Troll Thread (no, not that kind)

[Sizzlefoot]

Sooo...trolls. Trolls trolls trolls. They vary quite a bit from setting to setting (to setting [to setting {to setting}]). I personally find the rubbery green regenerative giant-kin to be a bit boring. Sure, they're a cool thing to throw at your players, but what else are they?
What are your trolls like? Do they exist? As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm planning on making mine immortal fungus-nests.
Remember, no trolling.

[lightningcat]

I once had an idea that they were the footsoldiers of the obyrith demons that ruled the Abyss before the Tanar'ri. But that story died before it went anywhere.

[DMwithoutPC's]

Trolls are one of my originally, god-created creatures. They have a highly changeable nature, and will adapt to their surroundings in a generation or two. Similar to the trolls of Discworld, except they are not made of literal stone, just resemble it a lot.

[Eldan]

I stole an idea from Dominions, around a lot of corners. In the distant past, there was a race of highly magical, cannibalistic giants. They were endlessly hungry and devoured all flesh that came near them, in an endless hunger. Slaves, animals, each other, if they could get close enough. It was a magical curse. Eventually, to stop their society from collapsing entirely, they made Trolls, to provide endlessly self-restoring, not very intelligent sources of meat.

[the_david]

Golarion has Troll Augurs in Kaer Maga. They cut themselves open, read their own entrails and then they regenerate.

So technically that would be a Troll Haruspex, as Augurs interpret the patterns in the flight of birds. It's still pretty cool.

[Eldan]

I distinctly remember reading once, years ago, about a setting where there were trolls that practised body modification. They cut themselves open, inserted things like armor plating, then let the wound heal over. This could maybe be expanded upon? An ingenious throll could replace his bones with scavenged monster bones, in order to grow useful body parts.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Trolls originate from failed goliath->giant transformations (because giants are goliaths transformed by [semi-broken] rune magic), but "breed" true. This is the same as ogres, ettins, and other "giant-kin". Trolls get a form of immortality from imprinting on damaged runes, but their regeneration is really a curse. The default is that they're constantly in pain from being walking, hungry cancers. It's rumored that some types of trolls reproduce by budding off new ones.

[Catlike Ghost]

The default is that they're constantly in pain from being walking, hungry cancers.

This is pretty much how I've done trolls in the past. Sure, they can't die short of an acid bath or fire, but every second is constant pain for them, so it's no wonder they're aggressive. I've also always assumed that trolls have to eat almost constantly, or at least eat more and more often than other giants of a similar size, in order to keep their ridiculous metabolism going.

[PhoenixPhyre]

This is pretty much how I've done trolls in the past. Sure, they can't die short of an acid bath or fire, but every second is constant pain for them, so it's no wonder they're aggressive. I've also always assumed that trolls have to eat almost constantly, or at least eat more and more often than other giants of a similar size, in order to keep their ridiculous metabolism going.

Yeah. My setting's explanation of that is that the whole point of the rune treatment is to provide an additional, external source of energy to replace food, as well as increased abilities to go along with them. So if you get the hunger and the regeneration without the energy source...

[Flumphburger]

Trolls are supersoldiers/warbeasts created by the fey lords to fight off demonic invaders in ancient times, but have since been mostly used against other fey. And of course, some have escaped into the wild, and bred there. They have more or less gorilla level intelligence, but are far more violent and belligerent.

The healing factor comes from them being deeply infused with the essence of life itself. Troll bodies are overgrown with little plants and fungi, and crawling with insects, and the forests, fields, and swamps around them bloom with the touch of the feywild. Unfortunately, trolls are also ravenous predators, and tend to destroy more than they create unless kept very carefully in check.

Some mortals have captured and bred or trained trolls for military use just like the archfey originally did. They're hard to feed, but extremely effective. Their hardy physiology and regeneration allow armor and weapons of all sorts to be grafted right onto their bodies.

[Grim Portent]

Trolls were once the a tribe of mortal men before being driven out of their lands by another tribe. Diminished in number and forced into less hospitable lands they struggled to survive and cried out to the gods, to demons and to any spirit who would answer for the power to survive and exact vengeance upon their enemies.

Whatever being answered their calls granted them mystical properties that stripped them of their mortality and humanity, transforming them into the race of trolls, large ugly humanoid beings. They are tall, much taller than men though they can grow and shrink by several feet as suits their needs, incredibly strong and tough, capable of illusions and glamours to trick the unwary and foolish. Trolls can identify people who are descended from the tribe that drove them from their lands and those who worship that tribe's gods by smell, being able to track them by the scent of their blood. Given the chance trolls will kill and devour any such person as punishment for the crimes of their ancestors.

They live in very loose knit communities, with at least a full days travel separating their homes, which are usually made in thick woods, mountains or bogs. Generally a household consists of a mated couple, their unmatured children and possibly elderly relatives* who are unable to fend for themselves. They spend much of their time trying to farm what crops they can and herding sheep or goats. They will provide hospitality to any travellers who come to their door as required by the customs of all folk provided you are not descended from their enemies, to whom they will instead offer a days headstart in fleeing.


*Trolls do not often die of age unless they will it, but they do grow infirm over the centuries. Most allow themselves to die once their body becomes too decrepit to be of any use to others, but some of them stay alive to impart important knowledge to the younger generations.

[Sizzlefoot]

Trolls were once the a tribe of mortal men before being driven out of their lands by another tribe. Diminished in number and forced into less hospitable lands they struggled to survive and cried out to the gods, to demons and to any spirit who would answer for the power to survive and exact vengeance upon their enemies.

Whatever being answered their calls granted them mystical properties that stripped them of their mortality and humanity, transforming them into the race of trolls, large ugly humanoid beings. They are tall, much taller than men though they can grow and shrink by several feet as suits their needs, incredibly strong and tough, capable of illusions and glamours to trick the unwary and foolish. Trolls can identify people who are descended from the tribe that drove them from their lands and those who worship that tribe's gods by smell, being able to track them by the scent of their blood. Given the chance trolls will kill and devour any such person as punishment for the crimes of their ancestors.

They live in very loose knit communities, with at least a full days travel separating their homes, which are usually made in thick woods, mountains or bogs. Generally a household consists of a mated couple, their unmatured children and possibly elderly relatives* who are unable to fend for themselves. They spend much of their time trying to farm what crops they can and herding sheep or goats. They will provide hospitality to any travellers who come to their door as required by the customs of all folk provided you are not descended from their enemies, to whom they will instead offer a days headstart in fleeing.


*Trolls do not often die of age unless they will it, but they do grow infirm over the centuries. Most allow themselves to die once their body becomes too decrepit to be of any use to others, but some of them stay alive to impart important knowledge to the younger generations.

I like these trolls. They're weird and sorta ugly while still being people that we can relate to, and they're not "always chaotic evil" or whatever.

[Grim Portent]

I like these trolls. They're weird and sorta ugly while still being people that we can relate to, and they're not "always chaotic evil" or whatever.

Honestly they're just Norwegian folktale trolls (can smell Christian blood, eat people, generally unpleasant) mixed with the Swedish version (live in families, can do more magic, not as malevolent) and tweaked for a fantasy setting. Bit of the followers of the old ways/gods theme thrown in, but for the setting I'm putting them in that's a common theme.

[Xania]

In the past, for no particular reason, they were big humans with a baboon or mandrill head and tail, and were able to walk in all for. They were cruel and about human intelligence.

After that they were thinking and shapeless beings wich were attracted to magical places.

Right now, as said in another thread, i only know that gnoll has the gnome + troll meaning, refering to a subspecie of small size.

[Draconi Redfir]

(My own personal Troll lore I've been working on for years here.)

Trolls are hyper-evolved Starfish. Waaaay back in the day, a species of starfish ate a kind of algea that grew on rocks. This Algea started growing further and further away from the ocean floor to escape it's natural predator. The Starfish followed suit, both species slowly adapting to life on land. Eventually, Birds began to feed on the Starfish. Some starfish were able to scare off the birds by flailing their limbs about wildly. This same flailing was eventually refined into a faster system of movement, using four of the limbs as legs rather then the usual cillia.

Thousands of years pass, and the Starfish evolve into humanoid shapes known as Trolls. Some of their evolution is Convergent evolution, just naturally taking on aspects similar to other humanoids but differently, but some is almost intentional on their part, as they begin to mimic other humanoids to a degree and eventually settling themselves as they are now.

These Trolls have:

Five "proto-brains" located in their head, each shoulder, and each upper thigh. So long as at least one of these proto-brain is intact, the body will regenerate entirely, provided the Troll has been well-fed recently. If a Troll is split in half or regenerated from a single arm or leg, the half that has the original head is determined to be the "True" troll, while the Troll that had to grow itself a new head is referred to by the derogatory term of "Genner" (for re-generation). Genners are typically treated as second-class citizens owned by the original Troll should said Original still be alive. This is not how they reproduce however. That's done the normal way.

Cells that can store an excess of energy and food. a hungry Troll will not regenerate.

No bones. Trolls instead have a system of extra-dense muscles supporting their bodies. This helps them regenerate better because it's really hard to grow Bones back. as a result of this, they're both more durable and more fragile. It's a lot easier to cut off a Troll's arm then it would be a Human's, but they're more able to handle their knees being bent the wrong way.

Salt-based blood. Starfish have seawater for blood. Trolls had to adapt this, so now their blood has Salt where human blood has iron, leaving their blood a sort of thin, transparent, mucky-green colour.

"Hair" made from the former cillia that Starfish use to move around. That stuff had to go somewhere, so now it's thick, wiry hair that is able to "feel" with dull nerve-endings. So cutting hair can be an experience.

and a non-central nervous, respiratory, and circulatory system. Not sure how the breathing and blood-pumping works yet. something something muscle spasms all over the body or something, breathing through the skin. idk.


In terms of culture, Trolls eventually set up in a large area of desert-mountains, since they live in the desert, water is important to them, and by extension, the colour blue has also grown to be an almost sacred colour. Sapphires and lapis are often coveted Gems. Trolls also seem to have set up on top of a large vein of Gold, as almost every Troll has some form of Gold jewelry on them somewhere, though more high-class Trolls tend to have more. Trolls will worship anything they deem as impressive or powerful. the most prominent religion being praise to "world Trees", or giant Trees said to reach the sky and beyond. That and just Trees in general, since they don't have many in the desert.

for Trolls, exposing one's ears is considered Taboo. (totally not because i wasn't sure what they looked like.) So most Trolls go about with long hair, hats, or cloth/silk head-dresses that wrap around the back of their heads to cover their ears. The generally accepted theory is that Troll-ears are just holes in the sides of their heads with little to no earlobes or ear-hair, so the extra protection helps prevent sand from getting in there and causing damage.

and finally, Trolls have become close friends with Goblins over the years, their mutually green-skin providing the first step towards friendly relations. Trolls find Goblins to be adorable and fun, while Goblins find Trolls strong and protective. As such, Goblins will often seek out Trolls to serve as companions and bodyguards, to which most Trolls are more then willing to oblige.

Despite all this though, Trolls aren't too smart. Instances of a Troll being sent out of the village to buy a cow, only to get lost and forget what he was doing or where he was going are not completely unheard of. This is another reason why Trolls like to pair up with Goblins or other races, they're usually smarter.


Despite their natural Regeneration, Trolls generally don't live more then fifty years or so, their bodies burning out faster thanks to their higher metabolism, and Cancer can form much more easily in their cells then other races, causing them to have shorter then expected lifespans. (This is mainly just because i find the "everything lives longer then humans" trope boring TBH.)

[Son of A Lich!]

Okay, for Objibrill, we start with a bit of cosmology -

Objibrill is a realm in the center of 4 Mana fluxes, called the Spindle and the Hourglass. On the Spindle, Black and White Mana come from opposite sides; Red and Blue Mana come from the two elemental Shelves of the Hour Glass.

When opposing manas collide, it creates Green Mana (Yes, I played a lot of magic back when this world was being developed).

Somewhere along this time, the 5 Immortal Dragons came to Objibril (Technically 4, but... we'll get to it).

The dragons fought over the Realm, shaping and sculpting the earth and seas. Each Dragon is a Font of mana themselves, and whenever they died, they'd hide their soul into a dragon egg and be reborn.

As this colliding, waxing and waning of Manas started to seriously screw up the Realm's general Mojo, the green mana condensed into savage, hungry, violent, feral beings. These are the elder trolls.

Elder Trolls tried to fight the dragons themselves, but... they were dragons. This is why Acid and Fire damage is harmful to Trolls, as the Dragons immortal have that option across all colors.

The hidden lore that I'm not sure if my friends ever picked up on or not (Again, I was a teenager), was that the druidic word for Mistake was the same druidic name for the Green Dragon, implying that the Elder Trolls tried to make an immortal Dragon to fight the others, but it didn't work out so hot for them.

The Elder Trolls made Grand Trolls, and "normal" trolls for the war against the dragons, but it didn't work. Eventually, The trolls of Keiglspire made dwarves, and the other classic "Humanoid" races were made. The Dwarves were the most successful in dragon hunting, as they were able to get into the deep dark caves where the eggs liked to be hidden.

Elves, at this time, had a life span for only a few decades - they were supposed to be able to recover numbers very very quickly and learned things amazingly quickly (Thousand monkeys on type writers kind of gig).

The Elder Trolls taught the fledgling races the secrets of magic and civility and formed the Druidic coalition, where eventually, through a lot of time and effort, the humanoids were able to keep the immortal dragons in a perpetual cycle of being in their eggs. This is the start of the druidic wars, which brought back the black dragon (as the druids were fighting amongst themselves, and no one was able to find his egg). The Black Dragon made the savage evil species (Orcs, Goblins, Dreugar, Drow, etc), and his presence made things harder for the other races to find his brethren's eggs.

The white dragon was hatched, and he kept the green dragon's egg from being found (The chess plot here is too big for my brain to follow all these years later, I think the idea is that he was looking at the Green Dragon is the enemy of my enemy, or something? If the Green Drake is flying, it takes pressure off of him? something like that), and offered the Elves of Gaulie an immortal life span, if he could take refuge in the womb of a maiden upon his death (Again, remember, high school teen writing here.) The elves agreed and became high elves, much to the chagrin of the other elves of the wild. They quickly took up an empire with their extremely long life span and quick learning skills.

The maiden that bore the white dragon to age was essentially consumed in the process, but it made her a solitary target to defend. The second maiden (R'shal, something like that), betrayed the deal and struck herself in the womb when she was selected to house the dragon egg, and this lead to the "Curse of the Still Crib" where elves are obscenely more likely to suffer a miscarrige. The White Dragon basically became a Draco-lich at this point. He specializes in undead (Looking at in hindsight, Black would have made more sense from a MtG view, but I think World of Warcraft was a big inspiration for him, but like OG Nax, for the WoW players here).

The Green Dragon whipped up some races of his own (Black jack and hookers, are unknown), and he's responsible for Tortles, Giffs, Gnolls and the like.

The Druids basically seperated themselves from the affairs of the new races that were popping up all over the place and basically had a big camp fire sing along where they decided they had to do something before the dragons figured out a means to kill all life on Objibril and reconstruct it to their own image of what the world should be.

The Druids agreed to one elected head of state, and four main circles that would remain separate. Druids of The Stag (LN, who hunt Dragon eggs), Druids of the Owl (NG, who hunt Demons), Druids of the Bear (CN, who hunt Mages) and Druids of the Wolf (NE, Who hunt the Druids). The four circles would convene and address issues with their hunts, and the Druid of Nature (Their head of state) would be passed down to the next circle every four years. So, Stag had it, they would pass it to Wolf, who would pass it to Bear, who would pass it to Owl, who would pass it to Stag again.

The Back of the Elder Trolls have a map of the entire continent, and if something cataclysmic happens (Say, a fire breaks out across the east coast) it would show on their back (The skin would suddenly get charred and necrotic). Each area within the continent has it's own greater Troll, who basically tries to keep the unnatural away.

Trolls are something like living nature gods in Objibril. The Disc Necropolis of Odul (long story) captured their local Greater Troll and harvested it's heart to make Iron Golems, for example. They weren't really something that players were supposed to interact with regularly, and when they got involved, it was a monstrous event. The lesser trolls were treated as being... off shoots, failed experiments that weren't going away any time soon. Smarter then apes, but not civil enough to wear clothes or anything.

But, y'know... you never forget your first real "Main' world you make. It's always special when you look back at it.

[Sizzlefoot]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned the mineral trolls of Discworld.

[Draconi Redfir]

well to be fair, you asked for OUR Trolls, and nobody here is the writer of Diskworld

[falcon1]

Trolls in my setting are one of several mutagenic creatures. They transform based off what sort of environment they are born in - you have ice trolls, fire trolls, hermit trolls, sky trolls...they are always viciously hungry and savage, because they come from the drops of blood that came from Ymir, The Titan Torn, when he was betrayed.

However, they do have souls, and many have managed to overcome their innate rage. They can be a valuable, albeit hungry, contributor to a community, and many form their own villages. There are even a few cities.

[Sizzlefoot]

well to be fair, you asked for OUR Trolls, and nobody here is the writer of Diskworld

M-Mister Pratchett? Is that you?