Troll
Trolls, often called common trolls, are a species of monstrous, semi-sentient creatures related to giants. They are well known for their ravenous hunger, their unbridled aggression, and their regenerative biology which allows them not only to heal exceptionally quickly, but regrow lost limbs, organs, and even heads through a process of rapid cell duplication and mutation.
Trolls are highly adaptive and have numerous subspecies across Holos , making them a bane to travelers and remote communities centuries. However, in recent years their numbers have sharply declined as advances in alchemy have revealed troll blood to be an instrumental ingredient in the creation of superior healing potions.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Trolls are often characterized by their foul appearance and temperament. They can grow over two and a half meters tall, though they usually stand hunched at the shoulder. Trolls are born tetrapods with two long, muscular arms ending in ragged, raptorial claws and two legs ending in digitigrade clawed toes. Though they are usually bipedal, trolls can switch to a quadrapedal gallop when they need to chase down prey.
All trolls have tough, rubbery hide that helps shrug off most attacks. Because their skin sits above a layer of muscle, it can be grabbed or tugged at with great force without incurring severe injury. In common trolls, this hide ranges in coloration from olive-grey to jaundiced yellow to dark green. Many troll species also grow dark hair on their scalps, necks and other body parts to help regulate temperature and further blend into their environment.
Genetics and Reproduction
Trolls are one of the only multicellular vertibrates known to reproduce both through sexual reproduction and through a process known as asexual fission. This means that on occasion, a wounded troll's lost arm may actually regenerate a new troll, while the previous troll can regrow its arm or grow multiple arms in place of the original limb. Trolls born in this way typically demonstrate weaker cognitive capabilities and rarely live through their regenerative process, often starving to death before they can grow the necessary body parts to hunt down prey to fuel the transformation.
When trolls reproduce sexually, males and females will mate and then go their separate ways. Female trolls are known to hunt and kill the smaller male trolls after mating in the hopes of driving away any competition that might rear their head while the female is pregnant. Female trolls carry their young for a period of about a year and a half before giving birth to live young. Trolls are usually born as twins. The mother troll will carry the infants for a period of about another four years, after which the adolescent trolls are able to hunt and fend for themselves. Female trolls will eat their children after this time.
Growth Rate & Stages
Trolls grow very quickly despite their large size and are able to hunt and fend for themselves at only four years old. They reach sexual maturity at about ten years old and are fully grown at age fifteen.
Though they do have what some have suggested is signs of negligible senescence, it is extraordinarily difficult to tell how long a troll lives because trolls live such violent lives and lose parts of their bodies frequently. This means that they often are regenerating constantly and reproducing through asexual fission so often that it becomes a difficult question of which troll is the original troll. However, this process does take sometime and as any trollhunter will tell you, trolls are not immortal if you know what you're doing. Their growth can quickly be stunted by acidic damage or severe burns which limits their ability to reproduce.
Ecology and Habitats
Trolls are ravenous eaters and require large territories full of large game in order to satisfy their enormous appetites. They prefer damp habitats, particularly swamps, marshes, bogs, moors, hills, rainforests, and wet woodlands. They often den in caves and rock shelters filled with the rancid remains of their most recent kills. These caves often lead to underground caverns and tunnels, meaning that a substantial number of the trolls living in the Underdark. Additionally, trolls first evolved in the Feywild and so the Fair Realm retains a large population of trolls as well—particularly in the Feydusk.
Dietary Needs and Habits
Trolls are obligate carnivores and will eat anything that moves—including other trolls.
Additional Information
Social Structure
Common trolls are typically solitary and will often fight and eat one another should they infringe on each other's territory. However, there have been some reports of trolls eventually working together, particularly when their environments can support the caloric load of two hungry individuals. Groups of trolls work best together when they are blood relatives and of the same approximate age—a mother troll will not tolerate her offspring after they are large enough to fend for themselves and will kill and eat their own children.
In communities that have attempted to domesticate or use trolls as *mercenaries* or beasts of war, trolls from different that are not blood relatives have to be trained to tolerate others of their kind through strict discipline and a great deal of negative reinforcement.
Domestication
Some groups of mortals and monstrous sentients have attempted to integrate trolls into their communities, either as beasts of war or as supposed *mercenaries." These tamed trolls work for food and the occasional enrichment object but are infamously hard to control, often turning on their masters the moment their rewards become scarce.
Uses, Products & Exploitation
Before the Sundered Era, trolls were considered threats to livestock and rural populations but beyond the occasional hunting party, little was done to curb their numbers. However, with the Sundering Arcana, the alchemical industry has exploded and with it, new discoveries regarding the production of medicinal healing potions. These potions can be applied during battle to a wounded individual, healing their injuries quickly and allowing them to continue to fight or even survive potentially lethal damage. However, the production of these magical concoctions requires decades of training and a great deal of rare ingredients often harvested from dangerous creatures. One of these ingredients critical to the brewing of the most potent of medicinal elixirs, the superior healing potions, is troll blood. Troll blood's natural regenerative properties, when combined with a host of other ingredients, ensure that superior healing potions can regrow tissue and bone within moments of ingestion. For this reason, trolls have become some of the most lucrative game in a monster hunter's bestiary. As demand for troll blood continues to skyrocket, the populations of common trolls has plummeted, with many populations driven to extinction.
Their infamy as dangerous yet valuable game has led to other subspecies of trolls, such as the much larger trulladon, to become targets of monster hunters as well, leading to further ecological instability where these creatures act as keystone species. Some rangers and druids have attempted to stem the bloodshed by educating the public on the importance of trulladons and the differences between the two species. But it appears that these overtures have done little to stop the enormous market forces calling for the blood of all trolls and their genetic cousins.
Others are attempting to capitalize on this new market for trolls and troll byproducts by breeding the creatures. These enterprising communities are often goblinoid or orcish in heritage and have experience recruiting trolls to serve in their warbands. However, breeding a semi-sentient animal for slaughter has many challenges beyond the fact that trolls are a naturally aggressive and difficult to control species. Time will tell if these efforts are effective at providing the burgeoning alchemy industry with the life-saving medical treatments they are increasingly asked to produce.
Geographic Origin and Distribution
Trolls once were the most widespread of the giantkin, adapting to a wide range of habitats and spreading to every continent. However, increased demand for troll blood has facilitated a rapid decline in troll populations, with many folk paying enormous sums for captured trolls or their corpses. Today, the common troll can be found in temperate to subtropical woodlands, rainforests, and swamps across Holos as well as near remote hills and mountain vales that are accessible via cave systems.
Beyond the Material Plane, the Underdark, the Shadowfell, and the Feywild harbor substantial populations of trolls.
Average Intelligence
Trolls have no culture to speak of, no unifying myths or legends, and they place little stock or understanding in the beliefs of others. To be a troll is to fight to survive, and in that way they appear to have only a bestial intelligence. However, trolls do demonstrate several traits of highly intelligent semi-sentient creatures, namely tool use. Trolls craft basic weapons of stones, tree branches, and bones and have been known to keep and wear the remains of their more intelligent prey, though to what end is unclear. Some mortals and intelligent monstrous creatures have taught trolls how to use more advanced weapons, such as clubs or swords, and how to wear armor but trolls cannot perform these functions without the encouragement or goading of another intelligent species.
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
Trolls are usually nocturnal hunters and have excellent darkvision, able to see up to 60 feet in total darkness as if it were merely dimly lit. They also have a keen sense of smell which helps them track their prey, sometimes over long distances.
Genetic Ancestor(s)
Origin/Ancestry
Fey/Giant
Lifespan
30-50 years (see negligible senescence)
Conservation Status
Common trolls are considered an Endangered species with other subspecies in better or far worse conditions.
Average Height
2.7 m (~9 ft.)
Average Weight
226.8 kg (~500 lbs)
Average Physique
Trolls are considered Large creatures.
Geographic Distribution
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