Greg Sez Guests: Five Troll Questions (Sep 1999)

Occasionally Greg had guests answer the Q&As in Greg Sez. Answered by James Frusetta, with assistance from Stephen Martin, Jörg Baumgartner, Peter Metcalfe, Dan McCluskey, and Lorne Booker.

Q: How much does a troll eat in a day?

A: As much as she can! Trolls are constantly hungry, and even with several big means a day they’ll nibble as they can. 

But in terms of need, a dark troll will eat about two, even three times what a human will eat. This is if the troll is eating rich, filling food like meats and food plants. If the troll is eating “less nutritious” foods (minerals, wood, bone, chitin, weeds, etc.), it may eat more than this. A troll eating dirt, ice or stone might have to eat throughout the day, and not have time to do anything else. 

Q. Where is Kajakab Hendsson now (in 1621?) 

A: In the south of the Glacier, preparing for the annual onslaught of the Icebreaker. As have heroes of the glacier in the past, Kajakab hopes to disrupt the Lunar heroquest and push the barriers of ice farther south. In particular, Kajakab is strengthening the local glacier-spirits 

Q. What happened to the Giant Uz?

A: Few Giant Trolls survived the exodus from Wonderhome, and those that did died out one-by-one, beset by the enemies of the trolls. In the strongholds of the trolls in Dakori Inkarth, Halikiv, etc., a handful survived into Time and none past the First Age. 

In the far north, however, the situation was different. Safe in the cold, dark north, the giant uz survived. With no significant enemies and well able to tolerate the climate, the giant uz have survived to the outbreak of the Hero Wars.

Q. What happens when a troll stops worshipping Kyger Litor?

A: Uz are shaped by their relationship with Kyger Litor, and when this relationship changes, so do the uz (e.g., the Surface Sadness and the Curse of Kin). Similarly, trolls can alter the relationship through rituals and magics (Induce Uzdo).

If a group of trolls forsakes Kyger Litor worship (and its attendant fertility rituals) and survives, over time their children will lose their darkness link and will devolve — losing the darkness rune, and becoming men. 

Q. Does each Uz land have a Castle of Lead?

A: Any civilized troll land that can afford the effort and cost of erecting a Castle will do so, although the structures differ in region to region. A Castle of Lead invokes Kyger Litor — it is essentially a huge kygerlith that oversees a troll land and that forms an almost unassailable fortress. 

Halikiv and Dagori Inkarth both have Castles of Lead. Yolp’s Tower of Bones and the Mountain of Flesh on Valind’s Glacier serve the same purpose. The Shadow Plateau does not possess a structure that incarnates Kyger Litor, but the Obsidian Palace served the same purpose for Argan Argar. 

Dozaki’s Newhome had a castle, but it fell into ruins when the Kralorelans invaded, and they invaders were careful to enclose the site. A vast ruin in what was once Borklak, overrun with aldryami vines and creepers, may have been a castle.

Lack of such structures partially explains the primitiveness of the uz in the Elder Wilds and Koromandol.

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