. The Trow return, despondent, to their northern lands, and mourn what that have been forced to do. They abandon their iron and any hope or desire of taking up their forges again, and just sit in their cities, quietly repenting of their sins to their goddess Nyx.
Then Connacht arrives (after having dealt with a little arachnid problem back home), wielding the Sunhammer and raining fire and brimstone, literally, down on Trow civilization. Their temples warp and deform, the frosted ground melts and their foundations sink into the softened mud, the entire glacial covering of the Deep is liquified and Si'Anwon drops to the bottom of the sea. The Trow retreat in terror further north, eventually huddling deep in the cellars of Rhi'Anon, the greatest of their ancient temples. Connacht brings down the full might of the Sunhammer and turns all their lands desolate, first flooding the lands in melted ice-water and then drying the clay around them into a cold northern desert. The flood-waters from this great cataclysm poured into the Gjol River, poisoning it with red clay and iron dust from the Trow lands, and swelling the Dire Marsh to a great many times its former size. The Trow were entombed beneath Rhi'anon, unable to escape, and stayed imprisoned for a thousand years before Connacht returned and ask them for a favor in exchange for not annihilating them all on the spot.
This also provides an easy explanation for how Connacht deals with Moagim's vast army of the Dark when he ventures into the West: same way he dealt with the Trow lands. Burn them all to a crisp and leave nothing but ash for Moagim to resurrect. Moagim himself, of course, was captured and personally burned at the stake, his ashes buried somewhere beneath the mountains of Kor.
Alrighty! Now, with the exception of what to do about Shiver, I think we've got the whole story pretty much outlined. I'm tempted to just ignore the Shiver issue and go with M3's take on things. All the sources disagree on her and M3 doesn't make it explicit that Shiver/Ravanna/Bonesplitter is NOT somehow also the Voiceless One or Culwyeh, sharing a body or something like that. That's not even really relevant to the story at this point... that all happens much, much later, if anything like that happens at all.
Ok. Who wants to start writing? The Myrkridian siege on Juniper and our cowardly narrator's highly prudent escape before it's completely destroyed behind him... Go!
