Woodtrolls

Woodtrolls were a variety of troll. They were generally peaceful, but they were also insular and suspicious of outsiders. They traditionally lived in small villages in the Deepwoods, but some lived in other places. Woodtrolls often had jobs relating to trees or wood, but some did not.

Characteristics

Development

Woodtrolls developed differently than fourthling children. Woodtroll children tended to crawl, rather than walk, until they were at least eighteen months old. However, woodtroll children usually began to speak much earlier than fourthling children began to speak. Even young fourthling children often had unusually long legs in comparison to woodtrolls.

Physical

Woodtrolls were short and stocky. Their skin was brownish tan and their hair was a different shade of brown, or orange. Their noses were rubbery and button-like, and their fingers were hard and spatula-like. Woodtrolls’ eyes were beady.

Villages

Cabins

Woodtroll cabins were round, built of lufwood for buoyancy, and positioned off of the ground in trees. Woodtroll cabins were windowless, had only one door, and were connected to the ground by only one ladder. Each cabin had its own stove and chimney.

Layout

Woodtroll villages were built in clusters of six to twenty villages in a group. Interspersed between the villages would be Caterbird cocoons occupied by sagacious oakelves, who acted as village elders.The villages in a cluster were built far enough away from each other that they didn’t compete with one another for timber or water supplies, but they were all within a day’s walk of each other along the paths. Paths also led off from each cluster to other clusters, so that all of the woodtroll settlements in the Deepwoods were linked together.

Society

Fashion

Traditionally, woodtrolls pulled their hair into tufts and knotted it. This hairstyle was sometimes adopted by non-woodtrolls who were raised among woodtrolls, such as Twig.

Culture

All woodtroll males, as part of their woodlore, were expected to carry ceremonial axes with them wherever they went. In The Nameless One, a woodtroll attempts to bring his axe on board the skytavern Xanth Filatine, but is stopped by a skymarshal and fails to convince him to make an exception to the weapons ban.

Young woodtrolls must participate in a Naming Ceremony which must only take place once the infant has said its first word. The Ceremony involves the parent attaching themselves to the Anchor Tree by a tether. Then, the parent must venture out as far into the Deepwoods as the tether allows, and cutting a piece of wood from a nearby tree with a naming knife. The wood must then be thrown into the fire and the names will be revealed.[1]

Funeral Customs

Main article: Ceremony for the Dead
"From the first lightning bolt you came, O, Sky flame! Sky fire, light the pyre, return to Open Sky again, O, Sky flame!"
—Twig Verginix

For funerals, woodtrolls would cover their dead in shrouds, fasten them to pyres constructed from buoyant scentwood and lufwood logs, and light the platforms with torches or "celestial flames". By doing so, they believed their dead could "return to Open Sky again".[2] The ceremony was also accompanied by a prayer. When Tuntum Snatchwood passed away, his adopted son, Twig Verginix, lit his funeral pyre and led the prayers.[3]

Language

"Shuddery" was a woodtroll expression, meaning the feeling of standing on an unstable branch. In Clash of the Sky Galleons, Chopley Polestick used it to describe his first voyage on the Galerider. [4]

Beliefs

Gloamglozer Superstition

Woodtrolls feared the Gloamglozer, who was thought to be the wildest of all Deepwoods creatures. Adult woodtrolls would tell their children that if they weren’t good, then the Gloamglozer would get them. All woodtrolls feared that if they strayed from the path then the Gloamglozer would attack them. Woodtrolls also used the Gloamglozer’s name as a curse.

Lucky Charms

Woodtrolls believed in the power of charms and amulets and wore dozens of them around their neck, clutching them whenever they were in a difficult situation.

Notable Woodtrolls

A female woodtroll, Welma Thornwood

Notable Individuals with Woodtroll Blood

Notable Woodtroll Settlements

References

  1. ↑ Beyond the Deepwoods, Chapter 1: The Snatchwood Cabin
  2. ↑ The Winter Knights, Chapter 22
  3. ↑ Midnight Over Sanctaphrax, Chapter 16: The Well-Trodden Path
  4. ↑ Clash of the Sky Galleons, Chapter ?: The Bloodoak
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