User:Guy/Splat/Lineages/Troll

This gangly 9-foot-tall man glares in your direction with beady white eyes, mossy green hair draped over them. His impossibly long arms drag at the knuckle as he lumbers around.

Requirement. You must start with 13 Strength or higher and 13 Constitution or higher to make a protag of this lineage.  Creature Type. You are a giant, instead of a humanoid.  Size. An adult troll typically stands around 9 feet (or 275 cm), and weighs around 500 pounds (or 230 kg). Your size is Large.  Speed. You have a walking speed of 30 feet.  Regeneration. At the start of each of your turns, regain hit points equal to your proficiency bonus. This trait does nothing while you are at 0 hit points, or if you took either acid damage or fire damage since the start of your last turn.  Regrowth. Losing your head renders you unconscious while it is missing but does not immediately kill you. If you recover during downtime, you also regrow any limb that has been severed—including your head. You do not age, but you can never remember anything from more than a century ago.  Claws. When you make an unarmed strike with a free hand, on a hit you can deal slashing damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier instead of the normal damage for an unarmed strike.  Keen Smell & Weak Sight. You have advantage on any Perception check that relies primarily on scent, but you have disadvantage on any Perception check that relies primarily on vision.  Horrific Appetite. You require double the number of rations for a creature of your size. Each time you go you go a day (24 hours) without downtime or a double helping of rations, you suffer an injury (instead of exhaustion). You also have disadvantage on any check or save made to either resist eating or go without food.  Languages. You can read, write, and speak either Goblin or Undercommon. A minority of trolls, including all troll protags, can speak Common but not read or write it.  Heritage. Choose one heritage from the options listed below.

Trolls are monstrous green men who act almost entirely out of insatiable hunger, even worse than beasts. They are infamous for the ability to recover from wounds impossibly fast.  Monstrous Boogiemen. A typical troll is a gangly humanoid-shaped creature with high shoulders and a sunken neck, who has flesh typically colored a mossy-green or grayish-green. Their arms are noticeably long, so much so that even at a height of around 9 feet their knuckles frequently drag along the ground where they walk. A troll's nose is usually disfigured, whether it's impossibly long, beast-like, or broken. Beady white eyes devoid of pupils stare hungrily from its sunken face. A minority of trolls have grass-like or moss-like hair growing from their scalps, which is typically a dark green and eternally damp.  Regeneration. Trolls are infamous for being hard to kill, because many of them heal at a seemingly impossible rate. Cuts and bruises can heal within seconds upon forming. Even if one is decapitated there's a non-zero chance it will be walking around with a new head the next day. What's more, their natural regeneration prevents them from aging, and they're notoriously hard to kill. Despite the apparent immortality of trolls, almost all of them are little more than wild beasts who don't remember where they came from—and in many cases don't even remember anything beyond a few years ago.  Troll Mutants. It's common for the hyperfast-healing of trolls to regrow limbs incorrectly, grow additional limbs, or change the basic physiology of the troll's body. It's frequently possibly for a troll to grow back two heads after being decapitated, or grow an extra pair of arms. Trolls temporarily "killed" by draconic fire, in pits of acid, or under magic sometimes regrow by incorporating those supernatural substances into themselves to become even stronger or at least freakier. It's generally believed that there are no male or female trolls; that they don't reproduce, and only replenish their numbers when one is cut apart only to miraculously grow into two or more different bodies.  Insatiable Hunger. What drives most trolls' behavior more than anything is a voracious appetite so severe it swallows almost anything else about the troll's thoughts or personality. Most of them do nothing but seek food, usually through violent predation, no matter the prey. To most of them nearer food is better food and little else matters. Even when faced with a creature as large as a man they can devour it within minutes and will already be looking for more to eat. The strength, endurance, and hunger of trolls leads them to sometimes be controlled by gobbos or other cruel manipulators to be mercenaries or workers. As often as not, though, the wild and independent nature of trolls makes them unreliable for any service other than chaotic destruction.  Eternal Monsters. No one seems to know where trolls come from, but they've existed in stories of elves and jotun for thousands of years—longer than most folk have been around. They may be descended from jotun themselves, but are so disregarded by other giants that they don't even appear in the Jotun's caste system, the ordning. It's not impossible that there are trolls who have lived for thousands of years. Considering how violent trolls' lives are it's unlikely their brain has remained intact enough to remember anything from so long ago, though.  Adventure?. Trolls don't adventure, they are adventure. The life of a troll is often a feral search for evermore food, often obtained violently. Only the richest or most successful of trolls seek even greater power or wealth beyond mere food, even if they often have little interest in doing anything with it.

Cave Troll

A few trolls' weak vision in sunlight adapts particularly well to life in the Underdark. Those who dwell in the depths have grown particularly pale and developed the ability to see in darkness. Nightmarish tells abound of a troll dragging helpless children into the darkness to be devouted.

 Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
 Gangly Climber. You have a climb speed equal to your walking speed. You have advantage on any Strength ability check to shove or grapple a creature that is climbing.
 Stealth Predation. You have proficiency in the Stealth skill.

Feral Troll

The most abundant of trolls, these wild beast-like monsters live to devour anything they find and have no society to speak of. They can easily be manipulated by porcs, gobbos, or the like merely with the promise of food. When not manipulated they typically roam at night from caves or across swamps in a desperate need to sate their hunger. New feral trolls are almost always "born" when one is cut apart, and the halves regenerate into two different beings.

 Ability Score Decrease. Your Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma each decrease by 2.
 Fast Regeneration. Add your Constitution modifier to the hit points you regain through your Regeneration trait. Additionally, this trait works even while you're at 0 hit points.
 Feral Hunger. During a rest, you can devour the corpse of a Medium or Small creature that is neither construct nor undead. Doing so provides you the same benefit as consuming your double rations, and upon finishing you gain temporary hit points equal to the proficiency bonus of the consumed creature. Temporary hit points do not stack.
 Bite. Your prominent fangs can be used to make a natural attack that deals piercing damage.
 Vulnerability. Because your mutated flesh heals so quickly, it's particularly vulnerable to anything that slowly eats away at it like flame or corrosion. Any acid or fire damage you take is maximized.