West Colassian cyclopes

This branch of cyclopes is holding steady at around fifteen thousand cyclopes with births equaling deaths.   According to these cyclopes, the dwarves were not Hallisan's first attempt to create a “perfect” race. The cyclopes were Hallisan’s first attempt to create a strong race of competent builders, but for whatever reason, Hallisan was displeased with his creations. He gave the dwarves (who the cyclopes call their little brothers) all the best caverns and mineral riches while leaving the cyclopes with scraps. Cyclopes can make do with very little. They might have been content with this, but when the Second Unmaking hit, Hallisan directed all his efforts to defending dwarven-kind and left his elder children to fend for themselves.   Phidas took pity on the cyclopes and adopted them. With his aid, some of the cyclopes survived the Second Unmaking. The cyclopes who worship Phidas are largely a subterranean race. They loathe dwarves who they feel usurped their role but they rarely attack dwarves directly.   As followers of Phidas, the East Colassian cyclopes are merchants and traders. They craft weapons, armor and tools for other subterranean races in exchange for food, ore, precious metals, and prime territory. If the person or group they are trading with happens to be an enemy of dwarves, the cyclopes will probably sell their wares at a discount.   Oral accounts of orc tribes attest that there used to be two branches of cyclopes in West Collassia, one above ground, one below ground. The orcs claim they heroically destroyed the above ground cyclopes. They tell grand tales about Maylar declaring that either the cyclopes or the orcs would rule the northern lands, so he ordered them to fight to prove who was strongest. The orcs were strongest. So they say. The subterranean cyclopes say this is pure orcish bluster. Their above ground cousins died due to Void Demon attacks. They claim that very few cyclopes ever worshiped Maylar, just a few malcontents who really didn’t take well to Hallisan abandoning them, so they opted to worship Hallisan’s greatest rival. This was not a wise choice, so the Colassian cyclopes because, Maylar does not take care of his followers like Phidas does.   Many brash orc warriors would love to finish what their ancestors started and wipe out the cyclopes entirely, but cyclopes are generally too smart to venture above ground near orcish territory, and orc warriors that venture underground near cyclopes territory are rarely heard from again. This has actually helped mend relations between cyclopes and dwarves at least a little bit. At the very least, they both detest orcs. Cyclopes were practically the only East Colassian monster race that didn’t join Mordek the Conqueror’s grand army which seized the Great Stone of Meckelorn. They didn't fight against Mordeck, they just stayed out of the war.   Oral accounts of the wood elves corroborate the orcs’ account. The wood elves attest that cyclopes were created by Korus and Greymoria, but the cyclopes eventually abandoned their original divine patrons to serve Maylar.   Regardless of whom they were worshiping, cyclopes were a menace to elven kind, often eating them. The ancestors of the modern wood elves made a very reluctant truce with a tribe of cyclopes to fight The Void Demons together during the Second Unmaking . After the crisis, when the wood elves were incorporating a wide variety of diverse humanoids into their fledgling nation, the cyclopes were not invited into their new coalition. The few surviving cyclopes were told “You have a year to get out of our forest, afterwards if we see a creature with only one eye, we are going to put an arrow in that eye.” Then the orcs destroyed these cyclopes or literally drove them underground not much after that, the wood elves shed no tears for their temporary allies of convenience.