I've played the history and nature of the Titans close to my vest during the design and creation of Haven for any number of reasons, not least of which was that mystery creates interest.

Of course, the less I say, the less I have to actually make up, right?

But eventually, it there is ever to be any campaign related bits ON the Titans, I suppose I should have SOMETHING to say about them.

So, here are the facts:

We know the Titans used various races as slaves in one capacity or another. They bred them for specific tasks, using magic and science. This is where Orcs and Elves and Dwarves came from, and later Dragons. There may be others as well.

We know that when their connection to magic was severed, with the help of the Gods, their entire empire disappeared overnight, leaving almost nothing behind, not even ruins.

We know their great sin was destroying all the other races to make room for their empire, and that geography was a trivial problem for them to overcome.

We also know they left a few signs, a few ancient artifacts behind, devices of incredible power.

Less certainly: we know the Titans were not really among the first intelligent races to occupy Haven, not even close to it.

Lets work backwards a bit.

Knowing that Elves were idealized beauty to the Titans, concubines, we can suggest that the Titans looked more or less humanlike. They could interbreed with their Orc soldiers, and orcs and elves can certainly interbreed as well, leading to the Humans of today, leading to speculation that at least those two races were bred off of the Titan's main genetic stock. No cross fertility has been noted with Dwarves or their less common 'cousins' the Gnomes, suggesting that both of these races were adapted from other, unique races. That both Dwarves and Gnomes are significantly less human looking than other 'humanlike races'  is notable, and not just in matters of size.

Thus if one were to travel to a 'pre-Titanic' era somehow one would find Titans filling the roles of Humans, Orcs and Elves alike, embodied in a single race.  There would be some sort of stocky dwarflike race, presumably resembling them signficantly, and a gnomish race as well, though less 'crippled' than the current race.  Lizardfolk, goblins and kobolds would all exist more or less unchanged though the lizards of the jungles at least would be more advanced, more civilized. We can presume that dozens of other intelligent races must have existed and even had civilizations of their own.

the Immortality of the Elves suggests that the Titans had a small population of powerful immortals, as they must have broken that secret to create the Elves. As half-breeds do not carry that trait it is obviously difficult to maintain.

The disappearance, rather than destruction of their cities suggests several things. Notabaly they relied on 'living' spells, actively maintained somehow rather than simply conjured materials, which are less prone to disruption. Presumably any Titanic ruins are from earlier in their rise to power or represent very specific needs necessitating more permanence.

One legendary artifact, one of a set stolen by the early Elves, appears to be a sort of prototypical 'apocalypse' device, the use of which unleashed a being roughly comparable to a god and cursing the Dwarves horribly, which they barely survived.  This implies that the titans were either capable of imprisoning or creating godlike beings.  This set of 'Dooms' were represntative of the four horsemen, suggesting that they are responsible for at least two of the apocalypse runes in the RQ version of the setting (Death and War have a known, pre-Titanic, history... though their role in the nature of Greater Runes is less clear).

It seems entirely possible that the Titans created the four horsemen, but lost control over the Death and War horsemen due to the presence of very specific Gods over those two arenas.  The Elves unleashed Pestilence (Famine would have wiped out the crops they hoped to steal, you see...) and the Dealyreath (elves again!) may have tapped into Famine in their quest for Apotheosis.

Thus we can see that no Titanic artifact is ever a simple 'buff me for power' sort of thing, though what anything in particular might look like is hard to say with any uniformity.  A field of random floating rocks could be a distributed thinking network of repurpoused earth elementals bound into stasis, while the dormant forms of the four dooms were said to be white slender egg shapes as long as a man's arm, and the Greater Death Rune, if that is remotely related, resembles nothing so much as a signet ring, though possibly because Death wanted it so.

In short, a full Titanic Artifact that can be used with any reliability at all is the sort of thing you use to found empires.... or kill Gods.  At their peak the Titans were reshaping fundamental laws of Haven to suit their whims and needs, though without the terrible knowledge that destroyed Irem.  The Titans, perhaps rightly, saw themselves as equals to the Gods.

Samples:

The Singing Plain:  Near the Hydenimoi forest south of the Pepper Savannahs is a large plains filled with dozens of pillars, dolmens, what have you. These rocks stand between 7 and 10 feet in height and generally appear to be unworked boulders overgrown with mosses and lichens obscureing abstract lines engraved into their surfaces. There are thousands of these standing stones.  Each one makes a single note, though some suggest the note of any given stone changes over time, making the entire plain a sort of choir, suspected of being an ancient pean to whichever Titan erected them. The stones are immovable and apparently indestructable, and the entire plains is said to be cursed. Certainly it seems as if a storm is always brewing in the sky above the Plain, and lightning strikes are very common, though the stones themselves are never struck.

Power/Use: If one could speak Titanic, or rather SING Titanic, the stones will respond, changing slowly. They can answer questions like an oracle and have several 'built in' spells from the Era of the Titans. Provided you can determine the right songs to sing, the Stones can blast cities apart or provide a wellspring of power similar to the Pyramids of Hesh (extra POW to burn for spells/enchantments).   There is enough power that, tapped properly over a long enough period of time, one could use the Plains to become an actual God, though this would destroy the Stones themselves, or if done slowly enough merely weaken them considerably. Of course, you are just as likely to burn up body and soul alike trying to channel the very power of Haven through yourself.


The Rod of Kings:  Long lost, but rumored to be in the grave goods of the first High King of the Dwarves, the Rod itself was a fairly simple swagger stick made of magically hardened gold and gems, impervious to harm but essentially decorative.  Its unknown power is said to have helped keep the Dwarves unified as a race after the Great Curse and their fleeing underground.

Use/Power: Simply bearing the Rod is enough to get some benefit, health wise (raising CON by 1 while it is possessed and providing a magnitude 10 spirit screen).  If one learns to use it, it gets better.  One must 'soul bond' with the Rod, it is, after a strange fashion, sentient though it doesn't communicate. It becomes a sort of Fetch, as if the bearer were a Shaman, though it does not, itself, allow for shamanic magic to be cast, the Rod will automatically cast any spirit magic spell to defend the bonded bearer (at mag 10 still) automatically. It also counts, at this point, as a Communication Rune and the CON bonus doubles.   More importantly, the bearer of the Rod may take Oaths of loyalty from any individual. Those who swear such an Oath may not act against the interests of the Rod bearer, though how they define that is up to the individual. Notably, the bearer MAY be assassinated by someone who has sworn loyalty if the bearer is going against the good of his own stated intentions (for example founding a kingdom), so this is tricky. It does little to nothing to prevent petty criminal acts between 'oathsworns', though the bearer DOES gain a measure of protection.

More importantly: The Oathsworn gain a measure of power in return for their oath, in return for giving up a measure of their personal will.  The benefits are threefold: The Rod provides any number of minor utility powers (time telling, telepathic communication between Oathsworn (must be learned as a skill, though it is a 'Basic' Skill equal to POW in MRQ) and so forth.  Secondly, the Oathsworn gain a measure of supernatural health (the +1 CON bonus), thirdly, the Rod may be used by Oathsworn as a conduit for spell casting. In this fashion it reduces the cost of Rune Magic by 1 (to zero for minor spells), increases the Magnitude of Sorcery by 1 (More specifically: Any one sorcerous manipulation can be done for free or at reduced cost) and it has a small chance (15%) of 'remembering' a divine spell cast through it for a second casting if used 'right away'.  The Bearer of the Rod can function as a Runelord of a Cult based on himself, though he does not actually provide any divine magic personally (The Rod compels a minor deity (possibly one who was 'trapped' within the Rod itself) to provide the new 'cult' with it's power via really really ancient sorcery).  While the Rod itself is quite powerful, its true power lies in allowing the bearer to forge a nation or army of tough powerful spell casters, and by this means supposedly allowed the first High King to keep the Clanholds united in the dark tunnels and allowed them the power necessary to mitigate the Curse and survive before it drove them to extinction.