Trolls!

I recall trolls lurking beneath bridges, as well as serving as orc-like mooks in some of the games. Are they still a part of the game, or are they yet to be released?

I kind of get a kick out of the idea of trolls being a common antagonist for a CRPG/MMORPG.

And, what of gremlins? If there's a bit of reinvention of certain concepts, how about linking trolls & gremlins—gremlins are hungry, voracious troll offspring, consuming as much as possible to enable them to mature into menacing trolls.

 

Trolls will be included, as per Tracy Hickman's literary participation in the games development.

Edit: or were those ogres?

 

I believe the sewn together flesh golem thingies were trolls

 

Where do you get "sewn together flesh golem thingies"?

Yes there will be trolls.. Ogres was an error.. they were supposed to be trolls.

This issue came up in the Scholar's of Novia's first writing contest and we took it to Portalarium for confirmation. Definitely trolls and not ogres.

There's been no word on gremlins or some of the other beasties we commonly know to be in Ultima's past (ie Cyclops, gazers etc).

 

From somebodies quote about the book, which i have not read (being stubborn and waiting for physical copy)

 

Hopefully without giving too much away.. that description is entirely inaccurate. It relates to how the 'fomorian creatures' came into being which was done through pure magic manipulation. No sewing involved.

Though I would speculate that any creature that existed prior to Shardfall could have potentially survived the event as a species. Particularly ones that are not Ultima specific.. such as trolls. But there's any number of other speculations that might suggest otherwise and everything in between.

 

Well the description about how they were made could lend itself to someone thinking they were sewn together. Sewn with MAGIC!

 

True but I feel it's a bit of a stretch. They definitely are not golems nor ever described as having stitches etc. I always thought of it as melding / shape shifting.

 

Well, I'm not quite so sure. The protagonist describes the creature and while describing realizes that they are made up of several humans, not just one.. so perhaps there should be some visual evidence of that fact?

P.S. I know this is an old thread, but it relates now that Trolls are coming soon! Not a bad time to review if you ask me..

 

I sometimes feel that my hands are tied when trying to explain things that are Dev+.
Ogres were a mistake, but they seem to have revised history to now include them.
Ogres seem to now be the first version of heavy combat troops, formed with several humans fused into one being.
Trolls now seem to be the advanced, newer revision of Ogres, and their construction is different.

 

Remember that Aren had a 'friend' in the cabal as well as commanded fomorians in battle. I did not get the impression at the time he was only just realizing they were made from multiple humans. It's a simple question of mass. You would've had to use more than one to get them to be that big.

 

"The creature, he realized with a surprise, was not one human enlarged in
form, but multiple humans merged into a single form."

 

ok so remembering exact quotes from books isn't my forte but I believe the key word there is merged. As in not pieced together.

 

yes, but it's visually evident that the form is multiple humans, not one enlarged. I wonder how that would be evident, visually?

(On second thought, I don't remember if he was holding his sword at the time, something that may make a huge difference in this discussion).

 

I just did a quick search in BOTA on trolls and ogres, and unless the book is currently incorrect...there's certainly more references to ogres than trolls (only one casual reference). So the good news is, they're both in the lore. But trolls haven't really been described to date, as far as I can tell.

The bad news is that trolls are still present in the forums.

 

That's because trolls and fanboys go together like chocolate and peanut butter.

 

...and here I thought trolls liked toll bridges, you'd think they've be really comfortable with the $5 pay to post.

I don't subscribe to the idea that anything positive should be discounted as "fanboy talk" and anything negative should be called "trolling".

But yes, they do go together sometimes.

 

If it were understood that magic didn't alter mass then the only logical conclusion would be that more than one human would be required to make a creature of that size. It wouldn't need to be visually evident other than knowing it was creating from humans and it's far too massive to have been just one.

The original conclusion was that the ogre reference at Opalis was a typo. It was meant to be a troll. The issue had come up with Sir Frank's story for one of the Scholar's contests and we had to ask Portalarium for clarification.

 

I believe the more recent Troll discussion confirmed that some of the Ogre descriptions and references in BotA were in-fact a mistake, and meant to be Trolls. In fact, only one type was supposed to exist, but because of the mistake, they plan to have both types. I like Sir Frank's concept that perhaps an Ogre could be 'the good side', like imps and emps, or light/dark elves.

**edit: I apologize, it was Browncoat Jayson's thought, not Sir Frank's.**

 

That might be a little more difficult to explain. While I've no issue with having both.. but if ogres are also fomorians than why would they be a 'good' version of anything? Generally speaking. I don't mean to suggest that simply being a fomorian race has any bearing as to whether they're good or evil.. at this point they're a product of their own choice and emerging culture.. (my take at least).. but they were all created for the purpose of waging war.

What circumstances would have brought about such a change? There are of course several possible backstories but I would think there is no simple answer.

 

I can't see a reason why ogre's should be "good". That seems like an unnatural shift in fantasy lore that breaks immerssion.