Trolls
| |
| Faction(s) | Northerners |
| Alignment(s) | Chaotic |
| Race tree | 1.2; 1.3.18 |
Trolls are ancient creatures, one of the oldest known races known to inhabit the Great Continent. They are large, slow, simple-minded, and live extremely long lives inside deep caves or atop high mountains. The most unique characteristic of trolls is an internal vitality that sustains and heals them from within. As a result they live very different lives from almost any known creature. Trolls have few real needs: they require little food or water, and thus they have little incentive to pursue much besides protection from those who are hostile towards them. This in turn means they rarely have to worry about anything and can spend much of their time sleeping or in contemplation. Trolls have a curious affinity with nature. They do not relate with living things like elves do, but instead with earth and stone. They are also somewhat curious of their surroundings and many younger whelps even enjoy traveling and seeing the world. As trolls grow older they tend to become increasingly passive, gradually losing interest in their environment and spending more of their time sleeping in a quiet, familiar corner of their home cave. This is until they finally pass away as their bodies themselves slowly turn into lifeless statues of stone.
Trolls are seen by many as being little more than a yet another race of savage monsters. This common misconception is in part perpetuated by orcs to persuade trolls to join their armies. Because they are rather simple and do not understand the ways of other races or sometimes can even tell them apart, it is usually easy for an orcish band to convince a group of trolls that by joining them they get to exact revenge on those that have before hunted them. These new recruits are then directed to attack whoever the orcs themselves are currently in conflict with, whether previously a foe of the trolls or not, accumulating even more enemies for the misled trolls. The most common enemy of trolls are dwarves, and the animosity between these two races is ancient.
Geography
Trolls have inhabited the mountains of the Great Continent longer than the dwarves who migrated there. Trolls are a common sight on the mountain ranges north and east of Wesnoth, and wherever Orcish hordes travel.