The Enlo Curse

[Sir_Godspeed]

41 minutes ago, Charles said:

So pretty much practically impossible because of the unique circumstances of each of these God Place, the difficulty of foreseeing, and the unwitting co-operation of the rivals, opponents, and enemies.

This, of course, should be the culmination of a story, not an intermediate step.

Narratively, and mythically, this is one of those things that is impossible until they are possible.

Rules break for protagonists, as it were. It's just a matter of how.

[Erol of Backford]

On 2/27/2019 at 4:17 AM, Joerg said:

And if failure to nurture slightly defective or multiple birth Dark Trolls results in superior trollkin, second (or further) generation trollkin litters experiencing nurture from a trollkin mother might fare significantly better than their inheritance would allow than first generation trollkin litters with neglect by a dark troll mother.

Was looking into Neep Trollsbane and noticed this...

Are there records of trollkin giving birth to darktrolls? Either way I could see some superior trollkin birthing a dark troll and starting their own community. Maybe 80% trollkin, 15% drak trolls and 5% great or cave trolls. Maybe it happens after the Munchrooms scenario and one of the rare mushrooms (didn't think as to how these fertility mushrooms appeared yet) permits a dark troll to be born from a trollkin?

[soltakss]

16 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Are there records of trollkin giving birth to darktrolls?

No. This is impossible.

Of course, as having a litter is one of the ways of telling that the newborns are Trollkin, it is possible that a twin birth would produce newborns that are physically Dark Trolls but are treated as Trollkin. Now, when they grow up, they will be seen as being Dark trolls and will probably be allowed to Initiate into Kyger Litor and hence become Dark Trolls. But if they didn't they would still be classed as Trollkin and if they mated with another Dark Troll who is a Trollkin then their offspring could be a single birth with the stats and features of a Dark Troll, but because they are Trollkin the baby would be a Trollkin, albeit with Dark troll stats.

 

[Ynneadwraith]

On 5/5/2024 at 10:35 AM, soltakss said:

No. This is impossible.

Of course, as having a litter is one of the ways of telling that the newborns are Trollkin, it is possible that a twin birth would produce newborns that are physically Dark Trolls but are treated as Trollkin. Now, when they grow up, they will be seen as being Dark trolls and will probably be allowed to Initiate into Kyger Litor and hence become Dark Trolls. But if they didn't they would still be classed as Trollkin and if they mated with another Dark Troll who is a Trollkin then their offspring could be a single birth with the stats and features of a Dark Troll, but because they are Trollkin the baby would be a Trollkin, albeit with Dark troll stats.

That could work, and I like the class system coming into play.

I think I do like the idea that trollkin breed true though...unless something mythic happens. I wonder what the rest of the dark trolls would think if they've been heroquesting for generations to try and improve their births in any way (to no avail), only to have a trollkin successfully heroquest to birth a dark troll.

Anyone seen Children of Men? Could make a good plotline for smuggling a trollkin mother and their dark troll baby through other (not so nice) dark trolls who want the mother and baby for their own purposes...

On 3/3/2019 at 10:11 PM, The God Learner said:

Mmm, perhaps my misunderstanding was that the Compromise was intended to keep God Time intact.

My interpretation was that this is exactly the purpose of the Compromise...but it's nowhere near as ironclad as the gods say it is. 'Spider silk is stronger than steel' people say...neglecting to mention the fact you can snap it with your fingers.

[mfbrandi]

1 hour ago, Ynneadwraith said:

only to have a trollkin successfully heroquest to birth a dark troll

Trollkin are basically small trolls … with small pelvises. Do they want bigger babies?

[Ynneadwraith]

7 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Trollkin are basically small trolls … with small pelvises. Do they want bigger babies?

I don't know, social pariah-dom can push people to desperate measures...

I suppose you could handwave it as all troll babies start off as skinny little mewling things, but dark trolls fairly rapidly pack on the pounds, whereas trollkin stay neotenous into adulthood (a bit like we do). Picking out a dark troll from trollkin at birth could be a little like sexing chickens.

[mfbrandi]

4 hours ago, Ynneadwraith said:

Picking out a dark troll from trollkin at birth could be a little like sexing chickens.

But what kind of category is trollkin, anyway? Is it shorthand for low birth weight and/or litter born? Are trollkin made (“put this one on stunting diet B”)? Is it a social class? Is it a conferred status (“I dub you Sir Winalot”)? There may be no deep fact to discover, just a bigoted decision to be made.

[Ali the Helering]

24 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

There may be no deep fact to discover, just a bigoted decision to be made.

And stand back and watch as the whole hobby disappears down the rabbit hole🙂

[Eff]

7 minutes ago, Ali the Helering said:

And stand back and watch as the whole hobby disappears down the rabbit hole🙂

It kind of fascinates me to think that "mistress race troll" is still how Glorantha people of every political persuasion describe the large uz with three pairs of nipples that are supposedly racially superior to other uz. I don't know what else to call them- "uzuz" is very unclear to the casual participant- but it does stun me a little.

[mfbrandi]

2 hours ago, Eff said:

“mistress race troll”

Well, the uz have been known to partake of a bit of spiritual darkness … in a kingdom of ignorance, no less. I don’t know whether the parallels are nudge-nudge ironic or whether they indicate something … else. I will leave that for others to worry about.

There is this:

• At Winter Win, atop Valind’s Glacier, the Black Sun joined Himile-worshipping ice trolls and Boztakang’s Blue Moon army to defeat another Chaos army. — Prosopaedia (PDF, p. 16)

“Himile” might be thought to sound a bit like someone else with a Black Sun connection, but I will not speak his name, lest I summon his followers — yuck!

[soltakss]

10 hours ago, Ynneadwraith said:

I think I do like the idea that trollkin breed true though

Trollkin certainly breed true - They give birth to Trollkin.

Mistress race Trolls also breed true, so, in theory, they could breed with a Trollkin and, perhaps, produce a Dark Troll but I know of no Mistress Race Trolls who would deign to do such a thing.

[John Biles]

3 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

But what kind of category is trollkin, anyway? Is it shorthand for low birth weight and/or litter born? Are trollkin made (“put this one on stunting diet B”)? Is it a social class? Is it a conferred status (“I dub you Sir Winalot”)? There may be no deep fact to discover, just a bigoted decision to be made.

Thanks to the Curse of Kin, trollkin are basically half-sized trolls who are mostly also stupid.  It's biological, though the bad treatment of them no doubt makes things worse.

 

[Eff]

36 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Well, the uz have been known to partake of a bit of spiritual darkness … in a kingdom of ignorance, no less. I don’t know whether the parallels are nudge-nudge ironic or whether they indicate something … else. I will leave that for others to worry about.

There is this:

• At Winter Win, atop Valind’s Glacier, the Black Sun joined Himile-worshipping ice trolls and Boztakang’s Blue Moon army to defeat another Chaos army. — Prosopaedia (PDF, p. 16)

“Himile” might be thought to sound a bit like someone else with a Black Sun connection, but I will not speak his name, lest I summon his followers — yuck!

I think there is (at least) a third option- the players were, at some point, meant to see the references, understand them as symbolically important, and realize that the reason that the first attempt to break the curse produced great trolls, who are big and stupid, was because eugenics doesn't work in Glorantha either. You try to make your ZZ supertrolls and you get uzdo. And then from there, especially with the Munchrooms scenario as an indicative guide, play could continue with this knowledge in mind and explore the consequences of this. But I am sure that was never it.