#anthopophagy

[akilah12902]

Creature Feature: Rock Troll and Ice Troll

It’s like killing a puppy. Admittedly a super fucking dangerous anthopophagous puppy, but STILL.

Hello everybody! Today we’re talking about Rock Trolls, one of the few sapient monsters!

Check the tags for your warnings and hit read more for the feature!

Man must riddly talk. But no tricksy. Or troll boom man head. – rock troll dwelling in a cave on Undvik If while hiking high in the mountains you come across a walking stone, do not think your eyes deceive you. Instead, draw your sword – for before you stands a rock troll. True, not every encounter with these creatures ends in a fight - while not particularly intelligent, trolls are capable of reason – but it is better to prepare for the worst. Otherwise, your hike might end not on the summit, but in their stew. Trolls are able to use fire and simple tools, and some of them have even mastered the basics of Common Speech. Though linguistic nuances such as conjugations and declinations escape them, they are extremely fond of riddles, rhymes and all sorts of wordplay, a fact a witcher in possession of a bit of wit can use to his advantage. If a fight proves inevitable, one must watch out for the stones these trolls throw with great strength and shocking precision. Their powerful, heavy fists also present a danger, for they can buckle even the sturdiest breastplate or cuirass. Since their backs are covered in a layer of rocky growth, blows delivered from behind will not do them much damage. They must thus be fought directly, standing face to face – and preferably armed with a sword covered in a fresh coating of ogroid oil.

Witcher 3 Bestiary Entry

Our winter's cold and deep, frostbite eats your feet, snow falls down and hides the ground and ice trolls wake from sleep!

– folk song heard in northern Kaedwen

Climbing to the top of snow-covered peaks is never a safe endeavor. One can slip and fall into a ravine, be buried in an avalanche – or stumble across ice trolls. Unlike the rock trolls found at lower altitudes, these permafrost-dwelling monsters treat every man they encounter as a possible ingredient for a tasty meal.

Luckily ice trolls live atop high mountain ridges so inaccessible they rarely encounter humans, and some suppose this is why they have not mastered the basics of Common Speech. Others claim their harsh mountain home has stripped them of an ability they once possessed, for in a land of never-ending cold there is no room for mercy or understanding.

Ice trolls are crueler than their rocky kin. Though they use similar tactics in battle – tossing stones and swinging with their mighty fists – they are heartier and stronger than rock trolls and thus more dangerous. Like rock trolls, their backs are covered in thick protective armor, meaning one should never strike them from the rear. Meanwhile their mass means that the Aard Sign cannot move them. Lastly, never think of attacking them during a blizzard. At such times they draw power from the surrounding cold and fight with increased strength.

Witcher 3 Bestiary Entry

Ice trolls are reskinned rock trolls but they’re always hostile. They also are not particularly weak to Igni. Okay, that’s all we need for them, let’s move on:

I am going to be straight with you: I love rock trolls. If they’re not completely hostile off the bat, they’re like dealing with a slightly concussed golden retriever. That golden retriever is still capable of killing people, and will sometimes threaten it, but it is possible to talk almost every single non-rabies-infected rock troll out of a fight.

The list of all the rock troll encounters in the game is, regrettably, too large for me to me to want to undertake, so I’m just going to detail my favorite one—okay, there’s one other that’s really short—and you can have a look at the list of Notable Rock Trolls on the Witcher Wiki for the rest, okay? Okay.

I’ll go with the shortest story first:

One of the sidequest/minigames in the Witcher games is fistfighting. There tends to be a different little tournament for each distinct area in the games. In the interest of mixing things up a bit in Witcher 3, some of the fistfights much later in the game mix things up a bit; for example, in Skellige, you’re not always fist-fighting humans...

The champion fistfighter of Skellige is, yes, a rock troll. Yes, they want you to fight him bare-handed. They’ll even cover your funeral costs. No, actually, it’s not as crazy as it seems, because he won’t throw rocks at you; it’s much easier to slide in, throw a few punches, and sidestep away without having to worry about getting a boulder to the face. I didn’t even get hit once in that fight.

The troll has picked up the idea that he is a knight errant, and he will only reveal his name if he is defeated in battle. If you talk to him after winning the fight he declares that his name is Athak Akydalv.

My probably absolute favorite encounter is with a rock troll named Trollololo, who was recruited by the Redanian army to watch over a number of boats the soldiers had seized. Trollololo was delighted to have been recruited by the Redanians, and promptly picked up a number of  Redanian military songs, mostly insulting Nilfgaard, as the soldiers got drunk, which he sings happily and at full volume.

Unfortunately, the peasants who owned the confiscated boats were not particularly happy with the situation, and attacked the soldiers to try and get them back. Trollololo joined the fight to defend the soldiers and the boats but. unfortunately. He was not used to fighting alongside humans and accidentally killed all the soldiers in addition to the peasants.

Not one to be too set back by sudden changes, Trollololo proceeded to make soup with the bodies, reasoning, rather understandably, that whatever consciousness had been occupying them was gone and wouldn’t be needing the meat anymore.

After starting up his cooking, Trollololo continued his dedication to protecting the boats... by disassembling them to create a fence to keep people out! 

When Geralt happens upon him, he’s loudly singing Redanian military songs and happily guarding the disassembled boats, believing he’s an official member of the Redanian military.

Given the lack of true malice in any of his actions and the real unlikeliness of anybody to willingly wander into Trollololo’s camp, I decided to help him out.

He wants some red and white paint so he can decorate the camp with the Redanian eagle, to make it more official. When you return with the paint, you can either try your hand at art yourself or suggest Trollololo do the painting himself—and it turns out Trollololo is quite the artist, as his rendition of the Redanian Emblem is almost indistinguishable from the official one! (Geralt’s is. recognizable.)

In any case, most rock trolls can be reasoned with, although they’re a bit like children in their logic. The one exception are the so-marked rabid rock trolls, which both provides the interesting data point that rabies exists and affects rock trolls, and provides an opportunity to actually fight some of these monsters, assuming you were as charmed by them as I was.

[pickmansmodcl-a]

in the absence of plots and threads for shaz to comment + reflect on and the lack of significant ic online chats with other characters i feel like shaz’s IC blog has just devolved into the place where I indiscriminately dump a mix of vaporwave pictures and vore shitposts