The first world is a high magic setting. Fairies, unicorns, elves. epic kingdoms, long wars. The first city is nestled deep within a thick forest, near a coast with steep cliffs. From atop the city walls one can see out over the long ocean or deep into the woods. As a typical tier 1 world, mana flow is abundant and morphogenic consistency is low. Magical creatures thrive and highly technological creatures find themselves changed in significant ways as their bodies adapt to the norms of the setting. The weather here is temperate, with 4 distinct seasons but fairly mild winters and summers.
Spire is known within the first world as the capital city of the trolls, and they are the only ones allowed to cross its border freely. It is one of the few issues on which they are uncompromising and uncooperative. The true nature of Spire is kept secret from those in the first world, and the details of the wider world are rarely explored by those within the city. We know that it is a planet of fairly standard makeup, with two moons and typical planetary mass. Several major kingdoms exist beyond the distant mountains, but the trolls seem to care little for their machinations.
Trolls are by and large traders. They travel in large caravans across the first and third world, gathering goods to trade between settlements. The connection between the first and third worlds is by far the oldest in Spire, old enough that even the trolls aren't certain which world they originated from, though they claim the first world as their homeworld.
Trolls average between 4' and 5' tall. They are mammals with two-toed hooves, digitigrade legs, and soft fur. Their horns, tails, and ears vary widely in shape but often resemble those of cows or goats. They make excellent sprinters, but their slower walking paces are unsteady and cause more wear to their joints, so they often take turns riding in the caravans and can often be seen with stylish walking sticks.
They are technically omnivores, as they enjoy some small amounts of meat, but their diet is primarily plant-based and requires more chewing than cooking. Troll bread is dense and grainy, optimized for long shelf lives. They are immune to most of the first world's plant-based toxins and will forage and snack as they travel. They eat large amounts of nuts and berries, grasses, leaves, and the bark of particular trees and bushes. The forests and plains around their longest-standing trade paths have been carefully cultivated across generations to make casual foraging easy and efficient.
Troll sexual dimorphism is a soft thing- their sex cannot be easily divided in a binary way. Most are hermaphrodites. They have very little in the way of secondary sexual characteristics, outside of pregnant or breastfeeding parents. Their fertility rate overall is low, and it's incredibly rare for a troll to consistently produce both the large and small gametes required for pregnancy, but they give birth to large litters when they do bear young and an entire caravan will come together to raise the children. Sexual taboos are few and far between. Relationships are often loosely defined and flexible, primarily oriented around the "found family" group of one's current caravan. Trolls are typically given a first name within their first few years of life, often virtues or natural elements. Their last name corresponds with the caravan they currently travel with, with the caravan of their birth becoming a middle name once they're old enough to leave their family group
Some trolls live primarily in Spire, doing business within the city. Many more share co-op store fronts but go on long sabbaticals across the first and third world to trade and gather goods for their Spire shops.
Troll magic is based on trade and exchange. Trolls have an innate sense of which items are Theirs, and with training and skill can sense who owns any particular item. Any time a troll gifts or trades something with a non-troll, or gifts something to another troll, the innate ownership swaps. Each item a troll owns has a Value, based on the subjective experience of the most recent non-troll owner of the item. Much of troll commerce is a long effort to increase the value of their goods, often by trading up towards items with a higher market value and then cashing it in for an item with low market value but extremely high sentimental value.
Once a troll has an item of sufficient value, their magic allows them to use it to acquire various qualities, or “Ness.” They can take an item of high sentimental value and trade it away, not to another person but to another object, and in return they receive an amount of Ness proportional to the sentimental value. The object which they trade away is lost in the process, and the traits which they acquire can manifest physically in various forms until the troll is ready to apply the trait to another object. For example, say a troll has three items: a hard bed, a soft feather, and a dingy but beloved stuffed animal. They want to make their bed softer. The troll trades the stuffed animal to the feather. The stuffed animal is physically destroyed, and the troll looks through the feather’s traits (light weight, white, soft, etc) and selects “softness.” The softness manifests physically in some way- often as a fluid or powder of some sort which can be easily jarred up and dispensed later. The troll can then apply as much of this softness as they’d like to their bed, at which point it merges fully with the bed and permanently changes its qualities.
In this way a troll can create novel combinations of traits which might otherwise have been physically impossible to create (such is often the nature of magic.) Take the softness out of a silk sheet, the sturdiness out of a walking staff, the blueness of a flower in bloom, and combine them to create something soft and sturdy and blue and perfectly suited to the task at hand.
The Ness that a troll creates is owned by them. It can be applied to items which the troll does not own. It cannot be removed from an item once it has been applied. It’s extremely difficult to apply Ness to living things, especially sentient or sapient ones, and it’s even more difficult to extract Ness from living things, though other non-physical traits can be traded away to a troll. Trolls have been known to take abstract concepts in trade such as skills, memories, and abilities. These abstract abilities tend to manifest physically much as Ness does, and while the troll is their owner the troll has full access to them. For example, a troll who takes a treasured memory will fully remember the memory as if they had experienced it, even while it sits physically upon their shelf. Once traded away to a non-troll, these items tend to lose their physicality. Abstract qualities can also be treated as a singular Ness or consumed for magic, but cannot be subdivided the way that other forms of Ness can.
Troll magic does not recognize any trade between trolls. Trolls can gift things to each other, and they can loan things to each other, but any trade between them is null. A troll who tries to trade with another troll will find that the item they gain has no value to them. If they trade that object away to a non-troll later, the object they receive in that trade will be innately owned by the other troll, the one who owned the item that was traded away. Because of this, troll society has no models for employment, debt, or retail. A troll cannot pay another for their labor. A troll cannot buy goods from another troll to sell. Gifting is common, and the ability to give gifts freely is a sign of success and clout. As a troll ages past the point of maturity it’s expected for their generosity with their fellow trolls to grow.
Their extensive off-world trade networks give trolls access to goods that would otherwise be impossible to acquire within the first world, and their magical augmentations create oddities that no other race could produce without decades of research and dedicated work. Trolls are the most skilled and valued traders within a city that has thrived for centuries on trade.
As a minor element of their trade-oriented magic, troll contracts are plainly impossible to break without a full erasure of the area's magic, enough to strip enchantments and likely kill the troll behind the contract. It is a difficult and valued skill among trolls to be able to trade in potentials, in future action, as is necessary to create useful contracts. When done properly, they are immutable. Non-trolls who wish to explore the first world must do so in the custody of a troll caravan, which means signing on to a long and thorough contract. The transfer of knowledge is strictly limited. These contracts always forbid the guest from telling anyone of the first world about Spire or the worlds beyond, and typically put severe limitations on what knowledge the guest can share about the first world. They also tether guests to the caravan, oblige them to follow troll orders, and often require large up front payment beside. There are few trolls who will refuse a juicy enough trade offer, and fewer still who actually want to bring outsiders into their world.
Trolls also hold prominent roles within Spire's government for that reason, and are popular for employees in most companies and underground operations. Unbreakable contracts are even more valuable than strongly enforced contracts, so long as they're written in your favor.
This is an ability held in common with some courts, but due to the varied nature of the courts and varied attitudes and abilities about lying within them, troll contracts are valued as dependable, reliable, and trustworthy.
Trolls come to most decisions communally and democratically, but certain figures do hold outsized authority, useful for tie breaks and situations that require decisive action. Typically each caravan has an elder who plans the overall trade routes, negotiates with representatives of the settlements they visit, and settles internal disputes. This figure is theoretically the oldest troll available, though in the last century it's become increasingly common for elders to abdicate and take on advisory roles to the (slightly) younger leaders who follow them.
The trolls of Spire are led by an elder matriarch who sits on the central council of the Federation of Spire.
Troll spirituality is typically of very personal practice, and innately tied to their magical practice. They see all things as being composed of collections of spirits, which they make trade with when they perform their magic. Beyond the attributes which they're capable of interacting with, trolls attribute each item with an innate individual spirit to which they pay great respect.
They value adaptability, discernment, and connection. They value honesty and the strength of one's word highly. To sell someone a good is to connect them to the person you bought that good from in the first place. Trolls view the 3rd world as a sort of dream-like plane, a spiritual land that they journey into to gain sustenance for the world they return to.
Troll holidays are varied and massive. In the first world dozens of caravans will come together at set places and times to celebrate. Most holidays mark the anniversaries of particular historical events. These often include massive bonfires and dances, as well as a free exchange of goods and people between caravans. Though many caravans are tightly knit communities in their own rights, it's rare to pass through a holiday without gaining or losing at least a couple members. Individual caravans will also celebrate the birthdate of their younger litters until the group is old enough to begin dispersing among other caravans, but they don't pay much mind to individual birthdays beyond adolescence.
The first world is more prone to connection with Courts than any of the others, save the third, and trolls are hypervigilant about severing these connections as soon as possible. Many of the third world’s permanent courts are groups which tried to make contact with the first and were swiftly ripped away, crash landing instead on the third.
Trolls are generally considered knowledgeable, reliable, and fun. They all have excellent customer service skills.