Trollkin ecology

From: James Frusetta <gerakkag_at_wam.umd.edu>
Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 21:56:07 -0400 (EDT)


Sandy, on trollkin:
> This brings up a subtle ecological point. The fact is breeding
> faster does NOT give you more people (or trolls)! And having a lot of
> trollkin slaves can be harmful to the troll species in a very
> fundamental way.

IMO, the big advantage to Garang's HQ is that the trolls can breed up a new generation of slaves in, what, 1/3 to 1/4 of the time you'd need with single births (depending on how big a litter is, how many enlo survive, the proportion of litters to single births, etc.) And trollkin live pretty long (35 years, wot, of backbreaking toil until their little hearts go), so I'm not sure that's all *that* fast breeding. Heck, the little buggers are as good as the average human, after all. If you can't break the curse, might as well have multiple births. Doesn't *hurt* anything.

I can't really see trollkin taking up scare resources and thus denying them to the troll population. As long as the wild trollkin population isn't too far out of hand, you just have a Big Feast and knock down the wilder population. I'd think the big problem for the troll race lies elsewhere:

> But trollkin are only useful to trolls as a species if a
> trollkin's life or death prevents a troll's premature death.
Ironically, the trollkin may well *encourage* the premature death of dark trolls. The Uz of Dakori Inkarth field a suspiciously large military force (TP said about half the population serve in the army/militia, if needed, though that may have gone down in the 3rd edition). The "greater" trolls are probably in the army/militia/mercenaries in skewed numbers; the slavey trollkin provide some levy, but many more labor to prop up the economy of Dakori Inkarth and support all those ZZ gangs.

The problem being, of course, that your (breeding) greater trolls may well to die horribly in adventuring, raiding, etc. So you're losing your uzko population while your enlo are at home, toiling away. Any troll political entity can't afford to be on the losing side of a Cannae; it'd kill off too much of the uzko population.

The trolls *could* reduce hunting expeditions, military expeditions, and give up yet more territory, or they can continue to devote large numbers of full trolls to arms despite the fact it might further weaken the troll race. Shades of Paul Kennedy.


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