Re: Trolls and female equality

Vypra · Vypra on Wed Apr 29, 2009 9:54 pm

It comes from the troll section of the rpg book Zan. If i can find it quoted on the web i'll link it.

edit: found references here and here

The first article raises some interesting points about how to rationalise the seeming difference between the approaches to playing trolls. The options are: stay true to the rpg, true to what is demonstrated by the npcs in-game or come up with some kind of mix of the two Razz

Ryleen · Ryleen on Thu Apr 30, 2009 12:24 pm

I won't let us repeat the mistake from the beginning of the thread, when the linked forum topic disappeared and the info was lost Smile

Is there someone out there who can answer me on these questions?

Age questions
1. How long is the lifespan of a troll.
2. When do they become teenagers.
3. When do they become young adults.
4. When do they become adults.
5. When do they become old.

Pregnancy
1. How fertile are trolls. (80 times a night? xD)
2. How long is the pregnancy for a female troll?
3. How long do the mother care for the child.
4. Is the father responsible for the child too?
5. Who get's to name the child?

Age-wise:

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

The other questions are harder to answer, since there really is no official stance on those things. Troll society is said to be sexist and males to be dominant, so logically I suppose it would be up for the males interests whether he would partake in the childs upbringing. One RPG book says that "Males control everything; females exist only to make more trolls" - which would probably mean that the males generally do not care for the children, nor that things such as families exist. Its just the tribe.

Though if you are planning to RP a pregnancy and so forth, its probably a different thing because essentially you as a female troll have already broken free from your place in the tribe. Might sound farfetched to think that all female trolls are "exceptions" like that, but lorewise a large part of the darkspear tribe is leaving their traditions behind and learning their way of life from the orcs and tauren. So basically you can also choose to be a troll couple that has moved to the "modern days" of orcish ways where both sexes are equal and the families are more human-like, with both the mother and the father involved.

Largely it depends on the type of troll society.

Jungle Trolls are extremely sexist. Females exist solely to increase the tribe's size and are seen as property of the male trolls. They are a symbol of status: the more wives a warrior has, the larger his prestige within the tribe. The Darkspear tribe (player trolls usually hail from this one) however is bound by Thrall's edict of equality within the Horde, so they do have to allow females who wish to join the Horde directly to leave the tribe.

Forest Trolls and Atal'ai/Hakkari seem more equalized when it comes to genders. The sourcebooks do not mention any distinguishment between sexes here like in Jungle Troll society, and the number of priestesses and female warrior NPCs in the game within these cultures also seem to suggest equality. Or at the very least the possibility for a female to gain respect by distinguishing herself in combat.

((And also: I've got my hands on some of the warcraft rpg books. I'll make a thread full of the info on troll lore I can find there ))

Lyranne · Lyranne on Thu Apr 30, 2009 1:24 pm

So Darkspear are basically liberal free-thinkers and very foward with progress. This would certainly imply that a strong female troll (such as Ryleen/Yrjial/Zanick/Vypra) would be in fact commended for showing the way.

On a side note: I thought that trolls had a shorter life expectency than humans, bt according to that post, it's in fact about the same. If anything, going by the medieval setting, most humans were lucky to live into middle-age, and what with troll healing, it's entirely possible that people have appended the current life expectency onto the humans, rather than a more realistic one (this is a world without hosptials, and where diseases run rampant, in addition to all the conflict).

Vypra · Vypra on Thu Apr 30, 2009 2:05 pm

Ry, it would be great if you had the Horde players guide and it had some more about this subject as i only have the core rule book.

Lyranne, the age tables i've seen posted from time to time seem to suggest that our current human life expectncy has indeed been transferred into WoW. However, the humans of WoW have one thing our medieval folk didn't: Magic. It certainly helps in the prevention of death from disease and injury and famine never seems to be a problem on Azeroth either Wink

Snicka · Snicka on Thu Apr 30, 2009 2:27 pm

Vypra is correct in this last thing: with the priests and paladins running around, wounds and diseases can be healed easily. So they can likely have the same life expectancy as us, modern humans with our hygenie and medicine. And against famine, you have mages, who can conjure food for the hungry.

Trolls' natural regeneration perhaps allows them a slightly higher life expectancy - but their violent lifestyle compensates it. An old troll is rare in Stranglethorn Vale because warriors are most likely slain by the rival tribe at a young age. On the other hand, Darkspears lived on islands, isolated from other tribes - so probably there are more elderly Darkspears than, for example, Bloodscalps.

This also explains why jungle trolls could have more than one wife - since they die at a young age, it's necessary for them to have many babies as soon as possible - and the easiest way to do that is to impregnate more than one woman. Also, it's the men who are slain at war, so the number of females is higher - which also leads to polygamy.

shadowtroll · shadowtroll on Thu Apr 30, 2009 4:49 pm

Live young and have a life full of violence and sex? Well, explains why we rolled trolls does it?

Ryleen · Ryleen on Thu Apr 30, 2009 5:01 pm

Vypra wrote:Ry, it would be great if you had the Horde players guide and it had some more about this subject as i only have the core rule book.

Fun fact: The core rulebook doesn't even seem to admit that trolls exist. The Alliance and Horde Compendium seems to contain some interesting stuff though. Just as that blogger says, trolls are much less pleasantly portrayed in the rpg. Oh, and I found a very interesting reference to a rite of passage that could be what our own finding of loa ritual evolved from. I will post more on this when I've had time to read it more in detail.

Vypra · Vypra on Thu Apr 30, 2009 6:10 pm

It doesn't? *goes to see which book she has...*

ok, well, it has Jungle trolls in this one on pages 49 (where the contentious line 'Males control everything; Females exist only to make more trolls.' is written) and 50 Razz

Snicka · Snicka on Fri May 01, 2009 10:38 am

I guess jungle trolls appear in it as a monster race in the corebook instead of a playable one; but they become playable in the Horde Compendium.
Anyway, it seems we roleplay trolls as a much friendlier and more cheerful race than they actually appear in most sources of lore - savage, bloodthirsty people. But I guess these are all written from the humans' point of view, and you always see your enemies monstrous.

Lyranne · Lyranne on Fri May 01, 2009 3:09 pm

My point was more that would priests and Paladins et cetera really be employed to work as medicine men and women and can they really cure every disease? Humans do not have an overy resilient immune system, and certainly in WoW there are incurable diseases/plagues (such as that which creates the scourge). In addition, I don't see that the trolls would have a more violent life than the humans, and so wonder if the life expectentcy attributed to humans is more out of laziness than an application of logic. One could also wonder about what affects magic and spiritual cleansing have on the aging process: Does it retard, or encourage it to speed up? Does it affect people at all. Then we have the simple ponder of whether humans age at a realistic rate or if again, they've appended modern numbers onto them.

Thyis goes for all races, and personally I find it interesting (even if I'm simply overthinking).

Vypra · Vypra on Fri May 01, 2009 3:59 pm

Lyranne wrote:My point was more that would priests and Paladins et cetera really be employed to work as medicine men and women and can they really cure every disease? Humans do not have an overy resilient immune system, and certainly in WoW there are incurable diseases/plagues (such as that which creates the scourge).

well, i don't see why paladins/ preists would need to be employed. In our own history, the preisthood pretty much tried to stop anybody else trying to cure illness. Only through God (or in this case the holy light) should a person be cured Razz

In addition, I don't see that the trolls would have a more violent life than the humans, and so wonder if the life expectentcy attributed to humans is more out of laziness than an application of logic.

Actually, the lore kinda points to the fact that , yes, trolls -do- have a much more violent lifestyle.

One could also wonder about what affects magic and spiritual cleansing have on the aging process: Does it retard, or encourage it to speed up?

That raises an interesting point...have some diseases become magic resistant in the same way we have anti-biotic resistant infections? The introduction of morden drug treatments has dramatically increased our life-expectany though so we could probably assume that magical remedy would have a similar effect.

Does it affect people at all. Then we have the simple ponder of whether humans age at a realistic rate or if again, they've appended modern numbers onto them.

as i said previously, i'm pretty sure they just used our current human life expectancy rather than apply a medieval standard Razz

This goes for all races, and personally I find it interesting (even if I'm simply overthinking).

me too...and don't worry, we'd find it unusual for you -not- to go into this much detail Wink

Snicka · Snicka on Mon Oct 26, 2009 2:38 pm

Jizara's application (who is a very traditional-minded Darkspear troll according to his application made me wonder: does sexism exist in Zandalar?
I checked the Zandalari NPC-s on WoWWiki, and found women in the following positions:
*Innkeeper - classic female job, if I may say that
*Stable master - a woman watching over animals
*Poison supplier - this suggest that some Zandalari women are into the art of brewing potions and poisons
*Alchemy supplier - just like the poison supplier
*Ammunition vendor - may suggest that some Zandalari women are into the art of war (I don't know if there are any female guards in Zandalari outposts, though - perhaps she only makes the arrows that men use)
*Chronicler - apparently inherited the positon of her father, which means certain positions can be held by both men and women
*Element-Tamer - a female shaman
*A woman with the title "of Zuldazar" - this suggests that women can indeed become high-ranked officers.

shadowtroll · shadowtroll on Mon Oct 26, 2009 2:57 pm

I have researched myself about Zandali trolls a tad more before posting my application. Woman seem to have a higher statute in Zandali society then in usual troll tribes but the question how far a wo'mon can go up in ranks stays open.

But could be a exception just as in Forest Troll society where we see examples like:

http://www.wowwiki.com/Vile_Priestess_Hexx

http://www.wowwiki.com/Primal_Torntusk

Although for the later one the current Tribal leader Witch Doctor Maj'Jin is held captive or gone missing. Sounds familiar does it? Smile

http://www.wowwiki.com/Elder_Torntusk

http://www.wowwiki.com/Witch_Doctor_Mai%27jin

Jungle trolls and Sand Trolls seem to accept only male Leaders, while they yet allow females to take part in battles when neccesary.

Ah and Snicka, checking the male Zandali NPC's in game you will note that they are primaly (if not all) spiritual leaders or Warlords/Fighters. Which might indicate that the female trolls indeed do serve as back up in ways of forging weapons, brewing poisons or suplieng them with food.

EDIT: I forgot about Zul'Draks male troll vendors, which proofs my above point as partly false.

Ryleen · Ryleen on Mon Oct 26, 2009 11:55 pm

The poison vendor thing isn't very surprising. In that level of technical developement, regular cooking and brewing potions and different cures for illnesses aren't all that far apart. Smile

As for the female shaman, she was obviously educated after joining with the orcs, as there were no shamans prior to that.

Forest trolls have equality between genders, and I believe zandalarians do as well, but I'm not sure.

Snicka · Snicka on Tue Oct 27, 2009 12:11 am

On the issue of the female shaman - she's a Zandalar troll, and those don't have close connections with orcs at all.
Although the trolls did indeed not follow shamanism, note that she's labelled not as a "shaman" but an "element-tamer". It is possible that some magic-users of Zandalar have tamed and used the elements for their own goals before learning the orcish shamanism. After all, the god Shango is a deity of storm - technically an elemental god; perhaps an element-tamer is a priest of him.