From the Publisher:
Trolls. Trolls, trolls, trolls … Where were we?
Royal Road West is dedicated to the increase and diffusion of knowledge concerning the ancient kingdom of Kesteva—specifically by creating role-playing game materials. And trolls, our research staff keeps finding, are a problem.
That’s because virtually all RPG material about them perpetuates harmful stereotypes. That not only risks gumming up otherwise good RPG games but denigrating an entire species.
So in this third post about trolls (you can read Part One here and Part Two here), we’ll take a look at what trolls are, since we’re so sure of what they’re not.
To prepare, I sent Kenneth the Intern to our archives to corral all available texts concerning first-person accounts of trolls. As it turns out, the records are nasty, brutish and short–but it’s the best an intern could do on three cups of coffee and short notice:
- The Troll-Hunter’s Guide. A delightful practical skills book by a professional adventurer named Walls of Roxen. Has two descriptions of encounters with actual trolls.
- Troll Census, Year 155. Don’t let the title fool you. We think this is a Kestevan bureaucrat’s half-hearted attempt at troll counting and not a serious endeavor. Kenneth the Intern included it because of a brief passage concerning a troll family.
- Trollkin. Scraps of troll encounters stitched together by Marsus of Kesteva City. Contains at least one encounter by Marsus himself, which is what we think prompted him to search for other accounts.
- Ulric’s Little Descriptive of Trolls. A rare edition for Ulric, who wrote most of his Little Descriptive series about towns, Royal Road stations and other points of interest to travelers.
- Mindy’s Adventure School Syllabus. For Year 307.
- Mindy’s Big Book of Big Monsters.
- The Tragedy of Trolls. Ulric’s pamphlet, not the work of fiction of the same name by Royal Road West’s Translator.
I’ve asked our esteemed Editor if he might search for more texts concerning trolls on his next expedition to Kesteva through the multidimensional door.
Vote for which text should be published next
On a side note, Royal Road West’s editorial staff decided Thursday morning to publish one of the above titles this fall. We couldn’t agree on which, so we invite you to vote in our online survey. All participants regardless of whether their choice wins will get a free pdf copy of the winner if they sign up for our mailing list.
Click here to vote.
To continue, here is but one extract from the above titles. It comes from The Troll-Hunter’s Guide:
My next lesson is how to hold a spear when faced against a troll. Beware you will seldom have to do this, for trolls are not easily angered. I encountered one such troll on my fifth expedition into the Parthian Mountains. When I feared I had gone too deep into that rocky ocean and climbed too near the Old World, and was short of breath, I missed my footing and plunged down a crevice, leaving behind the waning sun. …
(Several lengthy paragraphs follow, describing Walls’ fall into the darkness, his stumbling around for a while, falling again, more references to the “waning sun,” “flaxen sun,” “sweet mountainy air” and so on, and finally to this next paragraph.)
I had at last tumbled into the mouth of a sort of cave within a cavern, a small and delicate space of glistening stalactites and stalagmites straight out of one of my childhood dreams of pirates grottoes. My body ached and burned, my left arm was broken and bleeding, my head was cluttered, and it was a few moments before I realized my surprise at not only having survived but being able to see in this underground world. There was light, and as my senses returned I could see the light came from a lantern, which was held by a towering gray giant that I knew at once was a troll. …
… I grabbed my spear, and the towering troll swatted it away as it howled a horrid howl, a most horrid howl, into the cavernous depths behind it. …
… Its foul breath stank as it leaned in close, and its menacing teeth jagged and sharp lay inches from my face as it pinned my arms against the damp rock and veritably inspected me head to toe, paying close attention to my damaged arm. A second troll appeared behind the first and moved to my bloody arm. It held a grim roll of bandaging material, and this it proceeded to wrap around my wounded limb. …
… In my struggles against the beasts my body, exhausted, finally collapsed and my mind drifted into a senseless state of slumber. …
(Some paragraphs later, the writer gives the proper technique for actually holding a spear when facing a troll. It’s mostly tips based on his unsuccessful earlier attempt and actually not that helpful.)
Conclusions
I’ll spare you the other extracts and go straight to building up our picture of the accurate troll:
Tall. Ferociously loud when they want to be, which is not often. Compassionate. Fearless. Unable or unwilling to speak the common tongue of Kesteva—but I hasten to add that they seem to have their own language, and failure to speak any particular language is not in itself a sign of stupidity (or intelligence, as most of us can confirm back on Earth). Skilled with bandages. Skilled with spears. Observant—keenly observant.
Accordingly, we’re going to modify our official Royal Road West ancient Kesteva for Dungeon World stats a bit further than we did last week:
TROLL
Solitary, Gregarious, Large
Club (d10+3 damage) 20 HP 1 Armor
Close, Reach, Forceful
Special Qualities: Regeneration (unproven by the historical record, but we’re OK with it for a fun game)
Tall. Real tall. Eight or nine feet when they’re young or weak. Covered all over in warty, tough skin, too. Big teeth, stringy hair like swamp moss and long, dirty nails. Some are green, some gray, some black. They’re clannish and hateful of each other, not to mention all the rest of us. Near impossible to kill, too, unless you’ve fire or acid to spare—cut a limb off and watch. In a few days, you’ve got two trolls where you once had one. A real serious problem, as you can imagine.
Instinct: To smash (We think “to smash” is a harmful stereotype perpetuated against the species) To observe
Undo the effects of an attack (unless caused by a weakness, your call)
Hurl something or someone (probably not, but it could happen)
These changes, we at Royal Road West believe, will honor the limited, but growing factual knowledge we have of trolls while also giving RPG players a rollicking good time.
What do you think?
Until next time, happy adventuring, wes thu hal, &c.