Good question. I'm making an assumption here without having stated it: When is a troll a troll? Tell you what -- I'll give my definition, you give yours. More productive than going around in circles.
I think it's clear -- whether people like it or not -- that generic, orthodox Elves and Dwarves have logical reasons why they stay at home and don't adventure. They've been written up that way, and it seems most people on GD like it that way.
Now trolls *are* the most playable of the three big ER, but IMO they're still not as able as Johny Orlanth to drop their lives and galavant around adventuring. They're all ancestor worshippers, and IMG a troll is really an initiate only at his own family or clan's (blood or marriage) temple -- your priestess needs to know how you "connect" to KL by kinship, and a KL priestess half-way around the world isn't going to know (unless you marry someone who's kinship links she does know). Even hard-asses like Zorak Zorani, hooman lovers like Argan Argarites or the freaky insect worshippers keep this link -- you might worship a more powerful god, but worshipping KL defines you as a troll. (Though IMO, ZZites are pushing their luck with their blasphemous rituals).
So for me, trolls aren't defined so much by culture (while important) or by biology (while obvious) as much as by their worship of Kyger Litor as their ancestress. After all, Hoomans become trolls once it's "proven" (through the cocoon ritual) that they're really good troll souls that got shafted with a hooman body. So if you *stop* worshipping Gramma Litor you lose much of your trollishness.
In fact, I advocate that trollish clans that stop worshipping her completely will over time lose their darkness rune links and devolve into men (just as trolls that lose their man-rune turn into weird beasties). Perhaps some early attempts at troll-human cohabitation ended in such ways.
If you want to stay a good troll, IMO you're home at least for the High Holy Day. Having played many a troll, it's damn tough to meet this kind of requirement if you adventure far from home with a bunch of humans, and yeah, as a player I wasn't really thrilled (where's my damn POW increase?!) But if you play niceamong the hoomies and resign yourself to missing some ceremonies (I'll go home next year, I swear!), you can get by. Trolls are the most man-like of the Elder Races, after all. If you willingly *live* among humans for a long time, then (again, IMO) at some point you push your luck too far, get a Grey Fury, and "lose" much of what being a troll is all about.
In my book, adventuring Harrek-style hoomans (where you sever -- in some cases, literally -- your ties to family, home, culture in favor of adventuring) should be just about as rare as adventuring trolls, or whatever. Things like the Seattle farming mafia make more sense to me than traditional multi-racial dungeon bashes.
> I'm not asking for "more human-like" Elder Races, I'm asking for "less
> Alien(the movie)-like" Elder Races.
? Is it really that bad? I can honestly say I've never had my trolls pop
out of someone's chest.
Lamenting such GD stereotype threads as:
> - - That trolls are like head-bangers (remenber the discussion about
> troll music?)
<Straight face> Why yes, Sergio, I and all other posters to the 'Trolls:
Rap vs. Heavy Metal' thread intended completely to pigeonhole them as
human in music and mindset. Also to insist their technological base could
produce stratocasters and electrical amps as well. Sadly, however, as a
declining race their CD sales are nothing to speak of... that damn Lunar
techno-dance music is all anyone buys these days.
>(BTW, reservations are supposed to exist to help the reserved 'defend
>their culture and heritage'.)
At least in the US, reservations are where you move natives when you want
their land. I doubt it's much different anywhere else in the world. After
all, it's *much* easier to defend your culture and heritage on the
rock-strewn plains of North Dakota than in rich farming land your tribe h
worked for centuries.
Big scandal back home in AK, lately, about the fact that into the 50s and 60s the missionary schools (Trying to convert the natives from worshipping - -- God forbid! -- Russian orthodoxy instead of good ol' fundementalist Protestantism) used to beat children who spoke their native languages at school. It "undermined authority."
Jamuz Frusetta
End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #351
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