What Prevents Dead Trolls from Self Resurrecting by Returning Back to the Surface World?

[EricW]

Given trolls left the underworld after Orlanth killed Yelm, and all dead things (including trolls?) end up in the underworld, surely there are well trodden paths dead trolls could take which would return them to the surface world? Why isn't this a regular occurrence? After all, the surface world has lots of yummy food, and I'm guessing even dead trolls get hungry?

[John Biles]

32 minutes ago, EricW said:

Given trolls left the underworld after Orlanth killed Yelm, and all dead things (including trolls?) end up in the underworld, surely there are well trodden paths dead trolls could take which would return them to the surface world? Why isn't this a regular occurrence? After all, the surface world has lots of yummy food, and I'm guessing even dead trolls get hungry?

Trolls left the Underworld when Yelm burned his way through Wonderland.  A place no doubt home to dead fire spirits, still burning things and looking for Troll souls to burn.  Now if you know how to find the escape routes, and can fight or dodge the spirits, and you can dodge or eat everything else in the underworld that wants a piece of you before you get to the ruins of Wonderhome... then sure.

Of course, some of those old escape routes are clogged and others got repaired by Dwarves and some are now flooded, etc etc.

 

[Darius West]

Being reborn is faster and safer and an awful lot less effort. 😆

Edited January 25, 2023 by Darius West

[David Scott]

3 hours ago, EricW said:

Given trolls left the underworld after Orlanth killed Yelm, and all dead things (including trolls?) end up in the underworld, surely there are well trodden paths dead trolls could take which would return them to the surface world? Why isn't this a regular occurrence? After all, the surface world has lots of yummy food, and I'm guessing even dead trolls get hungry?

When they die, their body and soul separate. So only their spirit ultimately returns to the underworld. There, it can only return by being reborn into a body.

[Charles]

My guess is that the trolls migrated in force to climb from Wonderhome to the surface and many were killed (permanently destroyed) and many were born enroute, so it took ‘several generations’. The route they found by trial and error is not viable for an individual.

Only when a troll becomes a Hero, able to keep their individuality and memory together and avoid mortal judgement for more than the usual ‘up to 7 days after death’, can that troll find alternative ways out of the Underworld. These routes will be via paths they Heroquested or via relationships they obtained before their death.

[Nick Brooke]

8 hours ago, EricW said:

Given trolls left the underworld after Orlanth killed Yelm, and all dead things (including trolls?) end up in the underworld, surely there are well trodden paths dead trolls could take which would return them to the surface world? Why isn't this a regular occurrence? 

Who says it isn't?

[scott-martin]

9 hours ago, EricW said:

well trodden paths

I think you've uncovered the secret origin of the infamous blue moon self-resurrection rites here . . . and maybe an obscure bit of Rocky & Bullwinkle animation. When someone at home in the underworld wants to go to the surface, all you really need to do is recapitulate the exile and dig your way back out. Or if you're not strong enough to do all that digging, exit via the Crack.

The irony of course is that most trolls probably avoid this easy short cut because they're finally back in underheaven and can rest awhile in their version of peace. But wily humans who get access to this lore can come back again and again.

[Joerg]

37 minutes ago, Charles said:

My guess is that the trolls migrated in force to climb from Wonderhome to the surface and many were killed (permanently destroyed) and many were born enroute, so it took ‘several generations’. The route they found by trial and error is not viable for an individual.

Minor flaw in this theory: the route taken by Gash and Gore was exactly that - a narrow path viable for individuals and small groups of raiders, but actually quite unsuitable for the mass exodus led by the twin heroes. Their horde separated after some initial conflicts with some Lightfore or the other, with only the smaller part following the twins into Dagori Inkarth (and possibly the Elder WIlds), and the larger group (including Eristi the Doubter) moving on northward. Even if the trolls of Dagori Inkarth had a few centuries of Yelmic time to breed their numbers, the host following the twins out of Wonderhome may have been a lot bigger than the number of trolls who contributed to the Castle of Lead.

However, the starting point of that escape had turned from a pleasant and rich dark complex into a burning hell, and whichever place the trolls go to after facing the Judge of the Dead has been separated from this route and others departing from Ashliege's burning (but still cold) court.

 

23 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

9 hours ago, EricW said:

Given trolls left the underworld after Orlanth killed Yelm, and all dead things (including trolls?) end up in the underworld, surely there are well trodden paths dead trolls could take which would return them to the surface world? Why isn't this a regular occurrence? 

Who says it isn't?

That might be one reason why Zorak Zoran has such a cheap and easy way to make zombies.

These paths back from Death might be limited to Mistress Race trolls, with the Dark Trolls mostly having lost that ability to navigate these due to their (inherited) burn wounds. It is certainly beyond the ability of trollkin.

 

37 minutes ago, Charles said:

Only when a troll becomes a Hero, able to keep their individuality and memory together and avoid mortal judgement for more than the usual ‘up to 7 days after death’, can that troll find alternative ways out of the Underworld. These routes will be via paths they Heroquested or via relationships they obtained before their death.

Or ancestral wisdom bestowed on the Mistress Race.

[dumuzid]

11 hours ago, EricW said:

Given trolls left the underworld after Orlanth killed Yelm, and all dead things (including trolls?) end up in the underworld, surely there are well trodden paths dead trolls could take which would return them to the surface world? Why isn't this a regular occurrence? After all, the surface world has lots of yummy food, and I'm guessing even dead trolls get hungry?

This sort of thing might indeed have been reliably possible at the Palace of Black Glass, before a certain would-be God King annihilated the place and filled the old stairs to the Hell Basement with bubbling pitch.

 

edit: Having said that, it raises a follow-up question: what could motivate a troll to come back, when they could be living out the several excellent afterlives available through the Darkness cults?  They could be feasting in Argan Argar's mansion between forays onto the surface to unfurl Xentha's blanket across the world each sunset, or enjoying the bounty of the restored Wonderhome under Kyger Litor's Darksense gaze, etc. etc.

Seems to me that only trolls with serious unfinished business and the power to make a significant difference would make the journey; for those awaiting the arrival of loved ones, well, everybody gets to the Underworld eventually, unless the Bat gobbles them up.  Just have to wait, and enjoy themselves in the meantime.

Edited January 25, 2023 by dumuzid

[mfbrandi]

8 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

Who says it isn't?

8 hours ago, Joerg said:

It is certainly beyond the ability of trollkin.

Hmm …

My first thought was Arkatian self-multiplication. Dull, dull, dull.

My second thought was that trollkin are the returned “heroic” dead trolls (and kin) who want to give it another go around. This has a nice mythic resonance: the curse of the kin is a recapitulation of the flight from Yelm, but they are returning as ever more light-adapted (or day–night cycle-adapted, really) creatures. I mean, it is by now a cliché that humans are just enlo changelings, right? But does a single “spirit” return as one or as many, as a litter? We cannot break the curse? We do not want to: it is how we take over.

I draw a veil over what “climbing out of Hell” looks like on this model. XU knows. XU always knows.

[It is late. I babble.]

Edited January 25, 2023 by mfbrandi

[Nick Brooke]

6 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

My second thought was that trollkin are the returned “heroic” dead trolls (and kin) who want to give it another go around. This has a nice mythic resonance: the curse of the kin is a recapitulation of the flight from Yelm, but they are returning as ever more light-adapted (or day–night cycle-adapted, really) creatures. I mean, it is by now a cliché that humans are just enlo changelings, right? But does a single “spirit” return as one or as many, as a litter? We cannot break the curse? We do not want to: it is how we take over.

See also Ayukata’s MÖRK BOLG, especially the Voltron trollkin heroquest approach.

[Joerg]

3 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

See also Ayukata’s MÖRK BOLG, especially the Voltron trollkin heroquest approach.

Just like Takenegi...

[mfbrandi]

6 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

See also Ayukata’s MÖRK BOLG

Who wouldn’t love a game with that name? I shall choose to believe that “they fought against Chaos and overthrew Chaos with humankind” means that humankind was the tool used to overthrow chaos.

[Revilo Divad Of Dyoll]

Why would anyone voluntarily leave wonderhome to come back to the hurtplace?

[Nick Brooke]

1 hour ago, Revilo Divad Of Dyoll said:

Why would anyone voluntarily leave wonderhome to come back to the hurtplace?

[mfbrandi]

2 hours ago, Revilo Divad Of Dyoll said:

Why would anyone voluntarily leave wonderhome to come back to the hurtplace?

I probably have this wrong — as per usual — but I always took it that after the Dawn, Yelm spent half his time in the Underworld and half floating above the Hurtplace. So the Wonderhome of eternal night is gone. Uz have been kicked out of the Garden of Eden Mee Vorala and cannot go back — it is just a burned-out wreck, these days. (You can’t go home, again … same river twice … yada yada.) The Uz really feel the bite burn of the Compromise.

Sure, the priestess may tell you that after you are dead if you behave, you will go somewhere dark and cold where there is plenty to eat, but then your parent told you that if you didn’t do your homework, the human under your bed would gobble you up … and you never did do your homework.

Also: unfinished business. Coming back from the dead/reincarnation is just haunting in solid form.

Still, lest this all sound too depressing for words, you may eventually learn the secret of the light within, chill out in your final life, and step off the wheel for good. Or just come back as a trollkin who doesn’t need shades and sunscreen.

Or something. Doubtless, someone will have a diagram showing clearly defined Underworld areas of permanent darkness and safety with all the dangerous exits clearly marked in Braille, but where is the fun in that? (There are still dark areas down there, but they are very much not safe — not for Uz, not for anybody.)

[Joerg]

There are the cosy and safe basements of the Castle(s) of Lead (built only after the exodus from Wonderhome) that survived even the implosion of the Spike.

[mfbrandi]

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

There are the cosy and safe basements of the Castle(s) of Lead (built only after the exodus from Wonderhome) that survived even the implosion of the Spike.

I knew you wouldn’t let me down!

[soltakss]

On 1/25/2023 at 6:01 AM, EricW said:

Given trolls left the underworld after Orlanth killed Yelm, and all dead things (including trolls?) end up in the underworld, surely there are well trodden paths dead trolls could take which would return them to the surface world? Why isn't this a regular occurrence?

Because Wonderhome is perfect, as long as you keep away from the burning bits.

Trolls can sit in the darkness and eat as much as they want all night. Why bother escaping from that?

[mfbrandi]

On 1/25/2023 at 6:01 AM, EricW said:

surely there are well trodden paths dead trolls could take which would return them to the surface world?

Ethilrist:
Black Horse Troop:

Kyger Litor:
Argan Argar: (and in a past life: )

————————————————————————

One would guess that AA was born more than once: once in the Dark/Underworld before the birth of Aether and then again to Xentha on the Surface. The deprecation of the Issaries rune is a shame, as it suggests: [a] AA as a reverse psychopomp, leading souls out of Hell; [b] if you want to get out of the Underworld, there is always a deal to be done.

Troll dies. Troll gets buried, burned, or eaten. Troll climbs out of the Underworld. Would any non-Uz notice that it was the same troll returned? It happens, but the racists cannot see it — and the funeral feast is a fine bit of misdirection.

Ethilrist is such a crashing bore that Uz have beaten his snout flat in a vain attempt to shut him up. Consequently, his features are so distinctive that: [a] his return from Hell is noticed; [b] he is often mistaken for a non-Uz with “special powers”.

Edited January 29, 2023 by mfbrandi
italics

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, mfbrandi said:

Troll dies. Troll gets buried, burned, or eaten. Troll climbs out of the Underworld.

IMO the issue is that Wonderhome is one of the Deep Hells and the Burning Hell is in the way.  But I can't find Jeff's post on the sequence of the 7 Hells at the moment to confirm the order.

 

[mfbrandi]

29 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

IMO the issue is that Wonderhome is one of the Deep Hells and the Burning Hell is in the way.  But I can't find Jeff's post on the sequence of the 7 Hells at the moment to confirm the order.

It is OK, I will take it on trust. I was very conscious of handwaving just how “troll climbs out of the Underworld.” The post was just a bit of RuneFun™.

Spoiler

The method of ‘postulating’ what we want has many advantages; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil. — BR

Although … until we invent one-way fire, isn’t that a barrier to getting into Wonderhome, too?