In the old days when the world was young, when the Dwarfs and the Elves had just been created and Man was just a pinprick in the back of the Slanns' mind, there was an older race, made long before the Slann had come to the world. These creatures had been created at the time when primal forces ruled but were still frightfully unstable and were throwing up all sorts of things into the world. One of these things was a race of short, grey, humanoid, creatures. This race called themselves Troglodytes or Troggs. They were one of the few primeval races that didn’t spend all their time trying to massacre every other race living on the planet. They burrowed deep underground along with the Wynns, a small, boar-like, animal that the Troggs used for agricultural pursuits. The Troglodytes were wise and noble despite their impish appearance. They knew they must live underground and wait until peace was restored to the world. They lived in great underground caverns with whole towns inside them. They had huge lamps hanging from the ceiling of the cavern. They had no gods since they knew that gods would have stopped the tide of Chaos immediately and since no gods had made their presence felt they only had permanent faith in the world. They lived there for over one thousand years before their grnoybi (shamen which could tell what the world was doing above the ground) announced new forces had entered the world.'

Thirty scouting groups of twenty Troggs each were sent up to the surface to investigate. They came up onto the surface with a shriek and dived back into their burrows. There were two reasons they did this 1: they had spent hundreds of years down in the dark and their eyes had adjusted to the darkness and it was a bright day. And 2: they had come up in the middle of an Imperial fort where a battle was being fought. The Troggs fled down the tunnels, their feet making strange rhytms on the stone of the passages. They ran up to the grnoybi and shouted, "Why did you not tell us that Chaos has entered this world? On the surface there is war and strife." The Troglodyte king was sitting calmly in his throne and he said calmly "What was happening on the surface?" Jkalm, the leader of one of the scouting parties, came up and said, "My lord, there was a fortification on top and there were many pink-skinned creatures, tall with strange fur on their faces like the Wynns have, except in lesser quantity. They were swathed in many coloured garments, and they were defending the fortification. The creatures that were attacking were completely covered in fur from head to toe, except for their snouts, hands and feet and their great, long tail. The king stood up to his full height of three foot and declared "The Fur-creatures are spawned of Chaos but the Smooth-creatures must be a product of good and wisdom. My Troggs, we must defend our ground and therefore defend the smooth-creatures." This caused great uproar among the Troglodytes and they ran to the armoury.

A fortnight later, the blacksmiths had fashioned over 5,000 shirts of chainmail (they had over 1,000 blacksmiths working in the armoury) and they had also made an equal number of crude halberds, swords, daggers and crossbows. The newly-clad warriors raced up the passage, shrieking and salivating, holding their weapons up into the air and dreaming of forthcoming victory. When they reached the surface the siege was still in progress and the Imperial forces were losing. The Troggs emerged from their holes and fell to hacking the Skaven to pieces. The rat-men shrieking collectively and turned tail. The Imperial commander, Herman Van Saracen, came up to the Trogg leader, Jkalm and said "You have saved our lives, earth-dweller, how may we repay you?" Jkalm was amazed to find that the human spoke the same language as him.

He found his tongue eventually and said "You do not have anything to repay us with, smooth-skin, we will repay you by being your allies." The commander’s lip reared up in disgust but the expression soon disappeared. The commander held out his hand to the small, grey, big-eared, creature. He withdrew it with pain and tried to coax out the Troggs’ dagger that had been concealed up Jkalm’s chainmail sleeve. The bond of friendship between the Empire and the Troglodytes had been sealed. The Troggs journeyed out into the world, meeting the Elves, Norscans and the Dwarfs, the last of which they had the deepest friendship with.

Back to Warhammer Armies: Troglodytes

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