The whole idea that trolls would be cold blooded in the biological sense
( assuming of course that biological realism is considered an asset ) is
absurd. It is absurd for any sentient creature living in a temperate or
colder climate, if anything it would be the tropical trolls that would
be cold blooded. The primary advantage that cold bloodedness brings to a
creature is a low baseline metabolic rate, thus a cold blooded creature
only needs to eat about a tenth as much as a same sized warm blooded
creature (does this sound like any troll that you know?). The disadvantages
are; 1) that it means that their level of activity is largely dictated by
climatic events, when it gets cold they go into torpor, 2) cold blooded
creatures while generaly capable of great bursts of physical activity
they have almost no staying power because their activity relies almost
entirely on anaerobic metabolism. This is why (foolish) humans can
sucsessfully(sp?) wrestle alligators. The human being warm blooded has a
much higher endurance than any alligator and only has to manage to
survive the reptile's initial burst of activity before the human has the
physical upper hand. As an aside the reliance on anaerobic metabolism is
why alert (ie warmed up) reptiles such as snakes are capable of great
bursts of speed and lightning fast reaction times. For a sentient creature
to be both cold blooded and live in a temperate or cold climate would be
a disaster. Many nights and all winter they would spend in a hibernatory
torpor, complete sitting ducks for all those who have trolls on their
better off dead lists. Further it flies in the face of the idea that
most trolls are weather proof with respect to cold. If anything it is the
jungle trolls that would be able to thrive as a cold blooded creature.
For a case in fiction that deals with this subject see Alan Dean Foster's
Nor Crystal Tears.
Mark Groff- Entropy requires no maintenance