Troll

I don’t love TV Tropes* but their entry on trolls saves me a whole lot of typing.  So go there, then come back here.

Okay, you still with me?

The trolls of Pathfinder are not and yet still kind of are the trolls of D&D, the trolls of Tolkien, the trolls of Norse Mythology, the trolls of “The Three Billy Goats Gruff,” etc.   Every source seems to approach trolls from its own lens**, but Pathfinder has done a good job of making its trolls a little bit of all of the above without diluting their essential nature.  But it’s telling that even Pathfinder has had to work to reconcile the differences among its very own trolls: the dumb, walking underbite standard model versus the nearly fey trolls of the Lands of the Linnorm Kings versus the (absolutely genius, first-thing-I point-to-when-people-ask-my-why-Pathfinder-is-great) troll haruspices of Kaer Maga. 

Having trolls be giants from the First World (as is suggested in various places, especially Lands of the Linnorm Kings, I believe) is a really elegant fix: in one fell swoop it explains their regeneration, the magically plastic nature of their many subraces, and their occasional brilliance despite an average Int of 6.  Whether you choose a similar option is up to you.

Where am I going with all this?  All I’m saying is that, like every monster we talk about here, trolls are yours to play with, tweak, and rework for your campaign world.  You’ll be taking part in a very old tradition.

*Let’s be clear: Really useful tropes tend to arise (and stay) in popular parlance: Jumping the Shark, Cousin Oliver Syndrome, Space Jews, etc.  TV Tropes is a game played by pop culture enthusiasts with other pop culture enthusiasts.  It’s an exercise in cataloging by fans for fans.  Enjoy it!  Have fun with it!  But spending too long on there risks turning you into a walking wiki who can no longer communicate with Muggles.

**Interesting how we’ve totally fallen in lockstep with Tolkien’s portrayal of dwarves, elves, and (to a lesser extent) halflings, yet trolls seem to insist on remaining their own creatures.  Ironic that we have an iconic monster that refuses to be iconic.

Anyway, on to the troll adventure seeds!

A troll is held as a witness before a trial, chains and regular applications of torch fire serving to keep it bound.  But when the guard grows lax during the winter holiday season, the troll makes its escape. First it gnaws off its flame-burnt stumps to escape its chains and allow its arms to regrow.  Then it burst out of its tower cell and uses its own intestines to rappel down the side.  It lands just before a reveling party of adventurers, blood and guts steaming amid the snow.  Do the lightly armed and drunken adventurers dare tackle the beast, even in its weakened state?

A rogue backstabbed a troll, only to lose his magic dagger in the rubbery flesh.  The regenerating skin covered the dagger, which now sits encysted in the troll’s side.  The dagger hums to warn of danger, which makes this troll very hard to sneak up on.

The tale of the Goats and the Troll seems to have come to life at Wine Barrel Bridge.  All those attempting to go over the bridge must face three wild satyrs, while river traffic going under must contend with a scrag.  All four assailants have a reverence for riddle play—the troll’s long memory (and Wis 9) making up for any lack of intelligence—and they will break off an assault to play, but only if their victim proposes a game.

—Classic Monsters Revisited 58–63 & Pathfinder Bestiary 268

More on trolls in (of course) Classic Monsters Revisited.  For you all who like to dive into the deep cuts, GAZ7 The Northern Reaches set the example of really dumb, sadistic trolls in D&D’s Known World, which Bruce Heard picked up in GAZ10 The Orcs of Thar.  But he played with trolls, too—the trolls of Alphatia’s Trollhattan are quite sophisticated, in fact.

On a personal note, a scrag graced the cover of one of the first issues of Dragon Magazine I ever bought, #133.  Man, do I like that cover.

Lots of comments on recent posts!  I definitely do read them all and I’ll try to tackle them as holiday craziness subsides; right now I’m in a bit deep.

Rock Troll

Like many things in Pathfinder, rock trolls are an attempt to reunite and reconcile the folkloric origin of a monster with the stat block it has since become.  Trolls in Scandinavian folk tales were petrified by the sunlight, ditto most trolls in fiction (Tolkien, anyone?).  Regenerating, fire-fearing trolls are an RPG thing, apparently inspired by Poul Anderson’s Three Hearts and Three Lions (which I’ve never read but have many times heard tell of its influence in D&D).

Rock trolls lose the classic RPG vulnerability to fire, trading it for sonic and sunlight vulnerability instead, which is more in line with the trolls of legend.  And that’s…pretty much all you need to know really.  They’re a hair more powerful and a hair less bright than the standard troll, so if you wanted a mythologically correct game you could even just make rock trolls your default troll entirely without disrupting play.  You also might play a bit with the crystalline content of the trolls’ skin—it might change depending on their region of origin or recent diet, reflecting the stones they’ve eaten.  Other than that, they’re just another fine troll subspecies with which to surprise spelunking PCs and frustrate fireball-tossing mages.

An elderly xorn wants to consume the tourmaline-studded skin of a live rock troll—a delicacy.  But in its infirmity it needs guides to help it find one of the creatures, as well as help hacking the regenerating thing apart if the party can’t find one small enough for the xorn to gulp whole.

Dwarven bards from all over the continent are gathering at Caer Undwen to trade songs, sing dirges, and tune their instruments to the perfect pitch of the Cavern of the Spheres.  Unfortunately, this leaves no one with musical skill remaining at the dwarf settlement of Holdfast.  When the clan unearths a gang of hibernating rock trolls, there is no one to take hammer to the chimes of shattering that would wound the creatures.  Without the help of brave adventurers, the clan is doomed to days of tunnel fighting and attrition in the depths.

Necromancers are notoriously hard on apprentices, but Maxim of the White Hand is worse than most.  If adventurers enter the courtyard of his isolated keep, he sends one of his pupils to greet them and offer refreshments…while another, invisible, uses scrolls of stone to flesh to awaken the two rock troll “statues” in the courtyard.  If the apprentices are killed in the process (the trolls do not discriminate), Maxim reanimates their bodies later.  What’s left of them, anyway…

—Pathfinder Bestiary 2 272

Moss Troll

Normally I like to point out in-game reasons why monsters are awesome, but with moss trolls it’s all about the stat block: They’re CR 3, AC 15 (flat-footed 11), and shaken by fire.  This means that they’re perfect (tough but not lethal) boss monsters for a 2nd or 3rd-level party (or even 1st-level one, if PCs are smart and plan ahead). 

Even this delightful bit of flavor text—“When a moss troll spots prey, it reaches or leaps down from above, heedless of dropping great distances in its eagerness to sate its ravenous appetite” (emphasis mine)—gives you a way to make moss trolls seem badass and yet still stack the deck in a young party’s favor. 

Picture it: The moss troll drops to attack.  It lands with a thud, just missing the PCs.  You describe how the monster shrugs off its bad landing, its regeneration relocating the troll’s twisted knee back into place right before their very eyes…but secretly only you know that the moss troll’s fall has done enough damage that the PCs have a round or two to get their act together.

And that’s great!  Low-level adventures are super hard to end satisfactorily with a fight.  A moss troll is a real monster, a real threat, a real challenge to overcome with both brains and brawn—but with plenty of Achilles heels built in.

And once your PCs are more experienced?  Throw a troop of 4–8 at them right after they’ve shelled out for vials of acid, and watch their dismay as their gold pieces go down the drain.  Or set them up for a jungle encounter with gorillas and dire apes—perhaps a specimen-collecting exhibition—only to have moss trolls come brachiating through the trees instead.

Oh yeah, the fact they can turn into a tree is pretty cool, too.  Add some levels of rogue or barbarian to that and you’ve got a pants-wettingly stealthy and fast ambush.  Have fun!

Fresh from its mother’s nest, a very young black dragon strikes out on its own.  Quickly growing used to throwing its weight around, it suffers its first setback when a gang of moss trolls shrugs off its acid spit and regenerates its talon slashes.  Now the dragon licks its wounds and plots its next move, as do the mossy humanoids.  Both the dragon and the trolls will rally to defend the swamp from outsiders, but a canny party might be able to set the two sides against each other again.

The Burrowback Boys have lamented their lost brother for a year.  Now they have discovered he is alive—captured by a traveling circus during its annual rounds and kept bound by his fear of fire.  Using a muck-encrusted but serviceable trebuchet they found moldering in a clearing, they plan to fling giant leeches into town as a distraction, free their brother, and split the corpse of the circus’s sorcerer master of ceremonies among them.

Born from a tree poisoned by hag blight, the dryad Merifex has always been a bit wrong.  Just how wrong became apparent when she tried to tree meld with a disguised moss troll—and promptly fell in love with the brutish creature.  Now she lures men to feed her monstrous lover. Assuming adventurers don’t stumble upon Merifex on their own, the satyr Cheridwen will beg for their assistance “rescuing” her.  In truth he is madly jealous of the troll—Merifex spurned him years ago—and he intends to rob whoever comes out the winner.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 3 273

“What the deuce?!” you all exclaim, monocles cascading from your faces into your Martinis as you interrobang in shock.  “You neglected the mosquito swarm, you cad!”  Ah, but rest easy, it is here.

Jotund Troll

Aw, yeah.  Now this is what I’m talking about.  You all know I love me some mythic Norse stuff, and it doesn’t get much more mythic than nine(!)-headed trolls.  When a party encounters a nine-headed troll, it is clear they are somewhere else—Jotunland, Faerie, the North Pole, it doesn’t matter.  Civilization is gone.  You are in the Land of Giants, and the next stranger you meet might be a god, a troll, a wolf the size of a hill, a linnorm, or worse.

Then again, as we discussed with centaurs, if you like a really cosmopolitan, monsters-are-people-too campaign, jotund trolls are a great way to keep players on their toes and hit home the wonder of your world.  PCs will be much less likely to start overturning tables in the pub when the bouncer gets nine attacks of opportunity a round…

Belgrub the Eater is a spiritual icon (deity is too strong a term) of the trolls, ogres, and hill giants of the Ironmaw Mountains.  When he hungers for metaphysical soulmeat, he blesses the tribes with the birth of jotund trolls.  Barely able to feed themselves in the best of seasons, the tribes inevitably form war parties to raid the soft “downlanders” in the valleys nearby, and the resulting bloodshed swells Belgrub’s demonic belly.

A party of explorers is deep into the mountains when a blizzard threatens.  Coming across a giant-sized, crude-but-comfortable home, they discover a jotund troll.  Sure that the eye of Wotan is on him, the “head” head offers them hospitality if they can solve a riddle.  That done, the party is safe from the storm…until nightfall.  Convinced Wotan is asleep, the other eight heads decide it is time for a meal, and hospitality be damned.

Nine Petes is (are?) the bouncer (brawler archetype; see Ultimate Combat) for the Hangman’s Lover, a bar in the blustery city of Newford whose high-vaulted ceilings allow him plenty of room to work.  Nine Petes tends to keep several particularly sturdy stools on hand, both because his heads can never pick just one seat and to use as clubs when the need arises.  Thankfully, he(/they) also only rarely swallows patrons whole anymore.  (There was an incident with a wayang he’d rather not discuss.)

—Pathfinder Bestiary 3 272

Wotan is, of course, another name for Odin. 

And note how nicely the brawler archetype’s No Escape rule meshes with Nine Petes’s All-Seeing Attacks…

I have always wanted to run a low-to-medium magic Viking-inspired campaign, especially with players who could take law and oaths seriously, like my grad school friends.  (My current gaming friends are equally fun but much more roguish.) 

I was already into Norse mythology, thanks to Gods & Heroes from Viking Mythology by Brian Branston and Giovanni Caselli (part of the World Mythology Series, which I cannot recommend highly enough), and then my ninth grade history teacher assigned us the Icelandic Njál’s Saga, which opened by eyes to the world of weregild, hospitality, and feuds.  If you can get past the first part, which reads like Viking stereo instructions, there is a campaign in there.

Speaking of which, did anyone out there ever read the 2e HR1 Viking Campaigns Sourcebook?  I hear it was good.  And Ken Rolston’s GAZ7 The Northern Reaches definitely brought the North alive for D&D fans.

Yesterday syringesin asked, “Any reason why you never post pictures of the monsters you profile?  Just curious.  Actually, I prefer your format as it is, without the pictures.” 

Honestly, I’d love to post pictures.  But I’m really committed to making this blog 100% original content.  And since I can’t draw and only rarely take photographs, what you see is what you get.  That said, if any of my readers out there are great artists and want to send fan art, I’ll eagerly post it and give you credit.

Trust me, I know being all-text limits this blog’s appeal for some people.  But there are enough great people curating and reblogging out there already.  So I just do my thing and hope the 120 or so of you out there who dig it keep digging it.  (You all, however, are encouraged to like and reblog me like a fiend.)

Got a question or comment?  Ask away!

Ice Troll

“At least they’re not smart.”  That is always the mantra adventurers cling to when dealing with trolls.  But the Northmen know better—they know ice trolls are as smart as they, and if they ever truly organized, humanity near the Poles would be doomed.

Despite occupying a single blot on the map, the nation of Viriden is actually two coastal states separated by a broad plain.  Because this plain is a migration route for aurochs, bison, giant elk, and other creatures, it is also the breadbasket for four hordes of ice trolls.  The axes and appetites of these foul humanoids prevent trade from crossing the width of Viriden, and messengers there are accorded a level of respect most other nations reserve for their elite cavaliers.

Jutland is a remarkably diverse but desolate nation, where ice trolls and the occasional frost giant lord over human and kobold thralls.  Their witches are renowned for piloting animated wicker storks through the city streets with sobbing future meals in the storks’ woven bellies.  The hope for Jutland lies underground—in dwarven city-states that train all freedom fighters who would learn as scouts (rogues and rangers), quarrels (ninjas), and firestarters (fire elementalists and evokers).

After ice troll mercenaries saved the city of Karlstadt, the jarl opened his gates to them.  Two bars in particular seem to cater to the brutes: The Belch & Bodkin, which serves a gritty trollish brew that resembles badly aged malt whiskey and rocks, and the Pit, where ice trolls duel with torches in a makeshift arena.  The fights are always exciting—the fact that the lit torches are tied to the trolls’ right hands encourages them to finish their opponents quickly.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 2 271

Looking for the ice mephit?  We sorted him out back in February.