Trolls

From: Erik Sieurin <erik.sieurin_at_sp.se>
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 1997 16:44:20 +0200


James Frusetta:
> Erik Sieurin wrtoe:
> > Being a non-Trollpak-owner, I' wonder:
> Eeek! Buy it! You won't regret it! ;)
>

        If I can find it. Yesterday I tried to get my hands on Troll Gods in a store that is usually fail-safe when it comes to oldn'good stuff (Flammans Spel, the Swedish distributor of Tales and Tradetalk), and got a negative result. Sob!

> And IMO, while trolls can eat anything, they do need a little
> variation in
> their diet, and not everything (e.g., air, dirt, sand, water) is
> particularly nutricious. So you do need a decent amount of
> meat/plants.

That's what I wondered about - can trolls really live long and prosper on rock and dirt?
Elder Secrets says something like "Their favorite food is elf. Their least favorite food is feces and air" I was thinking whether their is more nourishment in some magical way in eating intelligent/magical beings if you are a troll. That might explain why Chaos beings are sort of tasty; they are loaded with magickal power. They are avoided because they give you stomach trouble. And undead, more soulless than stone, tastes icky because of that. Zorak Zorani, being Real Tough don't Care, of course.

The only troll PC which ever appeared in our campaign was constantly eating (retrofitting, it explains why he never fell upon his human pals out of hunger), usually wood - he'd tear up a sapling and chew on it until he got bored. Inside, he chewed firewood for snacks. Why let the evil fire have the goodies?

BTW, do trolls produce any feces? Can anything really grow in that?
> Well, yes, but look at how much of European trade was in "luxury"
> items.
> Joe-bob peasant, even fairly recently (say, mid-19th century France
> according to Eugen Weber), wasn't the focus of trade -- it was luxury
> items for the better-off and food/materials imports for the cities.
>
> I'd agree that Joe Uz doesn't need to trade, but the townstrolls and
> rulers would be the ones who'd inspire it.
It wasn't 'trade' I was thinking of, really, but 'economy' as in ' the basic flow of needed commodities and where it came from'. It probably got lost somehow, but my thought was that since troll don't have to care too much about the basic needs, they can concentrate on luxury stuff. If I want that really cool maul or choclate-taste carcass, I can squander my bolgs on that and live on rock and air for a few weeks. Trolls can afford to be spendthrifts.

        By the way, if trolls _do_ have to gather and store large amounts of food, the Big Problem ought to be how to keep yourself from gorging yourself on the stuff. Or is that what they do - they fill themselves totally with food as soon as they can, and don't keep no stores. Means you'll have to chew out fewer caves.


End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #104


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