



The Order of the Stick depicts the gods during the creation of the world



Should they be giants with scaly green skin that rapidly heal from any injury except fire or acid? Or something that's literally made of rock and gets smarter when it's in the cold? Or perhaps something that guards bridges from errant goats?

All right, let's admit it. Trolls are diverse. It's not even a matter of everyone wanting them to be different; there are so many clashing ideas of trolls in mythology itself that it's hard to decide what they are. So, really, you can't blame modern creators for putting their own spin on trolls. If there is any consistency, it is that the less cute the troll, the meaner the troll, but even that tends to be subverted.

Quite a few depictions of Trolls have them as being vulnerable to fire. Some fictional interpretations give them ridiculously fast regenerative powers, such that they can heal themselves even as you're cutting them down making them frighteningly invincible. In these interpretations, fire is the only way to prevent their injuries from healing and thus the only way to defeat them. Others have them harmed or petrified by sunlight.

Many of the differences stem from language barriers. When translating a myth from another culture, it was common habit for a previously unknown creature to be stamped as a troll. The names Ogre, Giant, and Troll were also interchangeable for many storytellers, resulting in further confusion.


Has nothing to do with trolling, except when it does.

See Our Orcs Are Different, Our Goblins Are Different, Our Giants Are Bigger, and Our Ogres Are Hungrier.

Examples of All Trolls Are Different include:

Anime and Manga

  • Would you believe that "Totoro", in My Neighbor Totoro, is actually a mispronunciation of troll? (Japanized, it would be "tororo", and Mei doubled up the wrong sound) Totoro is the leader of a family of friendly forest monsters, and he looks like a big, furry cat-owl-rabbit thing.
  • The trolls from the Berserk manga series are nasty, nasty predatory monsters straight out of the Qliphoth, a nightmare realm connected to the astral world, that have taken to carrying women off from villages for breeding purposes. Like many of Kentaro Miura's monsters, Berserk's trolls are Mix-and-Match Critters, and in their case look like a hairy cross between a rat, a monkey and a pig.
  • In Saint Seiya one of Hades' Specters is Troll Ivan. His armor represent the troll as a humanoid being with pointy ears, claws and a tail.

Comic Books

  • Elf Quest trolls are short, stocky, warty, grey-green, ugly and materialistic. They are also more technologically advanced than most of the rest of the world, live underground, and have beards, making then stand-ins for Dwarves. Naturally, the elves and trolls don't get along well. And when you cross an elf with a troll you apparently get a Dwarf who's a Magnificent Bastard Trickster with a major Freudian Excuse.
  • Sojourn features Trolls who look more than a little like the Uruk-Hai from the Lord of the Rings films, being human-height but bulky, green- or brown-skinned, with glowing green eyes and often with massive horns. They were first an Always Chaotic Evil mook army, and eventually became a Proud Warrior Race who were more attuned to nature than humans.
  • Due to its policy that All Myths Are True, Hellboy ends up with more types of troll than you can shake a Red Right Hand at.


  • Like Harry Potter, in Alexandra Quick, Trolls are are none too possessed of smarts, making them ideal for dull, monotonous work. Hence Wizarding America employs them in tollbooths for the Automagicka.


  • The troll in the film Troll is a small, ugly, hairy creature that used to be an elf. He turns other people into other mythological creatures. The trolls in the infamous Troll 2 aren't trolls at all. Maybe. It's confusing.
    • Trope shamelessly exploited for the many unofficial sequels which had next to nothing to nothing in common with the first two apart from having some kind of monster.
  • Trolls in Willow are smelly, vicious apelike brutes who hate Nelwyns.
  • The little-known film A Troll in Central Park had a friendly troll who was a midget with big ears, a tail that ends in a tuft of fur, and a literal "Green Thumb" that could make plants grow. He's the only troll that looked and acted like this in the movie though, and all the other trolls are ugly human-sized flower-hating monsters with warts, large thick tails, and a thumb that turns objects into stone.
  • In the Norwegian dub of Shrek, the word "ogre" is replaced with the word "troll". Apart from the fact that he is green and does not have a tail, Shrek looks like the Scandinavian idea of a troll, anyway.


  • The Moomins are amoung the best-known friendly trolls. Moomintrolls are fuzzy and rather resemble tiny hippos.
      • There seems to be different continuities, since this troper remembers an old Moomins story where they discover their mummified ancestors, who are very tall, stretched versions of the standards Moomins, and naturally come to life during the story.
  • Trolls in Terry Pratchett's Discworld are made of rock, with silicon brains and diamond teeth. This helps explain their natural rivalry with dwarves: if you're a race made up entirely of miners, and you see a nice sleepy rock with diamonds in it, you're going to take a swing, right?
      • Not just any meat locker, but a meat locker that is supernaturally cold due to some trickery to do with time.
    • Trolls also act as a version of computer-driven robots - they can only properly count in binary, have thought processes running on silicon brain-chips, and can overheat, causing them to shut down.
      • And they're not even the only ones fitting the metaphor; the Golems fill that niche as well. And would you believe the Golems are completely different.
      • And then there's also the Gargoyles, which seem to be some sort of city adapted troll... though there's not yet been any explanation as to how they work, especially as they seem to be made of stone, like the Trolls and Golems, but eat pigeons.
        • They obviously feed off the calcium in their bones. There's been a time or two when a nastier sort of troll has threatened to make soup from a human's bones.
        • Gargoyles also live off what they can filter-feed from the water in the gutters. And that is why they spout water.
  • Neil Gaiman's short story "Troll Bridge" features a troll with a nose keen enough to "smell the dreams you dreamed before you were born". And it eats a person's life and takes their place, and leaving them, in exchange, to take the place of the troll.
  • In Edith Pattou's "North Child", based on a Scandinavian fairy tale, trolls are tall, beautiful humanoids with ridged white skin and the ability to use magic, who live in the North Pole.
  • The troll in Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions is subterranean, larger and stronger than a human, and is almost unkillable, regenerating from any injury and being able to move its severed limbs. Only burning it in a fire killed it. (This is where Dungeons and Dragons got its regenerating trolls from.) Trolls also turn to stone in sunlight, but the transmutation of carbon into silicon makes the area highly radioactive.
  • In Robert Lynn Aspirin's "Myth Adventures" series, the male inhabitants of the dimension Trollia are trolls. The females are trollops. While the male trolls fit the big and ugly (but not the stupid) stereotype, trollops are gorgeous.
  • Trolls in The Spiderwick Chronicles are massive, vicious, hideous swamp-dwelling monsters. Arthur Spiderwick himself has got... a bit of a beef with them.
  • The trolls who appear in Jan Brett's picture books are little furry people with onion-shaped heads and long, lion-like tails. They're mischievous but nice guys.
  • Trolls in Jim Butcher's Dresdenverse are apparently haggish, mostly stupid creatures that haunt bridges in dark corners and apparently have dominion over "naughty children" according to the prequel short story Restoration of Faith. Also, when a troll is mortally wounded, its skin collapses and a veritable army of ant-sized trolls spill out, which then apparently need quite some time to grow up back into a full-sized troll and the majority of which will be killed off by other natural and supernatural predators, keeping the troll population from growing too much.
    • The Dresdenverse plays this trope perfectly, as the Winter Fae "trolls" are much more like the traditionaly D&D trolls. However, their intelligence is greater and they are accomplished smiths.
  • Trolls in Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl series are mindless subterranean predators with retractable talons, venomous tusks, dreadlocks, and horns. And they are big.
  • In Nancy Farmer's Sea of Trolls, the titular creatures are intelligent, massive, hairy, matriarchal people. They are often at war with their viking neighbors to the south, but somehow seem to be on good terms with them regardless. Also, for no particularly sensible reason, human/troll hybrids are Voluntary Shapeshifters.
    • They have the ability to change their form because they are caught between two worlds and two races; it appears all hybrids have this ability, as the half-kelpy in the sequel displays it as well.
  • In One King's Way, second volume of The Hammer and the Cross trilogy by Harry Harrison, a troll or "marbendill" is a large intelligent humanoid that sometimes feeds on human flesh, lurks in the water to pull unwary boaters under, but otherwise is rather likeable, actually. No, really. Distinguished from humans by, among other things, a much lower sex drive; human behavior in that regard rather amuses them.
  • In William King's Warhammer 40000 novel Space Wolf, the trolls are Chaos-warped humanoids, which, in the Poul Anderson/D&D tradition, are harmed mostly by fire.
  • The trolls in Rienne Poortvliet's Gnome books are nasty, ugly, foul, cruel -- every feature every bad troll ever had lumped into one bloated hairy little monster. And there is a subspecies, the Snotgurdle, who is worse.
  • Trolls in the Harry Potter universe are strong, large, and not too possessed of smarts. There's nothing really unique about them. The first troll we meet is essentially a wild beast turned loose in the castle but we later meet trolls who are somewhat nicer (at least in that they can be hired as thugs).
  • Trolls in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are pretty much the same in appearance, except they turn to stone when they're caught in sunlight. Once again, the first trolls we meet are just big bullies who threaten to eat our heroes, but later on they are full-fledged fearsome monsters. Sauron uses them as shock troops.
    • It's also implied that they are twisted copies of Ents in the same way as Orcs are of Elves, though whether this is biological or just metaphorical is unknown.
      • Treebeard says that the trolls were an imitation of ents, an attempt to create creatures of similar strength and durability, though they are much weaker than the originals.
    • It should be noted that trolls come in a few varieties, including Cave, and whatever Bert, Tom and Bill are. There are also the Olog-hai, stronger and smarter trolls created by Sauron, that don't turn to stone in the sun. There are also references to two-headed trolls, as well as "troll-men" at the Battle of Pelennor Fields, though it may just be a metaphor for ugly guys.
  • A few trolls appear in Brian Froud's books, such as Faeries. He mentions that the friendly, furry species of troll is sometimes called a "Trow" (the Shetland word for trolls) -- right after explaining that human names for the various kinds of Faery creatures are arbitrary. Indeed, there doesn't seem to be a set "rule" for what creature gets to be called a troll or a goblin or so on.
  • Trolls in David Eddings's Elenium and Tamuli series are semi-intelligent, simian creatures who can't die of natural causes. They (and their gods) become very important in the Tamuli.
    • It's also interesting to note that it's later revealed that trolls and humans are related species, both evolving from creatures called Dawn Men, making them sort of analogous to Neanderthals.
      • Neanderthals ten feet tall with eternal youth, arrow-proof skin, fur, giant fangs and jaws strong enough to crack a skull, mouths large enough to bite a human head off, and arms long enough to knuckle-walk. So, maybe not exactly like Neanderthals. Maybe a much, much earlier hominid like Gigantopithecus, with magical overtones.
  • In Mercedes Lackey's Reserved for the Cat the troll is an evil earth elemental with the ability to shapeshift into many different forms, including humans.
  • Trolls in Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy are creatures that vaguely resemble dwarves in other fantasy worlds, and have a language and culture similar to Inuit. From the perspective of the immortal Sithi they are almost the same as humans.
    • Should be noted that "Troll" is what the ersatz Vikings in the books call them. Their name for themselves is Qanuc.
    • Given their backstory of being horrifically mutated humans, it makes sense that there would be multiple kinds.
  • Trolls in The Hollows novels are the typical tall and strong type but are relatively well behaved and not prone to violence. They usually live as squatters under public bridges.
  • In Eric Flint's The Rivers of War, there are two types of troll. You got your short, ugly, terrifying, "formidable" asga siti (Cherokee for Badass) Scots-Irish troll named Patrick Driscoll, who'll grind your bones for his bread, and you got your more energetic, ex-Navy African-American troll named Charles Ball, who'll just have the Voodoo queen he married, Marie LaVeau, make soup from your ears. Note that Charles Ball and Marie LaVeau are actual historical people, although historically they didn't marry each other.
  • Trolls in John Ringo's Council Wars series are Elves that have been warped and Changed into brutish warriors, much as humans have been Changed into Orcs (His Elves are genetically engineered Super Soldiers).
  • Tanngnost in Brom's The Child Thief resembles a huge satyr and is apparently the Only Sane Man in Avalon.
  • Nero, the cliff troll in the first Fablehaven book, is an oversized humanoid reptile. He likes to make deals, and is quite a dangerous haggler.
  • In Dean Koontz's Frankenstein, Harker, one of the doctor's New Race, gives birth to a creature in chestburster fashion that resembles an albino dwarf and is dubbed a troll by Frankenstein's wife, with whom it strikes up an odd friendship based on their mutual hatred of their creator, her husband.
  • In John Ajvide Lindqvist's short story The Border, trolls look like unusually ugly humans, have a great sense of smell, and steal human babies and replace them with their own.
  • In Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear's A Companion To Wolves trolls fit into the "big ogrish" type physiclly. they can also move through rock and earth as easily an humans do through water and have a hivelike setup with a queen as the only fertile female, sterile female worker/soldiers and males whose only function is to impregnate the queen.
  • The Trolls of Tales of Kolmar are all long dead, and as such never get described. But as the Trelli they were one of the four sentient species -- the others being Kantri, Raksha, and Gedri -- who were asked to choose between order and chaos. It's mentioned that Trelli had "only the merest beginnings of speech" but still conveyed their wish to not be governed by these Powers, which was "the seed of their ending". Only their name survives -- there is a place on that world called the Trollingwood.
  • Ansen Dibell's Summerfair is set on a colony planet that settled into a semi-medieval pattern, with revived belief in magic. One character defines "troll" as basically one of The Fair Folk -- but though she doesn't know it, what she's identifying as a troll is really the cyborg starship that brought the colonists thousands of years ago ... and the ordinary-looking young man who tells her he's "the troll's brother" is one of its biotechnological "mobiles." She's a bit irked when, after being killed defending her, he comes back as an old man. But then, at the end, he returns in another young form, just for her....

Trolls weren't that much different from anybody else, Sua thought: they just wanted to be sure they were welcomed and loved.

Live Action TV

  • Lady Catrina, the troll in the Merlin episode "Sins of the Father" is humanoid, but slightly shorter and fatter. She has a warty, ugly face with tusks, and is dirty and greedy,enchanting Uther to become queen and get his money. She loathes human food and prefers feasting in her nest on a diet of rotting fruit.
    • They can create a potion that allows them to take on human form temporarily.
  • The Noddy Shop had a family of trolls that were tiny, ugly-cute people. The mother and father were mischievous rather than outright mean, while the son didn't want to be that way.
  • We meet a Troll a few times in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and he is a fierce, hairy giant man with horns like a water buffalo. He has an... interesting back-story that involves Anya. He owns a Troll God's hammer. The fact that it is a godly weapon is not established until they need it to be, and how Olaf came to own it is never mentioned.
  • In So Weird, a troll runs a scandinavian restaurant at the base of a drawbridge. Disguising herself as an unassuming elderly woman, she transforms visitors into vegetables for failing to answer trivia questions.
  • Trolls in the The Tenth Kingdom are human-sized, ugly, with overdone mullets, and an obsession with leather. Especially shoes.
  • Robert Troll, the Neighborhood of Make-Believe counterpart of Robert Trow, is a troll who could very well be a human without much difference; he's the same size and roughly as nice as any of them. He sometimes speaks in a kind of gibberish language called "troll talk", and even has a short song entirely in it. The best part - "Trow" actually means troll in some dialects of British English.
  • In Knightmare's first season the troll is huge (His head is larger than the dungeoneer), has horns and shaggy grey hair. He'll cheerfully eat people but is also suseptible to bribery and flattery.
  • In the "Flying Fairy School" segments of Sesame Street, trolls are squat fireplug-like creatures, completely covered with shaggy hair. As with other Sesame Street monsters, trolls are goofy but nice.
  • In Once Upon a Time trolls are of the large, ugly and gredy variety and yes, live under a bridge, at least the only ones we've seen so far do.


    • Not just true of trolls, but of mythological creatures in general. Originally, the terms Dark Elf and Dwarf were used interchangeably for the same creatures. It wasn't until the late Middle Ages that they were widely differentiated.
      • Trolls are just particularly noticeable since most myths just have a couple versions of each other but can generally agree on most aspects of a given creature. Troll legends agree that they are roughly humanoid in shape. And nothing else, despite a tendency for malevolence.
  • In other tales, Scandinavian Tomte (trolls) are helpful, but mischevious, Fair Folk with big noses, who dwell in caves in the forest, are short, ugly and covered in fur, and not to be crossed under any circumstances -- one must be careful to treat them well and leave milk and cookies out for them lest they steal your children instead of bringing you good fortune (see above).
    • Tomte can also refer to elf- or gnome-like creatures, depending on the story (Santa's helpers, and even Santa Claus himself are called tomte in Swedish, since the Swedish word for Santa Claus is Jultomte (which approximately translate into Christmas troll).
      • Er, troll in Swedish is, well, "troll", but the word can also mean a wizard or a magician, since trolls in Scandinavian lore usually have magic powers.
  • When it comes to mythological trolls, Kaja Foglio's adaptation of The Cat On The Dovrefjell actually hit the nail on the head. Certain legends even described the males of the species as being hideously ugly, but the females (tails and occasional other weird features notwithstanding) as quite attractive by human standards. (For an example of this in modern media, do a Google search for "Cutefase.")
    • The beautiful troll females described in the story above (as well as in the Foglios' XXXenophile story, see the comic books folder) are known as Huldra. To further complicate matters, Huldra are considered to be related to both trolls and Fair Folk. They prefer human men, though.
      • This is consistent with actual Norse Mythology, in which a huldra (or huldre) is generally speaking a beautiful, if tempermental woman with a cow tail and unusual strength; they're both trolls, The Fair Folk, and confusingly, also a type of "Alf" (Elf, that is).
  • Norwegian myth is actually rather consistent when it comes to naming creatures generally referred to as trolls:
    • "Havtroll" (Sea Troll): Similar to those above, but lives in the sea. Its body is covered in sea-weed and its face is like that of a fish. Stories about this variant are increasingly rare.
    • "Nisse" or "Tomte": Small and friendly--thought somewhat mischievous--creature living in and near farms.
    • "De underjordiske" (the subterraneans): Small, usually evil creatures that live underground. Steal children either by swapping infants with one of their own (a “bytting”/changeling) or abducting lone children in the forest at night.
    • "Hulder" or “Skogsrå” (forest lady): Beautiful women with cow-tails (and in some stories, a hole in their back. Somehow).
    • ”Hulderkall”: Males to the above. Somewhat less known.
    • "Nøkk": Shape-shifting water-dweller that lures people to lakes and drowns them. Always male. Usually sings too, but is not a siren

Newspaper Comics

  • One regular character in Broom Hilda was Irwin Troll, a Cloudcuckoolander Friend to All Living Things who looked like a human-sized hairball with arms, legs, and a face.

Tabletop Games

  • The trolls of Dungeons and Dragons aren't too smart, and are also known for their prodigious strength and size. They also have the quality of being able to regenerate most forms of damage, even losing their heads! Only fire or acid will keep them down for long.
    • There's various subspecies who may omit the vulnerability to acid and/or fire, or gain new one. Such species include swamp trolls, mountain trolls, crystal trolls and war trolls.
      • And with the right templates, can have no vulnerabilities. Laying a template which grants immunity to acid on a war troll leads to a monster that cannot be killed by hitpoint damage, although it can still be (temporarily) knocked out, and killed by drowning, Constitution Damage/Drain and Energy Drain. See Emerald Legion for an example of extreme templating that tries to cover these weaknesses as well.
        • Don't forget about death attacks and suffocation.
  • Trolls in Warhammer are pretty much the same, only adding on a ridiculously-caustic stomach acid, capable of digesting rock, that they like to vomit on their foes/victims.
    • And even then, there are at least three kinds of trolls in the Warhammer universe.
      • Ahem. Warhammer World -- there are others out there in the sort of related Warhammer 40000 galaxy, the most famous of which are probably the Ice Trolls of Fenris who are not made of ice but are vulnerable (slightly) to fire.
  • The trolls of Changeling: The Dreaming are big and strong and have horns... and that's mostly where the similarity to an "average' troll ends. They're not necessarily dumb or ugly, and they're some of the best warriors of Changeling society. Their major weakness is that they're bound by honor; if they break an oath, they lose their strength, and if someone else breaks an oath they made with a troll, well... they'd better get out of the way.
    • The spiritual heirs of the trolls in Changeling: The Lost are the Ogres, who can ramp up their strength and be more intimidating but aren't too strong against mental whammies. Thanks to the game's Kith system, they range from all-devouring maw (Gristlegrinder) to stone-skinned tank (Stonebones) to giant (Gargantuan) to river hag (Water-Dweller). One of the books in the line contains an actual Troll Kith that relies on both brute strength and cunning.
      • On the other hand, The Lost does feature Hobgoblins, bizarre hedge-dwelling monsters that explicitly fall under this trope.
  • Shadowrun's trolls are pretty much the embodiment of the Mighty Glacier -- massive, powerful, built like a tank, but slow both physically and mentally. They also tend to have random horns, warts, and bony ridges all over their body. So they're big, ugly, mean... and pretty much the best guys to have on your side in a fight.
    • In fairness, a smart troll is smarter than the vast majority of humans and a troll looker is likely to have more than a few non-trolls trying to chat her up, if only out of curiosity. It's mostly just players realising that putting those points into strength instead mean they can hit harder with a fist than with a shotgun to the face.

 Daniel, Bear Shaman: If trolls were really as dumb as they're made out to be there wouldn't be too many troll runners. We'd all be dead of our own idiocy by now.

    • It's stated that trolls are literally slow-witted. They can be quite intelligent, but they just don't think as quickly as a human. The fact that the smartest humans are "smarter" than the smartest trolls is based on this deficiency, rather than lower intellect.
      • The tie-in novel Changeling—the protagonist of which was a brilliant rich kid who'd goblinized—went into detail on this. Once Peter adjusted to troll thought processes, it was clear that he was still pretty damn sharp (even if he did spend a lot of time playing it down).
    • In Runner Havens, a troll is on Hong Kong's board of directors. His name is Tai Kong. It goes without saying his nickname is "King".
      • In the supplement Dunkelzahn's Secrets, there is a list of candidates the dragon Dunkelzahn defeated to become President of the UCAS (what the USA became) - the republican candidate, Anne Penchyk, is a troll.
  • Earthdawn's trolls are this, with a dash of vikingian Sky Pirate. They make good wizards, especially Elementalists.
  • Trolls in Rune Quest are a bit bigger than humans, but about as smart. They're Extreme Omnivores, occasionally cannibals, and a Dying Race due to an ancient curse.
  • Magic: The Gathering trolls are all over the place. At least they can all cheat their way out of death, usually by regenerating (Eventide has one that uses persist instead)...
    • Magic trolls are also often hexproof--that is, unable to be targeted by opponents' spells.
    • The modern pattern for trolls is pretty consistent: Green, with regeneration, hexproof, or both. The hexproof part is so iconic (though primarily through the efforts of the previously-linked Troll Ascetic) that before it was known officially as "hexproof", the ability "cannot be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control" was often known by the Fan Nickname "troll shroud" (after the keyword "shroud" for "cannot be the target of spells or abilities [controlled by anyone]").
  • Scion: Ragnarok has two mechanically-similar breeds of troll. One type are the children of the troll-wives; the other is the result of giving a giant's eitr (mutative blood) to a dwarf.
  • The Iron Kingdoms have the Trollbloods, which are split into several different kinds. You have the Dire Trolls (massive and stupid), the Full Blood Trolls (not too bright, still pretty tall), Trollkin (who basically take the of Orcs in IK) and Pygmies (small but not as bright as trollkin). The Trollkin have been dicked over by pretty much every faction in Warmachine and Hordes. They regenerate like a number of examples on this page, able to grow back a limb that's chopped off. With Dire Trolls or Full Blooded Trolls, the limb that was dismembered may grow into a tiny troll called a Whelp (with an over-sized limb, hand, foot, or even a finger, depending on what they are regenerating out of), kind of like starfish. Trolls view their whelps a bit like kids, a bit like pets, and (for the Dire Trolls and full-blooded trolls) a bit like snacks.
  • In a Polish tabletop steampunk RPG Wolsung, trolls are a playable race. The game uses all three basic stereotypes of a troll. Troll children are fairytale trolls - small, big-headed, tricksters with magical powers. When they grow up, they resemble huge, muscular humans with flaming red hair, have an obsession with honor, and tend towards very explosive personality. A male troll technically grows larger through his entire life, and he gets meaner. Old trolls with every period of rage become one step closer to becoming monsters. And in women, the emotion and compassions die, turning them into fairy-tale witches.
  • In a Brazilian RPG setting (called Tormenta), Trolls are Plant-people (well, maybe fugus people, can't remember), thus justifying they vulnerability to fire and regeneration. They are of the tall, mean and brainless monster variety.
    • There is also a monster race from another dimension, can't remember the name, but they share the extreme sexual differences from some Troll tales, the women are beautifull elf-like, and the men are big, brutish, with green hair and four arms, but both are good.
  • Trolls in Grimm all have wildly different, though hideous and roughly person-shaped appearances, but they have a few things in common: They're all man-eaters who live under bridges, maintaining them and collecting tolls from those who pass over them. They have master knowledge of the structure and maintenance of bridges, but are weakened greatly if they stray too far from their bridge. They can also hum a wondrous soothing subsonic tune that helps persuade otherwise reluctant people to cross their bridges -- cats can actually hear it, and intensely dislike it.
  • In Chronopia, the Blackblood Trolls have four armed, and are highly intelligent. Their not as aggressive as the other Blackbloods, but in combat they become a whirlwind of arms and blades.
  • GURPS Fantasy uses trolls as an example for a fantastic race. Deliberately sticking to the old myths, the trolls shown are huge, ugly humanoids who turn to stone when exposed to sunlight. The troll-women are weaker than their male counterparts, but possess powerful magic.

Video Games

  • Trolls in the World of Warcraft universe are tall but slender, with blue or green skin and sizeable tusks (except for the women). Most trolls are antagonistic cannibals, but the Darkspear trolls stay away from them and have joined up with the Horde. Trolls practice a form of voodoo and speak with pronounced Jamaican accents.
    • They also have better health regeneration than other races. In Warcraft 3, they had a upgrade with that effect, in World of Warcraft, one of their racial features boosts their health regeneration by 10%, even in battle. Although that is a pretty minor factor since natural health regeneration is almost unnoticiable on higher levels.
    • Note that "Tall and skinny" description only applies to playable characters, enemy Trolls can be skinny or very bulky, come in a wide spectrum of colors, and live in many climates. There are forest trolls and ice trolls, among others.
      • It seems that in general the jungle trolls are the slimmest, while the Amani (forest trolls) and Drakkari (ice trolls) are the bulkiest. The Zandalari, from which all other trolls are descended, are the tallest but not the most heavily built. In addition, a number of troll tribes have massive, super-muscled berserkers among their ranks, called Dire Trolls, including the Darkspear.
      • A note on skin color; forest trolls aren't naturally green-skinned. They have a genetic anomoly that causes their fur(trolls are covered in fine fure that just looks like smooth skin) to grow moss in it, eventually covering them almost entirely.
    • It's also been suggested in the back story that trolls are actually the "primitive" form of elves (kind of how the Neanderthal is to a human) and that magic caused a forced evolution that turned one tribe into the first night elves. As expected, both modern day trolls and elves... strongly deny this claim. At least the elves do. The trolls just laugh at the elves.
      • Since Neanderthals are actually an entirely different subspecies, it might be more accurate to say that a troll is sort of an analogue to an ape (a very smart, voodoo ape. Or something) evolving into night elves, an early hominid, which splits into a separate high elf race, which is splitting into blood elves which are... you know, lets just leave it at that.
    • It's worth noting that trolls are apparently the most successful sentient race in Azeroth, if the fact that they have civilizations and ruins all over the world means anything. A disproportionately large number of the dungeons in the game are troll cities or temples.
      • If nothing else they are the oldest indigenous race in all of Azeroth, or at least the oldest race that is still globally active.
      • It's possible this is because they breed like rabbits.
    • They also have three toes -- no, not two. There's two in the front, and a small, underdeveloped dewclaw where the heel would be on a human.
    • The majority of the forest troll's anomalies and powers were explained by revealing that the elves had enslaved and performed cruel experiments on them several hundred years before the Second War. These experiments influenced their genetics,leading both to their green fur and regenerative abilities, as well as their overwhelming hatred of elves and The Alliance in general. In fact, they only joined the horde when their chieftain, Zul'Jin, was imprisoned by the elves at the human settlement of Hillsbrad, only to be saved by the orcs.
  • The Trolls are a street gang in City of Heroes who all have green skin and grow horns and super strength as they move up in rank. These are all side-effects of a super steroid that they abuse called Superadine. They also tend to have stunted speech, but this is just an extremely limited side effect of the Superadine -- a Troll retains their basic level of intelligence, even if they do start talking like a stereotypical caveman.
  • Trolls in The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion are big ape-like beasts with green, moss-like fur and three eyes. They have low-level health regeneration and can be killed by normal means, but are especially vulnerable to fire.
    • The Elder Scrolls: Arena borrowed Dungeons and Dragons trolls. Unlike some of the other inconsistencies between Arena and later titles, this is never really addressed, beyond their more dramatic regenerative capabilities being written off as a myth.
  • Generally speaking, trolls in video games have a habit of allying themselves with orcs or goblins (Age of Wonders 2), or both (which was the case in Battle for Wesnoth and Warcraft II, in which the goblins left the Horde in the third game, even though they still have some ties with them as evident in World of Warcraft).
    • They also have an extreme tendency towards "regeneration", which depending on the game might just make them slowly regain health, might fully heal in a matter of seconds if not killed fast (especially if everything in the game regains health in real time), may make them rise from the dead, and is almost always hindered in some equally inconsistent way by fire (and sometimes, though not always, by acid).
  • Trolls in Final Fantasy XI are large, bulky, plate-armor wearing mercenaries. They, in the past, were allies of the player-friendly Empire of Aht Urhgan, but turned against them and are now in the employ of Moblins (Goblins with fancy armor).
  • The Locust in Gears of War are arguably a Not Using the Zed Word or Call a Rabbit a Smeerp version of trolls, given some of the parallels to the "repulsive underground dweller hostile to man" version of trolls -- including being considered legendary monsters. They vary from diminutive humanoids to enormous pseudo-arthropods, using teeth, claws, or guns -- either scavenged from humans, or their own designs -- and seem to actually be fairly intelligent.
  • Trolls in Sacrifice are large, green humanoids with a Healing Factor that lack heads and have their faces on their chests instead. They serve the goddess of life, Persephone, and are as such benign. Pyro has a creature known as a firefist, which is a troll with flamethrowers attached to its fists -- due to the resulting burns, they do not regenerate. Both variants communicate purely through Hulk Speak.
  • In the 2005 Video Game, The Bard's Quest, Trow (What people called Trolls on the Orkney Islands) are short, Goblin-like creatures that are an annoyance in the beginning. That is, until your average enemy becomes Clock-Work Knights and ten-foot tall undead Vikings. And don't get me started on the the Nuckelavee.
  • Spellforce trolls are large, grey-skinned humanoids who speak entirely in "whine", can do marvellous things with rocks, and are about the only bad-guy race with decent missile attacks that don't count as magical. Their turrets are also ludicrously overpowered.
  • In Sacred Troll is a type of undead.
  • Trolls in Dark Age of Camelot were a playable race in the Midgard realm who looked like hunchbacked, gray-skinned versions of The Thing.
  • Trolls in Stonekeep are corrupted faeriefolk, and look as such (kind of like evil hobbits). They cannot cross iron spikes driven into the ground and have an aversion to faerie garb--if you equip yourself entirely in faerie clothing, you become completely immune to the attacks of trolls, even though you look very stupid doing so.
  • In Bungie Studio's old Myth series of strategy games, there were the Trow (an alternate spelling of "troll") who were twelve foot tall giants with bodies like stone. The Trow are immortal unless killed, and incapable of reproduction (all existing Trow having been created by the god Nyx at the begining of the world according to the Trow's own legends.) They are capable of surviving anything short of dismemberment, and wear belts of skulls about their waists. When fighting creatures smaller than they are (which is to say, most creatures) their combat techniques generally involve kicking those creatures across the landscape with messy results.
  • The trolls of Total Annihilation Kingdoms are generic monster men from Zhon, slightly stronger than most humans.
  • Dwarf Fortress features two types of trolls:

Web Comics

  • Nearly every fictional Troll makes an appearance in this Kaja Foglio illustrated story - at least, every nice one.
  • Lampshaded in The Order of the Stick, where the gods argue at creation what elves, dwarves, and trolls should be like (as quoted above), with the massive disagreement creating the Snarl.
    • Oddly enough, the only trolls we have seen are the "Sea Trolls". Lord Hinjo and Lien discuss the differences between land trolls and the aquatic trolls they encounter.
  • Ursula Vernon's work features trolls that look like really rather adorable pudgey frog/goat things. Their eyes get huge at night, as the protagonist of Digger finds out. In Vernon's taxonomy, trolls and goats are actually descended from a common ancestor, which is why they're very embarrassed about that whole "billy goats" thing, and it's impolite to bring it up. Furthermore, the word "troll" also serves as a job title -- meaning that the first "troll" we meet is actually a shrew.
  • No Rest for The Wicked gives a troll a cameo under the bridge.
  • In Errant Story the trolls were one of the original species (possibly the second after the dwarves) to inhabit the world, though their civilization was destroyed and their numbers devastated once the various elven races got together and launched a long, though ultimately unsuccessful campaign to exterminate them. They were likely created by Anilis and Senilis, the elven creator gods, though the elves believe that the mortal (albeit long-lived) trolls were failures and sought to wipe their creators' "failure" from existence. Humans and elves tend to have very little contact with them, considering trolls to be violent, unintelligent monsters. From what the audience has actually seen of the trolls they are large, strong, and matriarchal (as apparently only the women are able to use magic). They are cannibalistic, though it is more of a religious ritual than a survival mechanism, trolls don't believe in an afterlife and thus deceased individuals are eaten by their tribes so they may live on in another sense. They seem to mirror the Kroot of Warhammer 40k in this regard, but without the freaky genetics that make it actually true, and like the Kroot having your remains eaten after you die seems to be something of a compliment (they do it to humans only if suitably impressed). In fact, their culture's capital punishment specifically requires that the criminal's corpse be left for the worms. They consider cremation very offensive, and burning a troll's corpse will royally piss them off.
    • Also, despite the aforementioned cannibalism, they seem to have an Only Sane Man thing going compared to the other powers that be. Their reaction to the Woobie Destroyer of Worlds approaching them and asking for an alliance is to peacefully but loudly decline, then immediately decide to uproot their settlement and move to a place with less crazy.
  • In Swiftriver, trolls are blue skinned, hairy, and sport horns. They tend to to be over six feet tall (not counting their horns) and have two rows of teeth. They are always of Norse or Scandinavian heritage and can project a glamour to make them appear human.
  • Homestuck plays with the dual meaning by having internet trolls turn out to be actual grey-skinned creatures with horns. Further reveals have shown that they're Humanoid Aliens, with Bizarre Alien Biology implying that they're closer to insects than humans. They're a Higher-Tech Species whose society runs on Blue and Orange Morality and lots of violence. They're almost all bisexual (because gender is vestigial) and polygamous (troll reproduction requires this); many are either psychic or psychotic. Most of the less-savory aspects of their culture are not natural, but were engineered by malevolent outside forces. Prior to the pressing of an in-universe Reset Button, trolls were a peaceful species. Personality-wise, there's a great deal of variation within the 12 trolls in the cast (and their ancestors): from Anti Heroes to Anti Villains, Woobies to Smug Snakes, Complete Monsters to Messianic Archetypes.
    • Not quite polygamous; they have four different kinds of romance (I am not going into that here), and while they believe in finding satisfying relationships in all four quadrants, they also try to stay monogamous within a quadrant, and having the same kind of relationship with more than one person is still a no-no. As is being in more than one quadrant with the same person simultaneously.
  • In Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic it's used as one of Fantastic Slurs:


  • Pibgorn: Troll? Hardly! Bridge substructure symbiont.
  • Trolls in Looking for Group are a warrior race of greenish-skinned humanoid creatures with glowing red or orange eyes who live in a rather primitive tribal culture and possess shamanic magic, and are quite intelligent (except for Tim, though his stupidity is a product of multiple head wounds). They are initially introduced as antagonists, until Cale helps recruit them into the Kingdom of Kethenecia. Although Benn'Joon, who has been described a number of times as being a troll, is most definitely not ugly. On the other hand, to say Benny's parentage is unclear is rather of an understatement, and she is universally recognized by other characters as a half-breed. Recent strips imply she may be the daughter of Captain Tah'Vraay, who appears to be of an Elven subrace.

Web Original

  • Animated troll dolls appear in the Lonelygirl15 episode My Mom's A Freak!.
  • Also lampshaded in the page quote above from Tales of MU.
  • Trolls have made cameo appearances on Gaia Online in various promo art, even having special troll items released. As Gaia relies a lot on internet culture for inspiration, Gaian Trolls are a bizarre combination of the bridge dwelling troll, and the internet kind.
  • Chicken and Moose has Jethro Troll, a bridge dwelling rock singer.
  • The troll in The League of STEAM's webisode "Big Trouble" is of the big, dumb, lumbering kind. Also rather blind.
  • The online Spec Evo project A Scientific Fantasy refers to various different mythical primates and ungulates-including bigfoots, yetis, minotaurs, satyrs, and even centaurs as types of trolls.

Western Animation

  • The Grundles in My Little Pony are themselves very diverse in appearance. All of them are varying degrees of Ugly Cute and they all have very sweet personalities. A few other kinds of trolls appear in the series (such as Niblik from "The Magic Coins"), and pretty much follow the Grundles' standard.
  • Trollz, as in the cartoon of the same name, are magic beings who resemble troll dolls that fail in the cute part of Ugly Cute. Also, Xtreme Kool Letterz!
  • On The Simpsons, Homer, Bart, and a few others group write a children's novel about orphan troll twins who attend a magical school under the Brooklyn Bridge called Underbridge Academy.
  • Trolls in Extreme Ghostbusters eat metal and multiply by mitosis.
  • Trolls in Ned's Newt are pretty much Mole Men. Scheming, smart, small ugly humanoids living Beneath the Earth, who wish to Take Over the World.
  • The Trolls from David the Gnome are based on the Scandinavian troll myths, hairy, ugly, man sized creatures who turn to stone in sunlight, and are extremely greedy.


  • As mentioned briefly above, a number of years ago, it was something of a fad to collect small plastic humanoid toys that had large, brightly-coloured hair and were referred to as Trolls.
  • A variation on this shows up in the metafictional wiki based on Tycho's Epic Legends of the Hierarchs. In the entry on Orcs it is mentioned that no one can agree what on what an orc actually looks like.
  • The Fremont Troll.