Trolls

Woodland spirits of a great diversity of appearances and hostility levels but a universal level of selfishness.

I run two kinds. In my lighthearted games, they're a type of fae. They look like those Scandinavian paintings and act like internet trolls.

In my darker games I use the trolls from Berserk.

I also sort of thought I read that they are generally kind of stupid/slow witted, in general, although some might be a bit more clever.

In the original folklore they vary even more. All beings in the pic are trolls

girlgenius.mobi/stories/dovrefjell/dovrefjell_01.php

That said, I like the ones which are big, strong, animalistic, regenerating and vegetal beings born out of swamps where the ancients sacrificed people in an attempt to imitate, and harness the power of ents which lived there.

Posting in a troll thread

In one of the guile hero stories from Norway, there's a troll which keeps scaring away all the woodcutters: "If you chop in my forest, I'll kill you!"
Guile hero brings along a sponge and answers "Don't you touch me or I'll crush you like this stone!", squeezing the sponge in his hand.
"Oh no, please spare me, I'll even help you cut wood." says the troll.
They cut so much that at nightfall they're far away from the hero's home and right by the troll's cave, so they stay there for the night.
"Go get some water, I'll start a fire." says the troll and points at humongous buckets the hero couldn't possibly lift.
"These thimbles aren't worth carrying, I'll just go get the well."
"Oh no, please spare my well, I'll get water!" says the troll.
They boil porridge and the guile hero challenges the troll to an eating competition.
Troll eats two cauldrons, is full.
Hero puts his backpack on the frontside under his jacket, spoons most of the porridge into his backpack, cuts it open and says to the troll "If you cut up your stomach like this, you can eat as much as you want!"
"Doesn't that hurt?"
"Not at all."
Troll cuts open its stomach, dies, boy hero loots the place and goes to pay off his father's debt on the farm.

So yeah, fairly slow witted.

Eoghan Kerrigan trolls are best trolls

That was one of my favorites as a kid, the animated movie of it is cool too

That human is a douche

Askeladden tricks a troll to cut open his belly to fit more porridge

Strangely, he's apparently called "Boots" in English: en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Tales_from_the_Norse/Boots_who_ate_a_Match_with_the_Troll

even though the name "Askeladden" should IMO be rendered as the male counterpart of Cinderella. Cinderelliot?

Old trolls best trolls. Some were short and stocky, like dwarves but more rocky, others had cow tails and might be somewhere between elf and huldra. In some places it was pronounced 'trow', and by the time you got to the Orkney Islands they were 'drow', short ugly elf creatures that lived under the hills forging enchanted items. Other regions had bigger trolls, perhaps with less fey to them and more a reminder of older tribes that once lived there. Turning to stone in the sun seems to be more a thing for those that were earth spirits and like most fey, creatures of twilight and shadow.

>Wesnoth

Patrician taste, user.

I kinda preferred the weeby artstyle, though.

I really, really love Warcraft trolls. I like that they are tall because they are long-limbed instead of hulking beasts, although they still can have a fairly imposing bulk. I love having them as anti-elves, capable of beating elves at their own game (forest ambush, sneaking, agility etc.). I love them having this brutal, murderous side of "nature magic" and embracing the sinister side of the afterlife as opposed to a peaceful, undisturbed nature.

I kind of hate their inka-shtick or their constant jamaican speaking pattern, but even those things can be adapted into something wonderfully paradox.

I combine some folklore elements of rölli-trolls/huldra with warcraft trolls (and, admittedly, some far-out stuff from bands like finntroll and Trollfest) in my settings.

Tufted tails are a must, though. My trolls are primarily tree-dwellers and they're formidable climbers. I'm thinking spider- oder capuccinmonkeys with dreadlocks and about two meters talls.

Fred Perry's Troll vs. Elves is fantastic.

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We can all agree that D&D and Warcraft trolls share the spot at the bottom, right?

I have no idea about DnD trolls, but fuck you if you think Warcraft Trolls aren't top-tier.

Yes, you're probably getting forcefed at every opportunity and they have been omnipresent in modern fantasy since 2004, but don't you ever dare saying they aren't among the tightest shit there is.

>regenerative abilities
Why and when did this start being a thing?

Kerrigan and bonner are the Troll gods.

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Probably early DnD stuff, where Gygax made up a lot of weird shit for monsters or based them on some medieval bestiary he had without looking up their origins. It's why DnD has medusa as a species, and the gorgon is a mix up with a bull and catoblepas with petrifying breath instead of ugliness.

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Tomtar aren't trolls

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I like the trolls from the Elder Scrolls, though I can understand why most people don't.
Taking creatures with such a rich folklore and turning them into snow-gorillas with three eyes is kinda dumb

Sub-goblinoid intelligence. Hairy ape-like creatures with powerful jaws, long pointy noses. Insulating layer of fat beneath tough leathery skin, like a rhino's hide. Hair and skin coloration reflective of natural habitat for camouflage. Solitary ambush predators.

I've got such a soft spot for Warcraft, Dota 2 and some mtg troll designs.

Lanky strong ranger types with a strong connection to unstable forms of magic. Cunning and proud at the same time

Should have been ash lad, or soot boy

Moomintroll is comfiest troll.

Agreed. The troll bits were always my favorite in each expansion for as long as I played. The troll island that added was the only good part of pandaland.

Stand Still Stay Silent type trolls are definitely not traditional.

The trolls in warcraft were well made. However I feel they are very cartoonish compared to germanic folklore, and therefore fit better im vidya than in tabletop

They do make a pretty interesting encounter though

Be very careful with Berserk Trolls. Many others on this board would think that shit is Magical Realm.

here.

Well, yeah, most of their culture and characterisation is pretty fucking vidya.

However take all the not!inka and street thug attitude away and what remains is a scary, angry monkey that drops from trees and eats unattentive wanderers lost in the woods. Perfect little story to tell little children not to go into the forest all by themselves.

As I mentioned here , I also like to pick up stuff from Finntroll like in link related. vimeo.com/62599318 I presume they sorta-shapeshift into a camouflaged form to even better surprise prey that wanders too far into their territory. So on top of dropping on you from the trees, what you thought was a pile of rocks turns out to be a troll and jumps you or that shrubbery suddenly lashes with fingers like twigs at your face.

The deep forest is trollcountry, the rocky hills are trollcountry, the swamps are troll country. All of it is fucking troll country until it has been tamed, tilled and planted with crops or vineyards, but then guess what? The vineyards also have trolls in them and if you wander off alone or trying to seduce the baker's busty daughter at night in the vineyards, you get fucking eating by trolls.

Now tell me that wouldn't make a fantastic folklore beast.

Cartoonish doesn't make one fit better than the other.

kek

What game are they playing here?

Looks like faerie chess to me.

River trolls are best trolls

Most old fairytale characters, be they heroes or monsters, are.

IIRC it's from an old fantasy novel, Three hearts and three lions, that Gygax got the idea.

Like a lot of his creations they're a gift that keeps giving.

First they just seem like horrible little monsters, then you find they travel in swarms. Then they start raping women. Then they cannibalize their wounded. Then the true extent of their numbers become clear. Then the rape victims start exploding into clouds of gore and troll-lings. Then the adults start eating the babies.

They're truly vile cunts and they increase in edginess the more screen-time they get, like the 'fairies' in Lost Children and that makes them a success in my book. Monsters should be horrifying, so the players have a reason to be afraid but also a motive to destroy them.

----> TORILLE

>I always liked how the trolls from the witcher 2 were done. Dumb and monstrous without being hostile as a rule.
They're good for that in the Witcher 3 too. Just like in the Witcher 2, the overwhelming majority of troll encounters are easily solved by humoring them and not being a dick.

I remember when I first played Skyrim I encountered one near Ivarstead. I was level 5 or so, so I booked it out of there. It ended up following me to the village and attacking the Town Guard and villagers. It was a pretty fun encounter.

pic unrelated

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Bump

Him who mountain crush him no
Him who sun him stop him no
Him who hammer him break him no
Him who fire him fear him no
Him who raise him head above him heart
Him diamond

/thread
/thud!

>few unifying traits
>regenerating

What is Shadowrun?

>What is Shadowrun?
A game that calls one of their races 'trolls' for no apparent reason, since Shadowrun trolls are much more like ogres.

The setting has ogres too, though they're a subspecies of Orcs

WFB trolls ftw

>Trolls vary too damn wildly from setting to setting
I think that's are reason to like trolls, instead of hating them.

FUCKING THIS

They're more folklore trolls than gaming Trolls, but I love em still the same. Also comes down to humans not knowing what to call everything when they popped up, I mean a subspecies of Troll is a Giant and they're rarely related in anything.

My favorite trolls are the plant trolls, where they're 50/50 animal and plant, which is why if you don't kill them with fire they'll regrow or create more from being split.

I'm sort of attracted to all the more out there monstrous races, since every setting has a new take, even if they have the same standard elves and dwarves.

Like ogres. I love WHFB take on ogres as nomadic glutenous mongols.

When I was a kid I read a freaky book about trolls that had many pictures of them with extra heads. That is probably a trait of theirs that is the weirdest. I've been looking, but does anyone else have pictures of trolls with extra heads?
There were some trolls with a hundred or more heads, but I cannot find any pictures like that.

WHFB Ogres are the best version of Ogres in any media, bar none.

The biggest one I can think of is Troll Hunter, which is an excellent movie, if a bit silly.

The extra heads in the movie are vestigial face shaped lumps, designed to scare and intimidate rivals.

Agreed. They're just weird enough to be a little fantastic/alien, but relatable enough to understand.

I wish more races could get that sort of treatment.

Yeah Troll Hunter is great, but the trolls are not as evil looking as I would like. Despite being able to smell the blood of a Christian they seem more animal-like than evil monsters. I like that fact for the movie, but it doesn't itch the right scratch if you know what I mean.

Shadowrun Trolls confirmed best of Metahumanity.

Fomori confirmed as best Troll Metavariant.

Who said I hate them for this?

I thought it was pretty funny that they spent most of the movie trying to establish scientific reasons for why trolls behave the way they do, including turning to stone or exploding.

But they can smell Christians. lol

>too damn wildly
As if that were something to fix.

>complete deforestation
>backpack full of porridge
What was gained here?

>Snow-gorillas
thanks, I've been looking for some new zingers for my Finnish friend

>A Troll-hunting campaign
it never actually occurred to me

>the absolute madman!