Friday, September 29, 2017

De Yai Wai thordy 29

29. Goblins are great. Why or why not?

I love goblins.

I love them an awful lot, they're just so wonderful to use.

There are so many directions you can take goblins in. Are they chaotic, nonsensical little green folk who are humorous but deadly?




 Are they creepy giggling child-things which steal infants from their cribs and dwell in the walls of decrepit houses?



 Or are they vegetarian monsters which transform humans into plants?



The possibilities are endless.

I tend to lean towards creepy with all of my interpretations of monsters, so goblins are usually pretty nasty and ugly. Unhealthily pale skin, warts, and asymmetrical faces. They eat kids and hide under beds, and they can be found everywhere. Demons and dragons are beyond the reach of the typical peasant, far away beings that you hear about in stories. But goblins haunt the nightmares of the common folk.

All other goblinoid type monsters fill this same niche. Orcs, hobgoblins, gnolls, kobolds, bugbears, xvarts, redcaps, the list goes on. They're fundamentally just people, with some slight monstrous differences. Its something easily believable, they're almost just natural animals.

But there's something off about them. You can't imagine a goblin taking loving care of its children or sending diplomats to cities. They're just nasty and evil. You can't really have that with people. Even the most despicable of individuals has compassion and love. It may be buried underneath layers of bigotry and evil, but they're still complex creatures. A goblin isn't. A goblin will smash a vase over your head because its funny, they'll steal children and eat them because its just what they do.

And that is creepy.


Thursday, September 28, 2017

Die Ei Wai Thurdee 28

28. What's a really cool imaginary place you've made up? Draw a map of it. Don't worry it's just a map. E'rybody can make maps.

Screw it I made a map of a place completely improvised based on some ideas I had lying around.

This is the Howling Desert, so named due to the fact that there are harsh winds here. Because magic is a thing and wizards are godawful, these winds are even worse than normally possible, and contain air elementals.

The Dome is the only major settlement here. Its a giant octagonal thing made from glass and steel, and it contains an oasis within. Within the dome is a nearly tropical environment, with arboreal houses, though there are also extensive mines beneath the artificial forest floor.

The Mountain Gate leads into the mountains, and leads down into an endless stairwell that nobody has returned from. It is said that Fyreiclau, an ancient and powerful dragon, descended the stairwell and eats any who try to reach the bottom.

The Tomb Palaces are two enormous 4 sided pyramids full of living statues, mummified corpses, and bound demons. They were built for an ancient matriarchal society of sorceresses. The Big Palace contains the mummy last queen of the society, before they moved to a more democratic system of government and also royally screwed over the environment with magic. The Small Palace contains the mummies of her dozen husbands.


Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Dee Eye Why Thirty 19 through 27 AAAAAAAAHHHHHH

Wow I sure did procrastinate on this didn't I?

19. What single change would you make to a popular D&D setting and why?

Screw it lets go with Greyhawk: We don't need this many pseudo goblins. Xvorts, kobolds, orcs, hobgoblins, mites, all those guys, they can just be one thing. Just have goblins be themselves. Even Tolkien didn't make a distinction between goblins and orcs. They're the same.

20. Describe a mechanic you would put into your Science Fiction Heartbreaker.

You have a space fever stat. You know how people stuck in a cabin go kinda bonkers after a while? Its like that but with a spaceship. The more time you spend in a ship without leaving, the higher this stat gets. When doing something stressful, you have to roll over your space fever stat or you don't do it and start babbling about the void.

21. Most unexpected spell that helped you get past the walls of the Fortress of See.

Light. The honorable pastor Matthew cast the spell to distract the countless eyes that dot the fortress walls, allowing him to sneak through one of the fortress's many mouth-doors.

22. Describe Milk Demons for me. What do they do, what are their names, what do they taste like?

They look like oozes made from rancid milk, and they like to go inside cows. They crawl into their udders and corrupt the cows, transforming them into cruel demonic cattle. Milk demons all have names that sound like bubbles, such as Borbleglook, Durble, and Bipplewip. Anyone who dares to try and drink from a milk demon will find that they taste delicious, like ice cream, shortly before the idiot's bones melt.

23. How should gods work in a game?

They don't. There may be gods, but they don't actually care that much. Clerics/priests/whatever are basically tricking gods into giving them what they want. Unless you call special attention to yourself, gods aren't likely to notice you.

In fact, though many zealous folk claim that gods created all that is, it is far more likely that a mixture of physics, evolution, natural magic, and only the slightest bit of divine intervention actually created the world as we currently know it

24. If the object closest to your left hand right now was a magic item in your campaign, what would it do?

Purple colored pencil. You can draw living constructs with it, but it drains your life force to do so.

25. The last thing you drank is a potion. What are its effects?

Milk. The "potion" is actually a milk demon in a jar. Your bones melt. Idiot.

26. Your childhood pet is now a monster. How is it going to kill me?

Smudge is a small cat-like being that haunts 1 room in a house. It blends into the background, hides under beds, generally stays out of notice. But as time goes on it becomes bolder, leaving scratches and bite marks on you while you sleep. Eventually, it slits your throat.

27. So what's with that overly-elaborate locked box?

Its full of weird BDSM demons that will tear your soul apart.

Just kidding, it stores the finger of a powerful dead demon god. The box is enchanted, blessed, and virtually indestructible, to prevent cultists of the dead monster from bringing it back to life.

Monday, September 18, 2017

Brain Fart 1

Where did these organisms come from????


Trees are:

The veins of the universe, and the reason why magic works

Really slow squid

Slow flowing liquid that disobeys the laws of gravity and goes upwards

Giants that fell asleep and never woke up (at least the really old trees are)


Goblins are:

Big frogs with swords

Halfings' shittier cousins

The evil thoughts of humanity brought to life in the rapidly regenerating bodies of stillborn infants

Weird people shaped things that form out of nasty holes in the ground

Monkeys that got too smart and now they kill people

Dragons are:

Lizards that drank demon blood and now they're big

The personifications of greed

what happens when you accumulate too much wealth and don't spend it

War machines from an ancient age

Apes are:

False men, monkeys evolved to look like children so they can sneak around by night.

What humans become if exposed to a strange disease.

The devolved creators of humanity, who came to Earth thousands of years ago.

Cats are:

The eyes and ears of faeries, they use them to keep watch on humanity

The reincarnated souls of wizards and witches

Minor deities

Chimeras and manticores and other monsters made from bits and pieces of other animals are:

The result of teleporter malfunctions a la the fly

A bunch of animals sewn together by scientists/mad wizards

The kids of people who reproduced with demons or faeries

Dreams given form

Oozes and slimes are:

All the fluids in the human body that refuse to die and just keep living

Swarms of tiny, tiny, gnomes

God got stabbed and his blood became ooze

Ectoplasm


DIY 30 days 16, 17, and 18

Hi welcome to once every three days post dump. Lets get started shall we?

16. Make an equipment list for a post apoc setting, using only things in 1 room of your home. Garage and kitchen are easy mode.

See this is is easy as hell because my room is cool:

  1. Short Sword of ancient Scottish design
  2. Dagger
  3. Mace (Its garbage though, and breaks after 1d6 uses)
  4. Walking Stick
  5. Water Jug
  6. Nature Guidebook (Bonus to survival checks)
  7. Plastic Trombone
  8. Microphone with a several yard long cord
  9. Bottle of hand sanitizer
  10. Cap gun (not real but looks realistic enough to give a bonus to intimidation checks)

17. What political situation existed 500 years ago, and how does its fall affect the world of today?

There was a nation of dragon riders and a nation of powerful wizards. One of these nations did something to piss off the other, and they got into a huge war. 

The dragon riders managed to recruit the help of giants, and razed the wizards' kingdom to the ground, leaving nothing but ashes and underground ruins. 

However, the wizards unleashed a final spell that irrevocably ruined the fabric of reality in the dragon riders' nation. 

As a result of this, you now have two regions full of treasure to be looted. One is a wasteland of ash and destroyed buildings, inhabited by scavengers and things that live in the underground tomb-fortresses, and the other is a wacky and gonzo radioactive hellscape where physics doesn't make sense.

18. The wizard has researched a new spell named “Chance Minutia.” What does the spell do?

The spell appears to do nothing, but one subtle change is made to reality, determined by the GM. Perhaps a word is now spelled slightly differently, or someone's eye color changes. If enough wizards cast this spell at once, it could make the world a very different place...

Friday, September 15, 2017

DIY 30 days 13, 14, and 15

This is rapidly becoming less of a RPG a day thing as it is an RPG every 3 days thing, but who is keeping score anyhow?

13. Three Sports Wizards Play

  1. How many shots can you take and still be able to do the exact calculations needed to summon an imp?
  2. Frog Uglying. You find a frog and mess with it magically to make it as gross and ugly as possible, while still technically being alive.
  3. Competitive Time Stasis Hide and Seek: These games can take years for the competitors, but take no time at all for everyone else. 

14. Roll a d20 and count down that many photos on flickr.com/explore. Thats your prompt.


https://www.flickr.com/photos/aizkorbe/37083369771/in/explore-2017-09-14/

So the first thing this picture made me think was "Silent Hill But Its In The Woods" and honestly thats just such a good concept I'm gonna roll with it, and write up 3 monsters that would show up in this setting:

Dryad

These things look vaguely like the outline of a woman, but thats where the resemblance ends. They have no actual limbs, what looks like legs and arms are merely protrusions from their flesh, fused to their body. Their fingers trail and branch off like roots, forming tentacles an inch thick covered in thorns that propel it forward. 

The monster's face is the worst. It is the highly detailed visage of a beautiful lady carved into its stiff flesh, and sap-like blood oozes from the lines. The face never changes, even as the beast's thorns stab into you.

HD 2
AC as leather
Attacks 2
Damage 1d6 each
Morale 12

Fake Owl

At first you think its an owl but no, owls are feathered and cute. But this? This thing is fleshy and wet and looks like someone covered a baby in too much skin before extruding wing-like flaps of flesh out of its head.

It has two enormous piercing eyes that glow a pale blue, and has foot long talons.

HD 1
AC as leather
Attacks 1
Damage 1d6
Morale 12

If you are in the vision of a Fake Owl you are in bright light and everyone can see you.

Big Bad Wolf

Theres a kind of material called Vantablack that absorbs 99 point something percent of visible light. If you paint something with this material, it becomes a silhouette, wrinkles on foil disappear from sight. It looks like you're staring into the void. Thats what looking at the Big Bad Wolf is like.

At a glance it looks canine, but the longer you look at this unearthly black mass the more wrong it looks. The muzzle is too long, the skeletal structure is all wrong, and you swear you've never seen a wolf with a tail that thin. The Big Bad Wolf never makes noise, unless it is about to attack, in which case it emits a terrifying sonic screech that is so loud it physically hurts.

HD 7
AC as leather
Attacks 1 bite or 1 screech
Damage 1d6+2 bite or 3d6 screech (save halves damage)
Morale 12

15. Write a pitch for how you'd change a shitty game into a good game.


4e but you're all demigods. Why does the warrior get weird special abilities that don't make sense? Because he's the son of Ares and he's phoning his dad for help. 

The reason why all your conflicts slowly get more and more ridiculous and divinely important as you level up is because you're Slowly Becoming A Damn Deity. You unlock better spells and attacks as you level up because you're ascending to godhood.

Fighters are children of Ares, clerics and paladins are Hephaestus's kids, rangers are children of Artemis, wizards and warlocks are the kids of Hecate, rogues are descendants of Hermes, etc etc.

Theres already a crap ton of mythological beings in the monster manuals, just grab them and go. Maybe XP is their life energy or something, I dunno.

Anyway I'll post more soonish I still need to write a session report for my last playtest.

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

DIY 30 Days 10, 11, and 12

I gotta catch up on this so here is another post.

10. What is beyond the wall?

Beyond the walls of the Great City, the world is divided into petty fiefdoms, each ruled by a lord. These self appointed rulers often give themselves ludicrously grandiose titles, regardless of how much land they may actually control. For example, a man that calls himself "The Gold Crowned Emperor Of Laurencia" may actually only control 5 square miles of land and rule over a hundred people.

Monsters roam the countryside, with goblins, faeries, dragons and worse killing at will. Most "kingdoms" have a small militia, but few are really capable of standing up to the monsters. Thus, adventurers and monster hunters are almost always needed. 

11. Why is the stone circle on the hill broken?

The stone circle on the hill was once a kind of temple or church, used by ancient people for worship. However, long ago these people angered the fae, and were slaughtered by them. All that remains of their culture is the broken stone circle and the goblin haunted catacombs beneath.

Sometimes some teenagers go up on the hill for a dare, and usually come back okay. Those that don't come back are killed by goblins, or worse; taken alive into their lair.

12. What is there to do when stationed on an interstellar lighthouse?

If you're lucky you can get yourself an omnicube, a recording device containing all public domain human media. That should keep you occupied for a while, but they cost quite a bit. Alternatively, you could always listen to the subspace radio, keep up on galactic politics. The reception tends to be a bit crap, due to the lighthouse's small receiver, but you can occasionally pick stuff up. Another option is black market drugs. Buying hallucinogens from other planets can be a bit of a stress on your wallet, but the results can be truly breathtaking.

Monday, September 11, 2017

DIY 30 Days 8 and 9

Sorry, I've been busy for the past couple of days and haven't been able to post. Anyway, here is what I wrote for the DIY RPG meme for days 8 and 9.

8. ¨Mommy, what are tooth faeries like, and what do they do with all the teeth?¨

Faeries are weird and highly varied creatures. Some try to categorize them into different types, like brownies, dwarves, elves, and gnomes, but these categories aren't exactly correct or logical. Its like how medieval scholars thought barnacles were a kind of bird, humans just get things wrong about them. Changelings (the more human faeries that get dumped with people because they're annoying and fleshy and talk funny), like the playable halflings, dwarves, and elves, are the most consistent kind of faerie, but others are more nebulous and confusing.

In any case, sometimes faeries just take kids' teeth. If you're lucky, its when the tooth is about to fall out anyway, but if not, they could always just whisper some magic words with their false tongues and make your kid's teeth fall out like raindrops. Just pray they don't try to make them grow more teeth back.
Table of what faeries did with your teeth (Roll 1d12)

  1. They planted them into the ground and grew a new You, which they took deep into the blackest woods and ate. 
  2. They made magical swords from your teeth, beautiful ivory blades forged from the molars of countless children. These swords are extremely deadly, and are said to be the only way to kill one of the more powerful faerie lords. 
  3. They ate them. They have vast feasts in the forest, beautiful pointy eared delicate creatures munching and crunching on the stolen bone of children. 
  4. They made bone knuckles. They´re like brass knuckles but they´re made with teeth. 
  5. The teeth are used for some unspeakable purpose in faerie reproduction. 
  6. The faeries make protective wards against goblins with them. They will not acknowledge that they make these wards. 
  7. They give them to trees so the trees have mouths. The trees that are given mouths realize they´re alive and get up and start killing things. 
  8. Dentures. Look, even faeries get old, over aeons. 
  9. They're used as a building material for the smaller faeries. 
  10. The faeries have tiny little hermit crab-like creatures that they keep as pets, and they use teeth as homes for these pets. 
  11. They've thrown them down a hole and don´t talk about it. Do not ask them what its for. 
  12. Faeries like to put them in the mouths of wolves to freak out hunters when they find wolves with grinning human teeth. 

9. Who rules the deepest sea floor?

The sea floor is hard to reach, requiring powerful magic or technology beyond current science. But, if one was able to walk across its surface, they would find darkness and death. The corpses of whales slowly being picked apart by scavengers, the ruins of ships moving across the sea floor, propelled by currents like winds and crewed by ghosts.

Few intelligent creatures live in this forbidding landscape, but there are the fishfolk. Also called mermaids by land dwellers, the fishfolk are humanoid creatures of varying piscoid nature. Some can change their shape, and use this ability to lure sailors to their doom. They are the unopposed rulers of the depths, and it is said that they worship a powerful demon of cursed water.

Thursday, September 7, 2017

DIY 30 Days 6 and 7

6. There are 6 kinds of vampires. Don't be boring.


One: Aristocratic




They are very fancy men, they suck blood with expensive golden straws and wear posh suits. They can bite, they have sharp teeth because they are vampires, but they much prefer to have their servants (usually goth vampire wannabes) capture victims and tranquilize them. If they particularly like your blood, they will keep you alive in their basement and bring you out for parties.

Two: Dropper




You know how ticks sit on leaves and fall down and land on people? These vampires do that, but they climb buildings. They are all skinny at first, but when they land on their victim and suck out their blood, they get a little bigger. The really successful ones are really large, but can still cling to sheer surfaces like an arachnid. They aren't very talkative, but they aren't stupid either.


Three: Blood-drink Clouds




These vampires spend most of their time as a cloud of gas. They have creepy red eyes floating inside the gas, and they look like an old Star Trek monster effect. They only condense to feed on their victims, taking the form of a tall pale humanoid with sharp teeth and red eyes.


Four: Teethrakers 














These nasties live in sewers. They have big lamprey mouths, wrinkly skin, and they smell bad. They're very stupid, but they're still strong and deadly like other vampires. Their bite not only drains blood, but may infect you with a terrible disease.


Five: Dramatics




The dramatic vampire feeds on blood, but something about their transformation makes them need to be noticed. They have an intense desire for attention. These are the kinds of monsters that wear black cloaks with red linings, stand atop towers during thunderstorms, and sleep in fancy sarcophagi. They are just as dangerous as other vampires, but often easier to catch due to their inability to stay unnoticed.


Six: Bat




Bat vampires look like what would happen if you took a vampire bat and stretched it into a human shape, then shaved it. They dress in rags and have enormous ears, relying on echolocation. They can fly because they're magical, but their "wings" are just very long fingers with some skin between them. They have high pitched squeaky voices and are super annoying.

7. What happens when you water trees with goblin blood?













If the tree was home to faeries, they hate you now.

If the tree was dying, now it is dead.

If the tree was useful, a stump is found the next morning, with goblin axe marks on it.

If the tree had a bird's nest in it, the mother abandons her children and lets them starve to death.

If the tree gives fruit, the fruit tastes sour.

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

DIY 30 Day 5



5. What sort of abilities would a Bug Knight class give to a character?

You're an ascended insect, given sapience and a vaguely humanoid form by your patron, which is some sort of powerful lawful being. You have no need for armor, naturally possessing a chitinous exoskeleton, and you are proficient with shields and all melee weapons. You also are granted some minor powers from your patron, and can cast cleric spells as a cleric of half your level, rounding up. 


Bug Knight 

Hit Dice: D8s

Armor Proficiency: None, but by default you have an armor class equivalent to chain mail. You can use shields though.

Weapon Proficiency:
All melee weapons.

Experience Progression:
As Elf (Or magic-user/fighter if using a race separate from class system)

Saving Throws: As Fighter of equivalent level.

Spell Casting: You can cast cleric spells as a cleric of half your level.

Linguistic Pheromones: You can speak with all kinds of arthropods through the release of chemicals.

Arthropod Origin: You can choose one of the following species of bug, gaining the benefit described, or talk to your game master to come up with another type.

  • Spider: You have a natural bite attack which you can use in lieu of your normal melee attack. It deals 1d4 damage on a successful hit, and requires the target to make a poison saving throw or take an additional 1d6 damage per Bug Knight level.
  • Mantis: You have two natural claw attacks which you can use instead of your melee weapon. Each one deals 1d6 damage. If both hit, then your target is grabbed and must make a saving throw versus dragon breath to escape.
  • Grasshopper: You can leap 60' feet instead of moving normally on your turn. If you attack while leaping, you take a -2 penalty to hit but deal and additional +2 damage.
  • Cockroach: You can eat almost any organic material, and are immune to all forms of poison.
  • Firefly: Your butt glows like a lantern. Hey c'mon, admit it, thats pretty cool.
  • Land Crab: You can breath underwater, and your armor is treated as plate instead of chain mail. But you can only walk sideways and diagonally.
  • Pill Bug: You can, as a move action, curl up into a ball. This increases your effective armor class to Plate mail and Shield +1. However, while in this state, you cannot do anything else except wait or uncurl from your ball as a move action.
Code Of Honor: If you use an alignment system in your game, Bug Knights must be the most lawful and good alignment available. They must strive to protect the innocent, to vanquish evil wherever it may strike, and to assist the poor when able. If a Bug Knight chooses to not follow this code of honor, they will lose 1 point of intelligence per day until they gain forgiveness from their patron. At 1 intelligence, they revert back to the bug they originally were.







Monday, September 4, 2017

DIY 30 Day 4



4. Make a monster based on your deepest fear

Mimics are demonic creatures which can assume the form of another creature. Usually, these beasts' main goals are the acquisition of more biomass, but some of the more intelligent ones gain a sick pleasure in imitating their victims.

One individual, known as the Perpetrator, usually takes the form of a well respected member of a community. This person may be a king, a baron, or even a somewhat popular artist, the Perpetrator does not care. While using this person's shape, the Perpetrator commits a crime of some kind. The crime the Perpetrator commits varies depending on who they are mimicking. For example, if the Perpetrator was disguised as a famously chaste holy man, the creature may go visit a brothel and make its presence obvious. If the Perpetrator's victim was a outspoken pacifist, it would kill someone violently in public.

After committing the crime, the Perpetrator slinks into the shadows to watch the conflict. It will plant evidence that its victim was really at the scene of the crime, making it seem like its victim is guilty without any doubt. When its victim's reputation is finally ruined beyond repair, the Perpetrator sneaks into their house in the middle of the night and kills them, absorbing their biomass and leaving behind a suicide note to make it seem like their victim killed themselves in some way that would destroy the body.

Sunday, September 3, 2017

What Is A Goblin?

What is a goblin? What are those things you find in dungeons that crawl and skulk in the shadows, stabbing at you with sharp bone knives and staring into your soul with their hateful shining eyes?

Why do they hate you? Why do they build traps to kill and maim and hurt? Why do they cackle with glee as they cut out the entrails of your fallen comrades?

Why do they stay away from the light? How come they are so much more dangerous by darkness than in broad daylight? They must need to see after all, why else would they have eyes?

How do they breed? Do they breed at all? How come they are already in tombs and crypts and ruins and labyrinths long before humans break down the bricks that seal them in?

What do they eat? Is it the adventurers they kill? The mushrooms growing in their damp caves and moldy passages? The fierce red eyed rats the size of dogs that squeak and scurry in the unnatural darkness of the goblins’ lairs?

How are they related to the faeries? Why do faeries refuse to talk about them? Do faeries fear goblins? Can faeries even experience fear? Why is the goblins’ language so similar to the faeries’ own tongue?

Why do they hoard treasure and magic items that they never use? They have no need for commerce, no need for money, so why do they have chests full of glittering gold and jewels? 

Why are there no baby goblins? Do goblins age? How old is the beast I just killed? A day? A month? An aeon?

Why do some call them kobolds while others call them orcs, and yet still others insist that they are gnolls? Whats the difference? Why does it even matter, if they are all the same type of creature anyway?


Why are they so pale and nearly hairless? Why do they need such sharp teeth? Why are they so twisted and malformed? Is this what they consider beautiful? Do they even have a concept of beauty?

WHAT IS A GOBLIN AND WHAT DO THEY WANT FROM US??

DIY 30 Days 2 and 3

2. Whats a campaign you would love to play in, but nobody is running?

Completely gonzo genre mash up. All the different universes and time periods have smashed together into one weird physically impossible mess. Giant crashed spaceships controlled by goblins, World War 1 soldiers riding tyrannosaurs, armies of zombie dwarves with machine guns, that sort of thing. Characters could be made using any sort of race/class combination from anything in the OSR, as long as it was vaguely balanced. An adventuring party could be composed of an elf, a mutant, a deep one hybrid, a gray alien cleric, and an 18th century pirate, so long as the classes were all OSR.

3. How can a monster harm a character in a new and unusual way?

If this monster touches you your bones grow longer. At first its just uncomfortable, but as the thing caresses and pokes you more and more you can feel your bones begin to pierce through your fingertips.

If this continues for long enough, your ribs curve into your lungs and your spinal column stabs through your brain, killing you painfully.

Saturday, September 2, 2017

DIY 30 Day 1

This 30 days of DIY RPG thing was posted, and it looked like fun, so I'm doing it.

1. What is a heretofore unknown secret of Troll ecology?(Beware, poorly thought out pseudoscience below)

It is widely known that trolls turn into stone when exposed to sunlight. What is not known is that this process is caused by a strain of strange algae that has a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship with their troll host. Curiously, this algae somehow gains energy from the absence of light, and this seemingly impossible power helps fuel trolls' regenerative process.


Large amounts of UV light cause a chemical reaction in these bizarre organisms, rapidly transforming the carbon inside their cells into silicon. This process releases extreme amounts of energy, which is what kills the troll, and is why trolls' stony corpses seem to steam after the reaction takes place. Trolls were originally a relatively normal subspecies of giant, but at some point they were joined with this darkness powered algae. Some claim it was a purely process of evolution, that just happens to have occurred only in trolls, while others believe that they are the creation of a mad sorcerer.