Introduction: The vicious Jungle Trolls, who populate the numerous islands of the South Seas, are renowned for their cruelty and dark mysticism. Barbarous and superstitious, the wily Trolls carry a seething hatred for all other races.

One tribe, however, was forced to overcome its prejudices when it encountered the Orc Warchief, Thrall, and his mighty Horde. The Trolls of the Darkspear tribe, long since exiled from their ancestral lands in Stranglethorn Vale, were nearly destroyed by a band of aquatic Murlocs, but Thrall and the Horde managed to save them. In return the grateful Trolls swore an oath of eternal allegiance to the Horde.

Led by the cunning Shadow Hunter, Vol’jin, the Darkspear Trolls now make their home in Durotar along with their Orcish allies. Their village, named after their fallen tribal elder, Sen’jin, lies along the eastern coast of the harsh, rocky land. The Darkspear tribe also occupies tracts within the nearby jungles of the Echo Isles.

As part of the Horde, the Trolls have extended their loyalty to the mighty Tauren, but they have little trust for the manipulative Forsaken, whom they believe will visit only misery and strife upon their allies.

Troll Information

Affiliation: Horde
http://www.wowwiki.com/Horde

Leader: Shadow Hunter Vol’jin
http://www.wowwiki.com/Vol%27jin

Capitol: Orgrimmar
http://www.wowwiki.com/Orgrimmar

Main Language: Zandali
http://www.wowwiki.com/Zandali

IC RP "Speak”: Island slang, "Jamaican/Cajun” influence with diversity in dialects

Main Groups: Darkspear Tribe primarily for players. Many of the other tribes that exist, however, are xenophobic and attack outsiders.

Main faith/Philosophy: Voodoo (animism), Loa (The Troll Pantheon), Shamanism
http://www.wowwiki.com/Voodoo
http://www.wowwiki.com/Loa
http://www.wowwiki.com/Shamanism_and_Nature_Worship

Allies: Orcs, Undead (some conflict could exist), Tauren, Blood Elves (past enemy as High Elves, but mostly ok, but some conflict could exist)

Racial Enemy: Naga, Murlocs (Also shaky truce – enemies with Alliance forces), Elves depending on character

Basic Height, Weight & Age:
Male Height: 6′3″-7′1″
Female Height: 5′11″-6′9″

Male Weight: 184-224 lb.
Female Weight: 169-209 lb.

Adulthood: 17 years.
Middle Age: 30 years.
Old: 47 years.
Venerable: 69 years.
Life Expectancy: 70-89 years.

OOC Culture Reference: A mix of South American, Carribean, Jamaican, Cajun, Aztec and Mayan. Give or take a culture. *grin*

Trolls are based on the "wild savages" you've seen in the movies or on TV, from King Kong to Discovery channel. If you've seen people hunting with spears, walking around in the forest without many clothes on, or dancing around in costumes and face paint in some kind of ritual you've never heard of, you've seen the apparent inspiration for trolls in World of Warcraft. The culture of Warcraft trolls are a mishmash of all the different myths and rumors that have grown up about some of the earth's indigenous peoples that live outside modern society: Strange voodoo beliefs and rituals? Check. Bloodthirsty headhunters with a taste for cannibalism? Check. Witch doctors, shrunken heads, human sacrifice, and rampant superstition? Check on all counts.

It's important to note here that troll culture is based on the myths about some indigenous people, not on their reality. Cannibalism, for instance, has been rare among human societies, nearly always viewed as anathema, but among the trolls of Azeroth, it appears to be the rule rather than the exception. Unbiased study of the world's primal religions has shown them to be far more sophisticated than early (and prejudiced) Western explorers ever imagined. Don't listen to the Jamaican accent trolls have in the game and assume that trolls are based on real life Jamaicans. There is nowhere near the correlation here that we might find with the dwarves and the Scots, or even the draenei and the eastern Europeans that they sound like. Indeed, one could argue that the choice of a Jamaican accent to represent the trolls and their culture reveals a great deal of ignorance we Americans have regarding Caribbean islanders -- but that's a discussion I'll not go into today.

Suffice it to say that as a member of the Darkspear tribe, the only tribe of trolls to join the Horde, your character living in a time of great change for your people. Your tribe is the first to embrace the more modern values promoted by Thrall, to take up the spiritual practices of shamanism, and to integrate itself with other races. Although the Darkspears have officially given up human sacrifice, cannibalism, and now tell you to "stay away from the voodoo," these practices are all elements of religion and superstition that your character would have grown up with, and may find it hard to let go of completely.

"I heard if you cut off an extremity, it'll regenerate a little bigger..."

First, a note about troll biology: As you know, trolls are famous for their tusks, big ears, and for their tall and lithe look -- males stand at about 7 feet tall when they're not hunching over. You also may have heard that they have the ability to recover from any injury, and even regenerate severed appendages! What you may not have known is that troll skin is not necessarily what it appears to be at first.

Trolls are divided up into different groups depending on which environment they have adapted to: Ice, sand, forest and jungle. Ice trolls have white skin that almost blends in with the snow, while sand trolls have scorched, dry skin, beaten down by the harsh desert environment. So far no surprise there -- but forest trolls possess a strange mutation that makes moss grow on their skin, thus resulting in their odd green color. As for the jungle trolls, which is the group all Darkspear trolls originally came from, their bodies are covered in a short, soft fur which gives them their blueish or purplish coloration. Remember that the next time you hug a troll (and survive) -- not only is he tall and deadly, he's also soft and cuddly too!

"The way to a man's heart be through his stomach, but I go through the rib cage."

And now we turn to trollish history -- and here we get something of a reprieve from the convoluted path that the orcs have taken, as the history of the trollish brethren in the Horde is much simpler. This is notwithstanding that trolls may very well be the oldest race on Azeroth, with a history going back 16,000 years, and cultures which predate most any other in the world. This history doesn't strike me as something that every troll would know about however, as they seem to be much more of the type to live in the present rather than dwell on the past; I imagine many trolls would be surprised to hear about how their race once fought off an unstoppable onslaught of hideous giant insects, and may have even been the progenitors of the night elves. If your troll deems himself a scholar, however, by all means dig up the rich history and see what you discover.

One thing has never changed about trollish history: warfare. Perhaps bolstered by their ability to recover from any injury short of death, the trolls remain the most savage and bloodthirsty of all the Azerothian races. Their entire history leads from one war to another, almost unceasingly -- whether they were fighting insects, or elves, humans or even one another, the trolls have always been fighting something, and much of their religious superstitions are built up around the prosecution of killing, and protection from the spirits of the dead.

"I got a shrunken head -- I just came out of the pool!"

As a member of the Darkspear tribe, you would have enjoyed uncharacteristic (as far as trolls are concerned) peace growing up under the leadership of the wise and spiritual Sen'jin. Having been driven away from your ancestral home in the jungles of Stranglethorn Vale centuries earlier by the other bullying troll tribes, the Darkspears gradually bore all the shame of defeat and exile and made a home for themselves on a rain-swept island in the middle of the ocean. Eventually, however, some humans from Kul Tiras showed up and made a settlement there as well, and your murloc neighbors started showing more and more signs of violence. Your leader began to worry about the future of the Darkspears until, a few years prior to the current setting of World of Warcraft, he received a vision of an orcish seer who would save his people and take them off the island.

Sure enough, Thrall and his orcs sailed on by just as the conflict with the murlocs was about to reach its climax. His ships were ravaged by the Maelstrom, and he needed time and assistance in repairing them. Together, the orcs and the trolls drove the humans away from the island, only to be captured by the murlocs soon after. Sen'jin was unfortunately sacrificed to the Sea Witch that had been inciting the murlocs to violence, but just before the troll leader died, Thrall managed to escape and hear Sen'jin's dying words: a plea to save his people and take them from this island.

Your troll character might have gone with Thrall to fight in the Third War alongside the orcs, or she might have stayed behind to weather the wrath of the Sea Witch with Sen'jin's son Vol'jin as the new leader, until a year later, when the whole tribe could finally make the move over to Durotar, where the orcs had founded their new nation. Vol'jin and the Darkspears set themselves up on the Echo Isles in the southeast of Durotar just before another wave of humans showed up under General Proudmoore showed up and started causing all kinds of new problems for the new Horde. Along with the hero Rexxar, the tauren and some ogres, they helped the orcs fight off the humans.

But once again, the victory was short-lived. One of the Darkspears' witch-doctors, named Zalazane, started mind-controlling people and taking over the Isles for himself! Vol'jin retreated to the mainland and founded Sen'jin Village as an outpost from which to fight back against the traitor and his mind-slaves.

"I got all this, and personality too!"

In spite of their culture having been based on a twisted misunderstanding of voodoo and primal societies, and notwithstanding some troll's apparent reluctance to give up the bloodthirsty, cannibalistic, head-shrinking ways of the past, there's something about the trolls that appeals to a lot of people. Something about them strikes you as care-free in the face of constant difficulty, strangely cheery, even when talking about serious topics like their tribe's close brush with extermination, or the return of the ancient Blood God, Hakkar.

Whether your character is a truly enlightened member of the new Horde, or an utterly cruel savage underneath that jovial attitude, he or she faces the same challenge as all the other races in World of Warcraft: to adapt and grow in the face of great changes in the new world. There's something about the troll that proclaims how they'll grow and change in their own unique way.

For further reading about trolls, check out the massive Troll Compendium from Blizzard's official lore site, or, if you prefer, WoWWiki's page on the same topic. Be sure to read up on trollish voodoo for a clear sense of where your tribe is coming from culturally, even if your character is only marginally interested in faith and religion, and especially if you want to be a priest, shaman or some other sort of spiritual leader. Also have a look at the simplified Dramatis-Personae page for more suggestions on creating a troll (but be aware that Dramatis-Personae seems to have missed the part of the story that has the Darkspear trolls living on an island for the last few centuries, rather than in Stranglethorn Vale -- other than that, their take on trolls as essentially evil is certainly a valid option).

Trolls Views

The Horde
Blood Elves: The elves. While the Darkspear tribe were never directly part of the Troll Wars, the trolls and the elves have had a rivalry going back millennia. There simply isn’t room to avoid the issue. Troll children would have grown up with stories about how the foolish elves summoned the burning legion, about the strange and forbidden secrets they plumbed. Even though the blood elves aren’t the night elves, it’s not enough.

As such, the trolls simply can’t understand the inclusion of the elves in the Horde. The Horde wasn’t in a position of weakness, as it was when the Forsaken joined. And what did the elves ever do for the orcs, for the trolls and the tauren, huh? Those people earned their place in the horde. Trolls look at blood elves as dangerous, imposters, and pretenders. They believe all the stories about how they’re playing the Horde, looking to take over. There is no trust, and could easily develop true hostility; you should feel free as a troll to challenge an elf to a duel over the smallest of infractions. Beating up an elf ain’t no sin.

"You bein’ naive, mon. These elves, they ain’t got no wisdom. They ain’t got no restraint. If they be ‘cured’ now, they be sick again soon. And then where they go for they fix? Bad mojo, mon. Bad mojo.”

Orcs: Brothers in arms! Saviours! Occasional pains in the ass! The average troll looks at the orcs as an honorary tribe member; if there’s any race that’s earned it, it’s them. Hell, they seriously look up to the orcs in many ways, and are trying to emulate them. But they’re such a group of speech-givers! Despite the similarly bestial visages, the two races have very different views of combat. Orcs are soldiers. They may be bloodthirsty and furious in battle, but they are not pointless bloodletters. They fight for a cause. Trolls, meanwhile, fight for the tribe. They’re berserkers. They’re usually less idealistic, more pragmatic. A fight’s a fight. Yousa people gonna die so oursa people don’t.

Orcs are good friends of the trolls, and the two races get along well. But the trolls occasionally just want to muffle the noisy bastards, and they may well get into arguments over war conduct; where an orc may see a strategy as needed to avoid killing innocents, the trolls may see it as handcuffing themselves.

"Listen, you da good chief now. We know you da good chief and you lead us to many a victory. But going up through the mountains to avoid the village of humans below ain’t makin’ no sense. The humans in the citadel and the humans in the village, they be both our enemies, and the village ain’t worth squat. We go through the village, scream a lot, and if they foolish enough to stay they deserve to be dead.”

Tauren: To the trollish mind, there ain’t nothing wrong with the tauren being part of the Horde. They earned it! When the Horde landed on Kalimdor, the trolls and orcs needed help, and the tauren needed help. Both sides provided it for the other, and the alliance made sense. But spirits alive, man, could these guys be just a bit more urgent? To the troll mindset of tribal aggression, the tauren’s slow anger seems nonsensical. They fight good, they kick butt, so why not get into battle? If you’re going to lose a battle, that’s when you delay until you find a point you’ll win. Trolls generally think tauren are good people, and they certainly know more about the lands they live in than either the orcs or the trolls. (Mind you, the whole Cenarion Circle thing is a bit worrisome. How can you defend any alliance with the Night Elves?) But they wish the tauren would get involved more.

"C’mon! We got ‘em on the run, mon! Why we not strikin’ final blow, huh? Ain’t gonna be no peace settlement. Ain’t gonna be no treaty. Is gonna be us smashin’ em up and then we say what the settlement be!”

Undead: The undead exist somewhere between the blood elves and the tauren for the trolls. Yeah, they earned their place. They’ll admit to that. The Horde was small and needed support, the Forsaken provided it. That ain’t that different from the tauren, right? Two sides need help, two sides give help. The trolls don’t mind that sort of logic.

But the tauren, at least, breathe.

In short, all the sins of the blood elves apply to the Forsaken too. They don’t trust the undead one bit, because they don’t seem to be layin’ their cards on the table, and don’t prefer a fair-up fight. (The trolls, it should be noted, have no problems with avoiding a fair-up fight either, a sneaky ambush is as good as a frontal assault to them; better if it works better. But they know to distrust an enemy avoiding a fair-up fight for just that reason.) Like the blood elves, they suspect the undead aren’t playing honest with the Horde. But they’ve at least earned their place. That’s enough to stop a troll from randomly beating one up for the hell of it.

"Don’t trust her, mon! Who knows what she got in her hands? Check her hands! … Check for other hands! Who says she only have two? She a corpse! She may have any number of other people’s hands!”

The Alliance
Draenei: It’s awfully tempted to leave this entry as just, "The new guys you gotta kill” and leave it at that. Actually, I’m gonna run with that and leave it.

OK, just kidding. The relationship here is awfully tenuous, though; the trolls have basically no history with the draenei whatsoever. However, there are a few possibilities. A lot of trolls are going to associate them with humans and dwarves (due to the paladin link) and describe them as, "The big blue Light-bubbles.” This group is likely to see them as part of the dwarvish-human alliance, and presume them to have a soldier’s mindset. (Which is not really accurate.) Or they may look at the visual appearance and (if they know about the location of the Exodar) the geographical proximity to the night elves. In which case, the old racist sentiments may sneak in about these guys, too. Frankly, it’s too early in their relationship to give any rough pointers as to the basic dynamic between the two races.

So I’m sticking with, "They’re the new guys you gotta kill. And they’re big and blue.”

"They da new guys you gotta kill, mon. They big and blue.”

Dwarves & Gnomes: OK, here’s some races with more history. The Darkspear tribe have a little experience with the dwarves and gnomes, even before the current age, but even then, they’re likely to associate one with the other. There are probably a decently large number of trolls out there who have an odd respect for the dwarves and gnomes. They’re stoic, brave fighters who are damned hard to rattle, and they have weird machines that can turn the tide in a battle it looked like they’d lose. This still means you gotta kill them faster, is all, but you could expect to hear a troll speak admiringly of a race with that much cunning and courage combined.

"Da shorties you gotta watch out for, mon. You take a bite out of their friend, they just get mad. They don’t get scared at all, they just get mad. You know why? Cause they got a death ray in their pockets, y’hear.”

Humans: By contrast, the trolls have a little respect but a lot of contempt for the humans. Keep in mind that a troll thinks of Alliance races primarily in terms of how they fight. Gnomes bring a degree of wildness and unpredictability to a fight, which makes them hard to judge. The dwarves get confused with the gnomes. But the humans, well, they’re just seen as a bit predictable and, therefore, easy to ambush or trick. There’s no question that humans are worthy enemies, and they know the orcs seem to have a lot of respect for them as foes, which goes a way. But still, when faced with a human, the average troll thinks, "I can trick this fool.” Sometimes they’re right. Sometimes they’re not.

"We got the humans on us? OK, watch this, I do this last time. Shoot me with an arrow. I can take it. I heal up right as they find me, and then I attack ‘em. Scares the wits out of them, heh heh heh. Then you lot ambush ‘em.”

Night Elves: I say again, the rivalry between the trolls and the elves is absolutely ancient, literally going back to before the world was split apart as it is now. The trolls blame the elves for splitting the continents apart, bringing the burning legion to Azeroth, and while it was the forest trolls, not the jungle trolls who fought the high elves in the Troll Wars, you have to think the stories got told and heard by the jungle trolls too. In short, there’s an ancient hatred between these two races that few races on Azeroth can match. Trolls will target night elves above other targets, they will take pleasure in killing them, and in short, they’ll be really freaking terrifying when facing them.

"Now, you pointy eared moon freak! I’ma gonna splits you from ear to ear, and watch you bleed.”

Viewing the Classes

Death Knight: Remember what I said at the start? Trolls value loyalty, and unlike the humans, they don’t tend to offer much in the way of redemption. It’s the tribal mindset: Everything that is not forbidden is mandatory, and vice versa. They don’t tolerate the other well; and death knights? Are plenty other.
Druid: Druids are also very ‘otherish’ and that’s something the trolls have a lot of trouble with. Trolls get priests (they have them) and they get shamans (they have them) but they don’t really get druids, which is another way of looking at religion entirely. Add in the weirdness of shapeshifting, and the discomfort level goes up again. (Seriously, stop and think about it for a second. Druids are weird.) But unlike death knights, they’re also nominally loyal. That earns them a pass, but your average troll is still likely to get icked by them a little.
Hunter : Troll hunters are a valued part of their society. As a tribal society, hunting is an essential part of keeping their people healthy, and good hunters are well-respected. Curiously, troll hunters should in theory be pretty decent at stuff like spear-fishing, too; as an island people, the water provides a lot of their food, in all likelihood.
Mages: Trolls have a very long and distrustful relationship with magic. The initial conflict with the elves was over the magic within the Well of Eternity. Magic has always been a strong cause of defeat for various trollish tribes, if not the Darkspear. So why do they have mage as one of their classes? I confess to having no idea. Anyone out there know?
Paladin: Let’s recap: Paladins are a group of humans (enemies), dwarves (enemies), draenei (enemies) and blood elves (not technically enemies). They have a low opinion of paladins.
Priest: Priests are, to the trolls, a calling in a very literal sense. You don’t choose to become a priest, it’s a fate you realise, to be the servant of the loa. For them, the Light, Elune, and so forth are really just more of the same. This doesn’t mean rival priests get respect for filling that role, it means they’re enemies of the trolls’ loa. As such, a troll has a great respect for their own priests and a furious anger at other races’ priests… even blood elf or undead priests.
Rogue: In many ways, a rogue to the trolls is just a clever warrior. Trolls value cunning and trickery in warfare, and rogues are the masters of it. Trollish rogues are less likely to be sneaky assassins than they are ambushers, planners of dirty, low warfare. Assassination is a tactic, certainly, but it probably precedes an invasion.
Shaman: The shamans are a curious people in the Darkspear tribe. While the trolls look up to the orcs, there’s no denying that being a shaman right now means you’re really cutting edge. Most shamans among the trolls are very young, and possibly a little rebellious.
Warlocks: The orcs despise warlocks. Despise them. The trolls also hate warlocks, but… they’d have to admit, troll history has an awful lot of worship of beings who may as well be demons. The Darkspear regret this, and thus have a grudge against warlocks that goes double. There’s a reason there’s an option to play an orc warlock, but none for a troll.
Warrior: Troll warriors are bloody frightening. Take a fury that would stop an orc still, and match it with a serious lack of fear regarding injury.Troll warriors are expected to be horrifying, gibbering lunatics. Most oblige cheerfully, and are thus a formidable force on the battlefield.