Trolls
In running a new role-play game I have chatted with players on the topic of creating settings and scenarios. One thing I noted is that such creativity involves mixing the creative concepts of others and the more you mix the more distinctively yours a concept can become. To illustrate this I will focus on just one thing - Trolls in The Lands. I can discern something like five influences that went into my imaginary trolls. These concepts played back-and-forth concurrently in my mind. Here I shall present them in a sequence that moreorless fits my own discovery of those various conceptions.
The oldest encounter I had with trolls was in the fairy tale The Three Billy Goats Gruff. I'm sure this is true of many a childhood. This troll lives under a bridge and I had always imagined it therefore as something semiaquatic. Now I look back into the story and see some ambiguity. Many images depict the troll as standing under a bridge but on some enbankment. The story itself sometimes ends with the troll swept away by the flowing water once pushed in by the biggest brother goat. Nonetheless I decided that my trolls would be something that lurks in shallow waters and busts forth to accost shocked travellers.
I met the trolls of Middle Earth as a tween. Tolkien drew from creatures of Norse lore that are somewhat vague in description and his too vary over time. The three trolls in The Hobbit, while large and stupid, are rather humanlike. Their only fantastic characteristic is reverting to stone once exposed to sunlight. In Lord Of The Rings they become more monstrous and seem akin to the orcs they fight alongside. This impressed upon me the importance of having such creatures in a fantasy world but that role eventually went to my version of ogres (which for me are a cross between orcs and hill giants).
Next came Grendal and Grendal's Mother. I read a translation of Beowulf for young readers which may have named one or both as trolls. This Old English tale comes from a time in which its Scandinavian characters were experiencing a transition from Norse to Christian religion. It shows in the various ways these lethal monsters are described. The words and behaviours fit the older religion but they are reconceived as descendents of the wicked Biblical Cain. My trolls lack any supernatural significance but I do try to convey a sense of gloomy foreboding that came from this story. The abode of these two creatures is a grotto in a swamp and that entrenched for me the connection of trolls to water.
Eventually Dungeons & Dragons came into my teenaged life and its core rules describe a rather different monster from the influences thus far named. These gaunt creatures had rubbery hide with the ability to regenerate rapidly (even recombining with severed body parts). I think this was influenced by some pulp fiction author the D&D creators were into. I digress now into a bit of speculation of how to link this troll back to the mineral troll of Tolkien. Apparently silicone rubber can self-mend with the application of heat. What if D&D trolls were a living version of this? Fire would then become a boon rather than a bane to them. But back to my trolls and what I took from D&D was that regenerative ability.
Nature is my final and most important inspiration for trolls in The Lands. Salamanders are amphibians. They are carnivorous. They can even regenerate. My trolls are basically massive predatory salamanders. To emphasise this I call them freshwater or saltwater trolls. A tiny tip-of-the-hat to stone is given in them swallowing gastroliths to help in digesting stubborn armoured prey. Only problem is salamanders look cute to me.
In my imaginings and drawings I try to make my trolls more scary. In drawing them something emerged which reminded me of Ymir by Ray Harryhausen. Admittedly that alien is still a bit cute. However the vestigal gills I describe as looking like a mane of lank tendrils are reminiscent of the Hellhound from Hell Boy and that is more the level of creepiness I was aiming at. For specifics on my version of the troll click here (then scroll down three quarters of that page).
The oldest encounter I had with trolls was in the fairy tale The Three Billy Goats Gruff. I'm sure this is true of many a childhood. This troll lives under a bridge and I had always imagined it therefore as something semiaquatic. Now I look back into the story and see some ambiguity. Many images depict the troll as standing under a bridge but on some enbankment. The story itself sometimes ends with the troll swept away by the flowing water once pushed in by the biggest brother goat. Nonetheless I decided that my trolls would be something that lurks in shallow waters and busts forth to accost shocked travellers.
I met the trolls of Middle Earth as a tween. Tolkien drew from creatures of Norse lore that are somewhat vague in description and his too vary over time. The three trolls in The Hobbit, while large and stupid, are rather humanlike. Their only fantastic characteristic is reverting to stone once exposed to sunlight. In Lord Of The Rings they become more monstrous and seem akin to the orcs they fight alongside. This impressed upon me the importance of having such creatures in a fantasy world but that role eventually went to my version of ogres (which for me are a cross between orcs and hill giants).
Next came Grendal and Grendal's Mother. I read a translation of Beowulf for young readers which may have named one or both as trolls. This Old English tale comes from a time in which its Scandinavian characters were experiencing a transition from Norse to Christian religion. It shows in the various ways these lethal monsters are described. The words and behaviours fit the older religion but they are reconceived as descendents of the wicked Biblical Cain. My trolls lack any supernatural significance but I do try to convey a sense of gloomy foreboding that came from this story. The abode of these two creatures is a grotto in a swamp and that entrenched for me the connection of trolls to water.
Eventually Dungeons & Dragons came into my teenaged life and its core rules describe a rather different monster from the influences thus far named. These gaunt creatures had rubbery hide with the ability to regenerate rapidly (even recombining with severed body parts). I think this was influenced by some pulp fiction author the D&D creators were into. I digress now into a bit of speculation of how to link this troll back to the mineral troll of Tolkien. Apparently silicone rubber can self-mend with the application of heat. What if D&D trolls were a living version of this? Fire would then become a boon rather than a bane to them. But back to my trolls and what I took from D&D was that regenerative ability.
Nature is my final and most important inspiration for trolls in The Lands. Salamanders are amphibians. They are carnivorous. They can even regenerate. My trolls are basically massive predatory salamanders. To emphasise this I call them freshwater or saltwater trolls. A tiny tip-of-the-hat to stone is given in them swallowing gastroliths to help in digesting stubborn armoured prey. Only problem is salamanders look cute to me.
In my imaginings and drawings I try to make my trolls more scary. In drawing them something emerged which reminded me of Ymir by Ray Harryhausen. Admittedly that alien is still a bit cute. However the vestigal gills I describe as looking like a mane of lank tendrils are reminiscent of the Hellhound from Hell Boy and that is more the level of creepiness I was aiming at. For specifics on my version of the troll click here (then scroll down three quarters of that page).
Labels: Creative Writing, Images
posted by Dan at
21.5.24
|
0 Comments
