Cave Troll (Basic Lore)

From Epic Path
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Cave Troll (CR 9)

Cave Troll
Chaotic Evil - Large - Monstrous Humanoid (Giant)
Trolls are horrible dwellers in the outdoors, the uneasy smaller cousins of Giants, who are more tightly tied to the native world than either the Giants or their terrible cousins, the ogres.

Trolls tend to be tall and lanky, often with a stooped, hunched posture. Their faces tend to be long and narrow of feature, with filthy, rotten, but very sharp teeth, long flexible limbs, and a loose, shambling gait. Trolls almost always have razor sharp claws to go with their teeth, and tend to prefer fighting with their natural weapons.

Trolls are not comfortable with the trappings of civilization, and tend to live "as nature meant," without benefit of tools, fire, or clothing. Trolls can readily tolerate this lack of comforts due to their incredible powers of regeneration. Trolls are easy to hurt, but exceedingly hard to kill.

Trolls tend to have skin of shades of greens and greys, often with an amazing array of warts, moles, hairs, and other noisome protuberances. Troll eyes tend to be black, although milky white and shades of grey-blue are not unheard of.

Trolls are uniformly terrible. They delight in tormenting the weak and will eat fellow sentient creatures alive, entertained by their screams and pleas. Trolls will work with other terrible creatures such as orcs and norkers, have an uneasy love/hate relationship with their fatter cousins, the ogres, and tend to like and look up to the giants, especially frost giants, fire giants, death giants, and fomaorians.

Cave Trolls are bigger, meaner, and much, much faster than regular trolls, but have weak eyes so that they actively avoid being out in daylight. As a consequence, Cave Trolls are almost always found in cave systems, dungeons, dark ruins, and the like. But that said, Cave Trolls pride themselves on their intelligence and sense of adventure, and the murderous fiends can be found roaming the surface at night, even up to a few hours walk from their lairs.

Given how fast Cave Trolls walk, that's a really long way, too.

Cave Trolls look exactly like their smaller Troll cousins, except that while most Trolls are almost skinny, Cave Trolls are quite meaty. They are certainly not fat, and nowhere near as rotund as the Ogres, but they are stout, with big hands and feet, thick, strong wrists, and big arms. They are the same height and have the same reach, but a Cave Troll will weigh triple what a regular Troll weighs.

Despite their bulk, Cave Trolls are ridiculously fast and quick, and their agility has to be seen to be believed. They can shamble on their long bulky legs as fast as a horse can run, and when they put on a burst of speed, its sobering and educational.