Trolls

"Listen, lad, if you're dealing with trolls, you need to remember: they're slow, sure, but so's a landslide. Don't insult 'em, they've got memories like granite, which is to say, very long. And if you're running away, don't. They don't chase. They wait. Rocks don't need to hurry because gravity does the work for them."

— A veteran adventurer

 

The Hills are Alive

  Trolls are not the lumbering brutes of children's tales, nor the cunning riddlers of old myths. They are something older, something more patient, carved from the bones of the earth itself.   A troll is a creature of stone and shadow, its body rough-hewn from granite, obsidian, or basalt. In the darkness, they are almost invisible, their jagged forms blending seamlessly with the cliffs and crags they call home. Their eyes, however, betray them. Two glimmering points of amber or jade, glowing faintly like forgotten stars. These eyes are not kind, they watch the world with a cold, calculating curiousity, as if measuring it for cracks.   They are strongest at night, under the weight of the stars, when the hum of the earth is loudest. By day, they become as still as statues, a clever trick or perhaps a necessity. Sunlight does not kill trolls, as some believe, but it does something stranger. It merely reminds them of what they are destined to be - of what they have always been, really; that they are stone becoming.  

With the Sound of Bonecrunching

  Trolls are not evil, though they aren't kind either. They have their own rules, their own quiet, grinding logic. They do not take more than they need, but what they need is not negotiable. A bridge to guard, a toll to demand, a morsel to silence the deep ache in their stone bellies. And their tolls are peculiar; not coins or treasures, but secrets whispered into the cracks of their hands, or memories pulled like threads from the minds of passersby.   Legends say trolls were the first to hear the song of the earth, the deep, resonant hum that underpins the world. They move slowly because they do not need to hurry; the stone remembers, and some trolls are older than memory itself.   And in the darkest caves, where light has never been, the trolls hum back. Low, deep, and endless. A sound like the earth turning beneath your feet. Are they slumbering? Are they waking?