TROLLS OF CARANOCTIA
Aceranimus aenigmatus (fierce-minded enigma)

HISTORY

Trolls are a hybrid species created by Aelvian lifesculptors who mixed human germ plasm with that of goblins to improve the breed. The early Aelvian colonizers of Caranoctia were distressed by how their human slaves, bred for centuries for docile temperament and visual charm, could not survive in this harsh new wilderness.

Goblins (from the Aelvar word khoverrn, or "pest") are a species in the saber-raptor family. Saber-raptors are bipeds with powerful birdlike hind legs, long muscular tails used for balance, a torso held parallel to the ground, forelimbs with grasping claws, spurs on the wrist and heel, and vaguely catlike heads on sinuous necks. They are covered with a combination of scales and quill-like hairs. Goblins are a wiry, diminutive breed distinguished by decorative hornlets (cornuta), vividly patterned skins with quill-hairs restricted to the vertebral column and tasseled tail, and drawn-out muzzles. Ecologically, goblins fill a role similar to coyotes, predators and scavengers who can survive and prosper in a wide range of environments. They are noted for their hardiness, resiliency and feisty temperaments. They must have seemed like the perfect beast to inject a little fight into the weakening human breed.

Trolls (from the Aelvar truuhl, or "useful") seemed at first to be an outstanding success. They were as intelligent as humans if not more so, but physically strong and disease resistant. Very soon there few humans remained in the city of Thorcasia, having been entirely replaced by the superior breed of trolls. Puffed up by their accomplishment, the leading lifesculptors of Thorcasia gave trolls the ability to reproduce on their own and prepared to begin exporting this valuable new variety of slave.

That, as it turned out, was just what the trolls had been waiting for.

It isn't clear how the idea of rebellion first occurred, but the true irony of the situation is that is was surely the result of behaviors the lifesculptors had instilled in them to make them self-educating, self-improving tools: the innate competitive drive, the imitative ability, and the typically trollish clear-headed, cold-hearted ability to assess a situation.

Firstly, the trolls were able to compare themselves with creators whom they felt no indebtedness to, and found that both physically and in many ways mentally the Aelvars who ruled them were their inferiors. Compelled not only to imitate the Aelvars - this is, to be masterful themselves - the only logical course was to overthrow them. It was only by dint of their remarkable mastery of their own emotions that trolls were able to accept their subservient existence until the time for rebellion was perfect.

With the means of continuing their species under their own control, the trolls of Thorcasia rose up one night in a pack and slaughtered their creators and their few loyal slaves. They then took what they could carry, destroyed what they couldn't, and left Thorcasia. By morning they had disappeared into the vast stretches of the Guldurgu swamp where no man or Aelv could survive.

When news of the sack of Thorcasia reached the other Aelvian cities, a few half-hearted attempts to hunt the trolls down were essayed, but ended in failure and they were given up for lost. Thorcasia itself was worse off than a ghost town, as the obliteration of its infrastructure left it riddled with toxic magical effects and inhabited by monsters descended from escaped experimental animals.

For years, tales floated out of the swamps about strange humanoids who supposedly traded with the native satyrs. No one knew if these were the trolls of Thorcasia or not, and no Aelvian put much stock in such rumors. The satyrs who allegedly traded with them remained tightlipped on the subject.

Eventually, the humans themselves rebelled against their Aelvian oppressors and Caranoctia became entrenched in what would be called the Sundering war. Although the trolls remained in hiding for the most part, a steady stream of exotic weapons trickled from the south to the human armies, and some heroes of various skirmished had a distinctly odd look about them - so much so that in retrospect, they were surely disguised trolls helping out their brethren.

After the defeat of the Aelvians, a large contingent of trolls emerged from the Guldurgu to retake Thorcasia for themselves. Although some still hang on in the swamps, the bulk of the troll population is currently engaged in cleaning up the ruins, defusing magical booby traps and exterminating monsters, intent on having an established city and its riches for themselves. The human government keeps an uneasy eye on developments, as the self-reliant trolls have never accepted a formal alliance with anyone. In fact, human adventure-seekers have been quietly encouraged to brave the dangers of Thorcasia not only to seize old Aelvian treasures for themselves but to spy on the trolls' progress.

Lately there have been wild stories coming from Rathvia and other nearby towns that trolls are capturing human beings and dragging them back to Thorcasia to be turned into trolls themselves, or that trolls are somehow spreading a disease, troll-rot, that accomplishes the same purpose.

LANGUAGE

Trolls speak a harshly accented version of the Caranoctian koine more closely related to Aelvish than the Iendenalian-Alevian creole spoken by humans. This is no doubt because after trolls were established in Thorcasia, very few humans were about to influence them. This trollspeak has also been influenced by the swamp satyr variation of that native tongue, as this was the nontroll species they most associated with. Trollspeak is also liberally laced with jargon pertaining to an individual troll's area of expertise, making it difficult for two individuals of different professions to understand each other. It is theorized that the use of technical jargon creates a sense of communality in the otherwise individualistic trolls, and deep knowledge of arcane jargon helps ratchet a troll up in the pecking order.

An interesting quirk of troll psychology is that individuals tend to fall into one or the other pattern of language use, a distinction that divides the species of trolls more deeply than those made by other species between races, ages or genders. Roughly half the troll population is amazingly loquacious, keeping up a running patter of comments and extemporaneous dialog almost their entire waking lives, rather like humans with frontal lobe disinhibition. It doesn't matter whether anyone else is participating in a conversation, paying attention or even present at all, as they will address animals and inanimate objects. The unending stream of chatter continues in a manner that seems not entirely under the troll's control. The other half of the population is exceptionally taciturn, rarely speaking and even then only in one or two word sentences.

These communicative predispositions are obvious from the time a young troll begins to speak and cannot be changed by training or force of will. It is interesting that talkative trolls almost invariably form warm bonds with their silent kin. Two humans with such contrasting characters would probably drive each other mad, but garrulous trolls like being around someone who doesn't struggle to interrupt and cram a word in edgewise, and mute trolls are either oblivious to the prattling on or enjoy it in the manner humans enjoy birdsong or the sound of a babbling stream.

APPEARANCE

In general proportion and bearing, trolls are more human than not. They tend to be tall, their scarecrow thin frames strung with sinewy, corded muscle, with knobby joints and oversized hands and feet. Their torsos and arms, especially the forearm, are longer than human average and their legs, especially the thighs, somewhat shorter, which along with their sloped shoulders, hunched posture and shambling gait give them an apish look. The most obvious deviation from the human norm is the troll's wonderful tail. This animated whiplash, long, flexible, slightly prehensile and tipped with a leonine tuft, is not only used for balance but to show emotion that seems to be absent from a troll's grim, impassive face.

Most variation among trolls seems to be along an axis of resembling one or the other of their parent species. No troll will ever be mistaken for a full-blooded goblin or human, but even though they are more human than goblin, there is a great deal of variation in exactly how feral they appear. Unlike other sentients, trolls have very consistent facial features and any random troll will resemble any other random troll to a high degree despite their relative proportion of human or goblin features.

All trolls have strikingly angular, bony faces with long, narrow jaws and jutting chins, high, sharp cheekbones and hollow cheeks, very wide, thin-lipped mouths (a troll can open its jaws far wider than a human, wide enough to easily shove in their fist), low, heavy brows shielding large but close-set eyes, and oversized, aquiline noses. Their mobile, expressive ears are quite large and triangular in shape, pointing up but with a characteristic downward bend about halfway along the length.

In the center of the forehead slightly above the brows is what appears to be a small, dark, opaque inset jewel. This is in fact the troll's "third eye". The troll cannot actually see with it, but can detect sources of infrared radiation. Its goblin ancestors use this ability to track warm-blooded prey in conditions of low visual acuity such as fog.

Troll teeth are more reptilian than mammalian and not at all human in appearance. They are shaped rather like the teeth of a carnivorous lizard, being flattened cones with thick enamel and razor-sharp edges. Trolls are born with a functioning set of teeth and can take solid food immediately. The continue to grow teeth throughout life, the old ones falling out as they grow worn to be replaced with sharper new teeth.

Of course teeth that are continually replaced can't be expected to mesh well, and most trolls have effective but very misaligned grins. Trolls love gnawing on bones to keep their teeth polished and healthy. The rate of replacement slows with age so elderly trolls will have considerable gaps and yellowing teeth even more crooked than a younger specimen. Naturally carnivorous, trolls don't hesitate to take advantage of cooking vegetable foods to supplement their diets. Troll tongues are long, with a feline sandpapery texture to rasp meat off of bones, and are colored startlingly purple with a bright yellow tip.

The skin is covered with extremely fine, granular scales more apparent to the touch than the eye, decorated with small hornlets in certain places such as the brow, jaw line, bridge of the nose, chin, outer edge of the arms and legs, along the ribs, and spine. The amount of hornlets present varies widely among individuals, although they tend to increase with age.

Troll hair is very thick and straight almost more like thin, flexible quills than hairs, with a glossy sheen reminiscent of raven feathers. It is usually only present on the head and trailing down the back of the neck and spine, the eyebrows and the tip of the tail. The body hair, confined mainly to the back, chest, tail and upper side of the limbs, hands and feet is scanty, coarse and colorless, in one author's description resembling the hair on a possum's tail. Trolls tend to go gray fairly early in life.

Trolls come in four color phases, often erroneously referred to as cave trolls, forest trolls, swamp trolls and frost trolls. In fact, they occur at about the same frequency in all populations. The commonest is the grey phase, in which the skin is a swarthy olive (yellowish-greenish-grey) with darker patterns, the hair is black and the eyes pale yellow. The next commonest are so-called forest phase, with more yellow-golden skin, brown patterning, wheaten hair and green eyes, and the 'swamp' or erythrism phase, with slate blue skin, darker blue or rust colored patterning, red hair and blue or vivid orange eyes. The rarest coloration are the leucistic 'frost' trolls, who have extremely pale blue skin with white patterning, white hair, and blue eyes.

Troll hands and feet have four digits, like the ancestral goblin, and each one is tipped with a sharp, nonretractable claw. The longer, thicker weight bearing toes are the two central ones, with the two outer ones being smaller and shorter. From the calcaneus (heel) bone and a fusion of the triquetrum and pisiform bones of the outer edge of the wrist grow hooked spurs with a bone core and an ever-growing keratin sheath (curving distally on the heel and proximally on the wrist). These provide the troll with highly effective natural weapons. At the base of the spurs are glands that excrete a strong-smelling oil (the scent has been compared to eucalyptus), and like their ancestral goblins trolls will mark territory by using their spurs to gouge marks in trees and suchlike, which leaves not only an obvious visual signal by an olfactory one as well. Trolls attempting to pass as human will rasp their spurs down as far as possible, but attempts at permanent removal causes great pain and loss of function in the hands and feet.

Like birds, reptiles and other Caranoctian reptomammals but unlike true mammals such as humans, trolls have a combined intestinal and urinary tract called a cloaca. The opening of the cloaca (also referred to as a 'vent') is concealed by a muscular, horizontal flap of skin, and waste is expelled in a semisolid form.

The reproductive organ of the troll is the perianth, which produces undifferentiated gametes that can join with the gametes of any other troll, so that all individuals are potential sex partners. Because of their lack of body fat, absence of mammary glands, coarse facial features and the perianth bulge in the crotch, trolls appear externally male to other humanoids and are usually referred to by the masculine pronouns. In a mixed group of species this can cause bemusement (or amusement) when, after a productive romp with a fellow troll, "he" returns with a belly full of developing spawn.

REPRODUCTION

Trolls are actually isogamous, not hermaphrodite. There is but a single sex, although two trolls are required to reproduce. For more on troll reproduction and development, see here: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1533003/

CULTURE

Unlike innate urge to band together of most other sentient species, trolls inherited from their solitary goblin ancestors a strong individualistic streak. They band together into a society because they realize intellectually that is the only way to survive, not because they feel any urge such as loneliness. It is to their credit that these natural loners have been able to concoct such an impressively cohesive societal identity.

Generally, trolls organize themselves into small bands of 3-15 individuals who have a common interest or goal. The bands have a rigidly defended pecking order, although the alpha troll gets a perverse pleasure from defending the omega (probably because it further distresses underlings). Naturally quarrelsome, any action undertaken by trolls is punctuated by considerable verbal abuse, internal strife and bouts of violence. Bands frequently fission and reform, especially during the mating season when rivals become - briefly - lovers. Those not familiar with this method of function will wonder how anything ever gets done, but somehow trolls manage to make it work. An outside threat will immediately forge a band into a defensive machine of clockwork precision.

There are currently three main troll populations. The bulk of them occupy Thorcasia and carry on the business of trying to reclaim it. Troll bands also continue to patrol the deep swamps impassable to other species, possibly to have an option open in case the conquest of Thorcasia does not pan out. Then there are the troll adventurers, small bands or individuals who make their way in the rest of the world. Many are traders - or spies - and almost all regularly revisit one of the population centers with reports on their experiences. It is the rare troll who settles permanently among humans or one of the other more populous species.

Humans are often surprised that trolls own pets. Unlike humans, a troll never sees its pet through a sentimental haze. It would be unthinkable to them to teach a dog to sit up and beg, or dress it in clothes. They never speak to it (or even their own young) in baby talk, assign it humanlike motivations and so on. Scholars theorize that animals are useful to trolls not just for the obvious reasons, but because they supply a valuable bond that trolls cannot expect from their own species, with whom they feel more competitive than anything else. Trolls favor carnivores as pets, even as mounts, simply because their own ketone-scented breath makes herbivores nervous.

Trolls rather surprisingly have a developed artistic sense, although they prefer art that is representational and practical. To them, a perfectly functioning watch or skillful blueprint drawing is art, but an abstract painting is not. The general troll style of painting is realistic with important areas exaggerated and a tendency to thick outlines and nitpicky delineation of details. Trolls have very poor color vision, with blues and greens fading into an indistinguishable grey, so when color is used in troll art, it tends to be red, orange or yellow and highly saturated. Humans seem to regard troll art as grotesque and gloomy.

Troll music consists mostly of intense percussion (including stomping on the ground), blasts of horns, howls and shouted chants. Many also have a deep fondness for the accordion and the bagpipes, instruments generally considered by other races to be the handiwork of some kind of demon. There is no troll tradition of dance, but their graceful sparring, with its kicks, leaps and arm-thrusts, can have a dance-like quality.

Troll literature consists almost entirely of essays, articles, abstracts, reports and so on. No troll has ever been known to read or produce fiction. They enjoy the epic recited dramas of the satyrs, not so much for their actual content but to endlessly discuss them, debate them and dissect out their meaning.

An interesting aspect of troll society is the thanatos, or death urge. Unlike humans, who have an array of mental processes to convince themselves they are useful and desirable, and whose religion has tenants in place to prevent suicide, trolls have a much more clearheaded appreciation of their own self worth (it is said that depressed humans have a better ability to monitor reality than supposedly mentally normal humans). When a troll feels its usefulness has come to an end, it has no compunctions about committing suicide. Although its companions will try to cajole it out of the decision, none of them will actually attempt to stop it unless the individual is pregnant at the time (in which case they will make certain there is a host available for the ejected trollspawn). The fact that trolls will not hesitate to suggest suicide as an option to members of other species whom they feel are useless does not endear them to anyone.



If you'd like to see a devastaingly adorable voodoo doll version of a troll (Rhab, specifically) check out http://www.furaffinity.net/full/1714579/ by  thumbclawz