Troll presence in or near Fonritan cities

[hkokko]

How are the trolls visible in Fonrit especially near or in big cities. Only outside the city walls when Argan Argar caravan comes, small permanent trading outpost outside the city or even within the city, nothing even near the cities or something else?

[metcalph]

I assume trolls are welcome because they hate elves almost as much as the Fonritans do.   The only question is where do they come from?  The elves block access to Tarmo although a trail could be made through the Baruling Valley.  The Shadow Trolls are allied to the Elves and hate hoomanz.  There are the Jrusteli Trolls who would find it the easiest to reach Fonrit as they are likely chums with the Malasp.  

The only other piece of information is the Regional Cults Table in Troll Gods which doesn't give any significant worship for Argan Argar in the Tarmo or the Jungles of Pamaltel but omits Jrustela.  I suppose you could argue that Argan Argar's influence spreads on how well connected the troll places are to the Shadowlands (as well as their level of sophistication) and that some cults of Gorakiki fulfil mercantile functions in the Tarmo.

[hkokko]

Thanks. indeed could not find any mention of Troll Trade in Pamaltela but there probably needs to be some. Gorakiki is good suggestion as well all the suggestions. What do you mean by Shadow trolls?

[metcalph]

24 minutes ago, hkokko said:

Thanks. indeed could not find any mention of Troll Trade in Pamaltela but there probably needs to be some. Gorakiki is good suggestion as well all the suggestions. What do you mean by Shadow trolls?

The hot trolls or jungle trolls that followed Moorgarki.  They have no cold because of what Pamalt did to them.  Darkness minus cold is shadow.  Rather than Darktongue, their language is Shadowspeech (according to AH Glorantha Bestiary) hence my thinko.

[hkokko]

Ok, just another name for jungle trolls, thanks

[dumuzid]

There's both hot trolls and more conventional dark trolls in Pamaltela; there's even a Castle of Lead in the Tarmo Mountains that's said to be home to mistress race trolls. Think of it as two migrations: the first wave was Moorgaki's, during the first great outpouring of the trolls from the Underworld, which ravaged the Artmali before they were defeated and changed by Pamalt.  The second came much later in the Gods War, when the southern elements of the Uz Queendom at the foot of the Spike migrated south from its collapse. I'm relatively sure that the Pamaltelan dark trolls have produced trollkin since the Curse of Kin, in contrast to the hot trolls who never have, and presumably also great trolls since Cragspider's quest.

I think there are a few obstacles to dark troll trade in the Fonritian cities, and the first is geography.  All the dark troll centers of Pamaltela that I know of are in the unforested heights of the Tarmo Mountains, where they live and rule similarly to Dagori Inkarth.  The Tarmo range is not contiguous with Fonrit; between the mountains and the Fonritian city-states are the deep jungles of Vralos and the Malkioni cities of Umathela.  The elf jungles are likely just as dangerous for uninvited dark trolls to traverse as Genertelan elf forests, and I doubt insect caravans are especially welcome in the Umathelan littoral, so I would expect that most troll merchandise that makes it to Fonrit would do so through intermediaries in the jungle and coastal zones: Umathelan humans and Vralos hot trolls who can move more freely through the intervening regions to actually contact Fonritian markets.  You may get the odd enterprising Argan Argar troll merchant who launches expeditions further afield, but those sorts of endeavors strike me as exceptions that prove the rule.  Of course, given the fraught history between the Fonritian states and their neighbors to the west and south, intermediaries willing or able to carry the trade may be thin on the ground sometimes.

The second issue is religio-cultural.  There's a strong Solar element to the Fonritian cult complex, particularly its martial elements.  For a concrete example see Isten, the great frontier fortress-city of the Gargos Valley, where the altars to Varama the Shackled Sun smoke "with sacrifices of captive aldryami and hill barbarians," per the Guide.  It's the sort of presentation that's likely to make trade trolls wary of contact without some serious good faith bargaining from the human side.  And, well, these the rulers of Fonrit we're talking about.  Otherwise, there's the nature of troll external commerce in general.  To maintain stable trade relations with trolls you've got to be willing to go along with their Argan Argar trolls' concept of the Equal Exchange, which seems so at odds with every precept of Fonritian society that I have a hard time imagining many Fonritian rulers or merchants abiding by it.  You might see Zorak Zoran mercenaries from Tarmo in the Fonritian cities, and the occasional captured slave, but between their appetites and their tendency (described in some old fiction) to embrace death through starvation rather than live in human captivity I think they'd make particularly expensive, dangerous and unreliable slaves in Fonrit.