I drew some African versions of Thor and Loki. All I can think is that Loki must be BFFs with Anansi the Spider.
Click to fullview!
Trolls and You: Politics Under the Red Banner, pt 2
Continued from here!
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The Darkspear, as part of the Horde.
Being shunted off into the slums became a huge strain and a huge source of tension for Vol’jin and his people these past few years.
These days, if you wander around in game within Orgrimmar, you might notice the neatly-divided sections of the city, with the most obvious being that of the goblins and the trolls—and, perhaps to a lesser extent, the tauren.
Open Your Arms by ~xpsam
(Source: fantasyscapes)
Anonymous: Your sandbox ideas are fantastic, by the way. I’d love to hear more about your interpretations! :D
Tuskless: What else is there to know beyond stabbing?Poisonshark: Oh, okay. BRB for the next year, writing things up.
More seriously: flattery gets you everywhere! And so does my obsessive interest in lore and characterization.
Please note: these are not intended to be a “cliff-notes” version of anything, in spite of being split up into smaller chunks. Please see “idea box” for more information.
I will be discussing at some length facts [but mostly sandboxed/headcanon opinions] about trolls, troll behaviour, troll lore, troll viewpoints, and the politics around trolls found within and without the Horde.
And while it took me a while to get around to finishing this for the anonymous-asker that jump-started it all, hopefully the interest in this topic still stands.
First up will be troll politics and related discussion. Keep an eye out!
Trolls and You: Politics Under the Red Banner, pt 1
Post-Cata, it is not easy being green a troll.
The “new” Horde under Garrosh continues to be interesting for me to watch play out, largely because the orcs and their new Warchief remain such a driving force—a battering ram, really—in all of the conflict across Azeroth’s continents.
5. health. per. second.: Soylent Green Dinners →
5hps:
Did you know? Cannibalism is taboo.
-snip for space-
I’ve seen mention of people’s troll characters being cannibals/eating other sentient species. Moloji is definitely not, and he is VERY offended/angry when he finds out Niljemas thinks he’s going to be eaten and thinks that Moloji’s been trying to feed him the bodies of his friends (Niljemas starts out as Moloji’s prisoner).
Moloji was an impressionable teenager* when Thrall’s forces saved the Darkspear, and he is a total fanboy of Thrall and Vol’jin (and Sen’jin). He also tends to the lawful side of the spectrum so if the leaders say something is verboten he’ll be right on board with that. He is not okay with other Horde trolls practicing cannibalism. He doesn’t have a moral problem with it, it’s purely a “follow the rules” problem.Moloji has some real crises of conscience once Garrosh comes to power (he hates Garrosh, but Thrall chose him for leader, but Garrosh pushes off/devalues the Darkspear, so what to do) but since my story is currently set the year before Vanilla WoW launches, I have some time before I need to deal with Moloji’s feelings about Garrosh. :D
*I have yet to be able to find definitive dates about when Thrall saved the Darkspear, so I decided I would have my own head canon about it and if it’s AU it’s AU. *shrug*
OOCly, yes, it might be a good idea to discuss characters’ taboo habits. Always good to have OOC communications!
ICly, it’s all about the conflict. Casually discussing it in a favorable way and suffering no repercussions is not good storytelling. Blizzard has made it pretty clear that the orcs want to be the boss of everyone, and that includes telling trolls no more cannibalism. Vol’jin is pretty much Thrall’s bro, even if he wasn’t invited to the wedding, so it’s unlikely that he’d be rebelling against the request for no cannibalism.
This tumblr is just here to throw ideas out for people to dig into. Inviting discussions of character and story is part of the intention. :D The writers behind it are, as ever, not the final judgement or sayso on what should and shouldn’t be done in RP.
On a purely personal level, I’d say yes, your characters and storyline sounds good to me. Keep setting a good example for other players!
re: Timelines — as always, WoW’s timelines are not the most defined. As far as I am aware, the Darkspear were saved ~5 years before Vanilla WoW begins. It would have been on the trip over from Eastern Kingdoms to Kalimdor with his own recently liberated people in tow. As of Cataclysm, that’d be something like ~9-10 years.
I have no idea if that makes your timeline AU or not, but as long as you’re not claiming your adult Darkspear trolls were born in Sen’jin Village, I don’t think it’s going to cause much of a conflict!
Soylent Green Dinners pt2
Did you know?: Cannibalism is a little more complex than deciding to eat people instead of pork.
Looking to the real world, we find that cannibalism is usually practiced in three circumstances: extreme famine, as part of a cultural ritual, or individuals who suffer from mental disturbances and social deviancy.
Let’s look at the different types of cannibalism, as defined by the Gale Encyclopedia of Food & Culture.
[1] Endocannibalism is the consumption of deceased individuals who live within the group, such as kin and friends.
Note that it reads “deceased”—as in, Endocannibals do NOT kill one another. They eat their deceased to remove and honor the remains.
From all indications, trolls do not commonly do this. There are intact mummies and tombs, bodies burned, and even items fashioned out of various body parts to serve as charms and fetishes. The body seems to be important for tying the spirit to the mortal realm so that the living can contact those spirits for blessings and wisdom.
[2] Exocannibalism is the consumption of outsiders as an act to gain strength or demonstrate power over the vanquished, who had usually been murdered.
This is the most likely act of cannibalism that any troll is going to commit. For Azeroth, that would mean eating non-trolls or trolls of enemy tribes.
[3] Starvation or survival cannibalism is the consumption during actual or perceived starvation.
The second most likely type of cannibalism to happen in Azeroth.
Remember that every single zone in the world has a wide variety of food sources and that trolls are extremely adaptable and crafty. Starvation is going to be an extremely rare occurrence! In fact, the only documented case of it so far would be the Mossflayers. They starved because the Scourge wiped out their forests and left them with nothing but plagued meat.
[4] Gastronomic cannibalism is nonfunerary, nonstarvation cannibalism, that is, routine cannibalism for food.
Though rumors run rampant about troll cannibalism being a regular thing, they do not necessarily have to be true. Trolls have neither the numbers nor the strength to continuously overcome enemies for the purpose of eating them.
[5] Medicinal cannibalism is the consumption of human tissues such as blood, powdered bone, or dried tissue for medicinal purposes.
As this does not require killing or even fully eating a sentient creature, this is the kind of cannibalism that could be frequently practiced even within the Horde. That does not mean a troll can safely name the ingredients in front of an orc, but they might be able to pass it off as only being the blood of a pig, for instance.
[6] Sadistic cannibalism is the killing and eating of individuals out of sadistic or psychopathological motives.
This doesn’t normally apply to trolls, as they grew up with the cultural norm of cannibalism.
To conclude this post: there are many, many reasons for cannibalism, none of them as simple as not wishing to waste meat. Doing some research will always make your RP more interesting.
Next time, we’ll touch on how viewing cannibalism as normal might affect a troll’s mindset.
(Source: answers.com)
Soylent Green Dinners
Did you know? Cannibalism is taboo.
This one should be pretty obvious. Cannibalism in Azeroth is defined as the eating of any sentient species—a troll eating a human, for instance.
If the troll is part of the Horde (and remember, there’s no neutral visitors allowed), then they can no longer publicly practice cannibalism at all. Not even to nibble on an enemy.
Nor can they talk about it where they might be overheard by anyone eager to prove loyalties to the Horde. It’s not even safe to joke about.
Furthermore, just because WoWpedia or quests make repeated mention of trolls practicing cannibalism does not mean that it is actually an every day occurrence. There are a large number of whole mummified remains to be found amidst most of the larger tribes, indicating that they are self-sustaining enough that they do not have to constantly eat their own kind.
Added to that is the fact that most, if not all, of the current tribes have had their numbers decimated. The Darkspear have maybe at thousand or so trolls left. All the other tribes, excluding Zandalar and Revantusk, have been at war with themselves, the Scourge, or with the Horde and Alliance in the last ten years.
So remember: if your troll is a cannibal and part of the Horde, it’s supposed to be a secret. Try not to act surprised when the orcs make mincemeat out of yours for kidding around about it.
(Source: simplyfreespirits)
