Is Trollball only a game ?

[Zit]

I like to see trollball beyond a mere game, as true ritual comparable to the Olympic Games for the ancient Greeks. What could be the religious and societal significance and goals of the Trollball ? What is its origin ?

[Joerg]

It is a rite holy to Zorak Zoran, with a suspension of in-game death for the players (but not the "balls"). This is similar to the "you cannot die on a certain type of heroquest" assumption.

This might have been a rite to settle dominance quarrels for Death Lords, created by uz heroes.

[PhilHibbs]

My favourite piece of Trollball trivia is that before Trollkin existed, they used a live badger as ball. They was real Uz in those days.

[soltakss]

Trollballl is definitely not just a game, it has religious significance.

I thought that it was sacred to Kaarg, so of Kyger Litor, instead of Zorak Zoran, but it has been a very long time since I read about it.

[French Desperate WindChild]

5 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Trollballl is definitely not just a game, it has religious significance.

I thought that it was sacred to Kaarg, so of Kyger Litor, instead of Zorak Zoran, but it has been a very long time since I read about it.

I have the same memory

but in addition I believe I read that zz followers use it as a way to challenge the kaargs followers too

so yes it is not only « sport » but there are a lot of symbols , sometimes religious, sometimes politics, sometimes entertainment 

don’t know if there is some standard outcome for the winners and for the losers (well, not a lot of good issues for the trollkin ….)

[AlHazred]

I mean, it's not a lifestyle like Shield Push, but I do like the Sazdorf Whackers & Tacklers.

[Bill the barbarian]

19 hours ago, Zit said:

What could be the religious and societal significance and goals of the Trollball ?

As very little in Glorantha (if anything) escapes religious or societal significance, I would have to suspect that would also be true for Trollball. Interestingly, a little research shows that various members of the troll pantheon are reflected by their representatives in this game. A true proof of religious significance on the lozenge right there... Kygor Litor Rune Lords may sponsor Trollball teams in their own names as may ZZ Death Lords and a Xiola Umbar nurse is needed to provide succour (?) to the ball. In fact a Runelords name must be attached to a sanctified team. So, entertainment seems to be very wrapped up with religion, with politics and with matters military within the realms of sports minded Dark Folk.

And of course this all comes for the only great source for all things troll I know of: Trollpak.

 

Edited September 22, 2022 by Bill the barbarian

[scott-martin]

11 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

succour (?) to the ball

I was nodding along with all of you with wisps of "the mesoamerican ballgame" roiling  around my head and then this detail got me thinking about the running field of forbidden sport and how they made Annilla (formally a troll goddess) suffer as the original ball. I couldn't profane the mysteries here if I tried but if one of the mothers will protect me I could try.

Corn. Blood. Pain. Tolat. Shargash. The Blue Badger. The Trollkin Curse. Nomad Storm. Nomad Sky. Nomad Moon. Wherever ZZ and his sister come from and how the modern Karrg establishment negotiates that. Potatoes?
 

[mfbrandi]

5 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Annilla (formally a troll goddess)

She has a framed certificate on her desk?

(Is it just me, or is the depiction of Nakala too Robertson’s jam for comfort?)

Edited September 22, 2022 by mfbrandi
footnote

[AlHazred]

1 hour ago, mfbrandi said:

(Is it just me, or is the depiction of Nakala too Robertson’s jam for comfort?)

Well, now I can't unsee it! Time to get Illuminated, I guess!

[scott-martin]

41 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

(Is it just me, or is the depiction of Nakala too Robertson’s jam for comfort?)

Yikes. I won't tell Alan Moore!

But this is indeed the certificate, beyond which I am unwilling to say much to evade notice from the vesper assassins. Well, one thing: Vaneekara becomes extremely interesting as a bridge from trollball to whatever exotic "astronomical" knowledge the uz have. How does the old philological puzzle put it? "Jupiter throws, Saturn falls." Vaneekara hurled. Annilla was hurled. And so we have a universe today in which to talk about it.

[mfbrandi]

7 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Yikes.

I guess I never liked the idea of the Spirit of Darkness — Darkness Itself — depicted as a dark-coloured thing with a torch shone on it. Darkness is the one thing we will never see, as every time we switch the light on, it is gone.

But then I also fancied the darkness-dwelling trolls as being distinctly lacking in melanin — rather than being “Uz the People Who Are Darker Than Blue” — so what do I know?

[JRE]

They are dark because they have so much darkness embodied in them that it can defy light. 

If you took all the Darkness out of a dark troll you would have a dirty white. And probably kill them.

[mfbrandi]

3 hours ago, JRE said:

If you took all the Darkness out of a dark troll you would have a dirty white. And probably kill them.

Are you sure about that? This chap looks quite healthy:

As far as I know, canon used to be that troll skin was “greyish”, which allows for it to be as pale as you like. Snow trolls were supposed to be paler — camouflage? — but cave trolls were supposed to have green-black “hides”, possibly(?) because they were chaos-touched. I don’t know whether it is worse to have dark skin because you are a creature of darkness — Vivamort dodged that bullet — or because you are a chaos monster, but there you go.

Of course, current canon may be: (a) we don’t mention troll skin colour; (a) Uz come in rainbow fruit flavours; (c) you can have any colour Uzko you like, so long as it is on the Farrow & Ball paint chart. I’d be happy with any of those suggestions and many more, but a knee-jerk “they must have dark skin” doesn’t really do it for me.

Edited September 23, 2022 by mfbrandi

[Qizilbashwoman]

14 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

(Is it just me, or is the depiction of Nakala too Robertson’s jam for comfort?)

The style is 100% authentic Maya, though, for deities of Darkness; I've forgotten all my Maya reading but I know my images. This is the Madrid Codex.

  

19 hours ago, scott-martin said:

the running field of forbidden sport

forbidden baloncesta

also, they play the game again

On 9/21/2022 at 12:28 PM, French Desperate WindChild said:

don’t know if there is some standard outcome for the winners and for the losers (well, not a lot of good issues for the trollkin ….)

for the mesoamerican ballgame, scoring through the hoop was very very rare. in high stakes games, which were a kind of death ritual, the losing team was sacrificed, at least among the Maya.

Edited September 23, 2022 by Qizilbashwoman

[mfbrandi]

7 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

The style is 100% authentic Maya, though, for deities of Darkness

I never knew what you have forgotten, but I suspect that it would be anachronistic to accuse the Maya of 900–1521 CE of being insensitive about parallels with stereotypical depictions which post-date their work and are of people they had never met. (Not that you are doing that.) But we have baggage and as @AlHazred said, some things can’t be unseen. Still, this isn’t the place for me to rattle on about it.

[Zit]

May I kindly ask to go back to the OP, which is trollball and not the skin colour of Uz (who are anyway colour blind) ?

Is trollball a way to elect a clan to specific favors or status ? Is there any benefit like magic ? Is there any myth related to it, in which case this would be a kind of HQ (like all rituals after all) ?

[AlHazred]

25 minutes ago, Zit said:

May I kindly ask to go back to the OP, which is trollball and not the skin colour of Uz (who are anyway colour blind) ?

Actually, I don't believe they're colorblind, as humans experience color-blindness, but rather that their vision is shifted to the ultraviolet end of the spectrum; so, they see colors, just differently?

I wonder if trollkin should be painted in garish colors for Trollball games, to make them easier to see on the pitch?

[Zit]

2 hours ago, AlHazred said:

I wonder if trollkin should be painted in garish colors for Trollball games, to make them easier to see on the pitch?

This is blasphemy. Trollball players use their darksense, they don't care about colours ! And they play at night without light. What is for us "colour" is for them "texture". Since replacement trollkins are randomly taken among spectators, I don't think this plays any role.

Trolls are truely colour blind, according to Trollpak.

Edited September 23, 2022 by Zit

[mfbrandi]

32 minutes ago, Zit said:

Trolls are truly colour blind, according to Trollpak.

Word of Trollpak (book 1, p. 24) is:

Quote

They [Uzko] are color-blind, seeing only black, white, shades of grey, and red. Trollkin and cave trolls have better eyes, but this is somewhat of a hindrance to them in daylight, rather than an aid.

I suspect this wasn’t fully thought through: presumably, the red is only there because Zorak Zoranis love to wear red, and it would be embarrassing for them to have to ask someone else. Plus seeing red is a ZZ’s raison d’être. Although … as Zorak Zoran is not himself a troll, it might be fun if he could see colour and his troll worshippers couldn’t — and only wore red because he said so. (Maybe trollkin sports who could see red would then be the exceptional trollkin allowed to join the cult: “Suits you, sir, brings out the red in your eyes.”)

43 minutes ago, Zit said:

What is for us "colour" is for them "texture".

You mean that where we use colour for decoration, trolls can and do use texture — confusing humans and trollkin? Good point: instead of trollball team colours, team textures. (They cannot use darksense/sonar to detect colour.)

[AlHazred]

1 hour ago, Zit said:

This is blasphemy. Trollball players use their darksense, they don't care about colours ! And they play at night without light. What is for us "colour" is for them "texture". Since replacement trollkins are randomly taken among spectators, I don't think this plays any role.

I was thinking the colors would be for the spectators, what with the more limited range of Darksense...

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, AlHazred said:

I was thinking the colors would be for the spectators, what with the more limited range of Darksense...

I would expect the term "audience" to be more appropriate than "spectators"... why should a trollball game be played under the light of Yelm? Because the giant referees rely on sight. Still, use of shadows above the pit doesn't violate the rules against magic use, and selective apportioning of sunlight might be hard to prove as a foul.

Did any troll ball team ever employ a traded or mercenary Sunbright behind their own goal?

[Zit]

22 minutes ago, Joerg said:

why should a trollball game be played under the light of Yelm? Because the giant referees rely on sight.

You're right. May be they play right after sunset or just before sunrise ? Or most probably Darksee is cast on the giant when a KL priestess is present. The field is anyway a magical ground where trolls don't die, so we can imagine anything.

[French Desperate WindChild]

in my opinion trollball is played in troll cave, or at least under Xentha. Maybe sometimes there are few "demonstration" for the outsider but the main point is trollball is for troll. So the logical consequence is if there are colors, these colors can be seen by troll.

Now I m not sure that teams have their own uniform. We are in lead age, not in 18st century or more. The team mates know themselves. They may have some recognition gears (skulls, teeth, weird skins, tattoos an scares,colored in their spectrum stuff) but I don't imagine them with something standardized (as I don't imagine warband with the same uniform except maybe some elite unities)

[mfbrandi]

2 hours ago, Zit said:

why should a trollball game be played under the light of Yelm? Because the giant referees rely on sight.

Mostly, these are the stupid, aggressive giants who partake of the disorder rune, right? So although they are said to be there to enforce the rules, I take it that is a joke, and they are there to deliver random acts of senseless violence. So the trolls won’t want the lighting to be too good … when their team is near the referee.

Is there enough light that the red zones look red, or is the wetness of the blood enough?

I was wondering why any trollkin would want to be a spectator. Rule 8 says that the players may not harm the spectators in any way. I have a horrible feeling that it wouldn’t occur to anyone that this included trollkin.

When we are told that the centre posts are important and “house the esprit of a team”, I guess we are meant to take that literally, so where do the spirits of — bound to? —  the posts come from? What if the post is a motionless troll? That might help with religious significance. And just who gets sacrificed to these posts?