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Your Whispering Homunculus: 50 Troll Features

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Your Whispering Homunculus

Your Whispering Homunculus “What is that?”

      “What is what, oh Oft-Accidentally-Flatulent One?”

      “That extra head.”

      “Oh. That. Well, tonight is the homunculi and magically-birthed menials’ ball, and I’m going as a troll whose regeneration has birthed an extra head.”

      “I don’t remember giving you the night off—get that roof repaired, and when you’ve finished that, starch my smalls. Then when you’ve done that, I have this pile of fluff I want you to catalogue.”

 

Let’s face it, trolls are pretty ugly…

I mean not just homely but outright repulsive, mingers of the highest order. On top of that, they have this pesky regeneration thing to contend with. And let’s be straight, you might have something chopped off, but there’s no guarantee that what grows back is anything like what was there in the first place. I mean, an arm will come back when an arm is severed—usually—but it might not be quite the same arm or just an arm for that matter. Regeneration is a tricky business and can come up with all kinds of unpleasant surprises occasionally. Plus, it’s not exactly rare. Imagine the rough and tumble of troll childhood—what pranks might being able to regenerate bring to the fore—and what’s more, what kind of childhood scars might be caused. And that’s just kid trolls; once they start properly fighting each other, who knows where it might end and what scars might be born.

Okay, that’s tonight’s premise, the askew regeneration. Use this on your troll warband, on the hideous troll hermit, or twist it to any creature that regenerates—or maybe has just spent too much time with trolls. Perhaps, this repulsive mis-regeneration affects just trolls in tonight’s session or maybe throughout a whole adventure and beyond. Some troll tribes may have found arcane ways to pervert or encourage their regenerations and developed long and complex rituals to gain these tribal “tattoos.”

These random suggestions offer no mechanical effect, but if you’re serious about using them, you might want to consider adding a quick mechanic or fleshing out (pardon the pun) your dearer or major trolls. Maybe, they even became leaders because of eyes in the back of their heads or that extra arm hanging from their chin.

  1. A many-jointed extra finger grows from the mid-center of its forehead
  2. A hand has grown from the trolls head and flops about spastically like a cockerel’s comb
  3. An extra arm dangles from its chin
  4. Where once an ear grew, now an ugly foot complete with a distended extra trio of fleshy elephantine ears flaps
  5. The second head is uglier than the first and grows from the top of the original, thrusting from a particularly nasty looking regenerated fatal head wound
  6. It’s got an extra hand growing out of its mouth
  7. It’s regenerated from a split down its middle and now looks like some sort of perverted conjoined twin with half a head on each side
  8. It’s got six noses
  9. There’s half an ugly face growing from an upper shoulder
  10. Fingers seem to have grown from the hairier of its ears
  11. The eye socket wound looks nasty and now six eyes stare blankly where they’ve grown back
  12. The head cleave should have killed it—or maybe did—but where the split has regenerated, an idiot leering mouth with flaccid long lolling tongue has spread
  13. Its neck is a mass of festering growths over old wounds—there are lips in there
  14. The hole in its chest hasn’t quite joined back, and its beating heart can be seen inside
  15. It’s grown some sort of sickly tail from its lower jaw
  16. Where it’s been struck by an axe in the face, a vertical mouth has opened up full of disjointed yellow teeth
  17. One foot has twelve toes, all somehow wrong
  18. The arm has grown back with an extra pair of joints that go the wrong way
  19. The eye has grown in a completely wrong place
  20. Its leg has got ears growing out of it
  21. Is it the head or face that’s grown back the wrong way round?
  22. A three-jointed arm grows from the back of its head
  23. Eyes grow from the back of its head
  24. The top of its head has been taken off and a big mouth has grown there
  25. Its neck seems far too long for its body
  26. Its stomach has been opened up so many times its innards have grown outside its body
  27. There are noses growing on the back of its hands
  28. Its face has grown back—but grown back wrong
  29. Its humpback has two extra heads that leer from neckless stumps
  30. Half a dozen dribbling mouths are scattered across its chest
  31. It’s got fingers instead of lips
  32. Its hands have got tusked mouths in their palms
  33. The clown mask it was wearing when horribly wounded has become part of the regeneration and now forms part of its face
  34. Where its shoulder has been hacked through, an extra two stumpy arms have grown
  35. It seems that every place it’s been wounded, an eye has grown
  36. A dozen breasts have grown across her scarred body
  37. Where an arm has been severed, a second troll has grown, making a conjoined twin
  38. The second leg is six times fatter than the other
  39. The troll has somehow regenerated as a quadruped with hooves
  40. Three tongues flap about its huge mouth
  41. One head faces forward, the other backward—clearly the result of its being beheaded at one time
  42. Below the troll’s vast sweaty robe, at least a dozen appendages writhe
  43. Its mouth is vast, and literally grins from ear to ear
  44. The nose and the eyes have swapped places and multiplied
  45. A mouth grins from its chest, and a flaccid tongue lolls out, dribbling spit in a long line to its feet, which have grown back on the wrong way around
  46. Multiple head wounds have regenerated to make the troll’s head into a vast ball almost as large as its chest
  47. It’s got a dozen fingers on one hand and none on the other
  48. Hands have grown along its spine
  49. It was clearly once beheaded, but the regenerated head has grown out the wrong way up
  50. It’s been partially burnt, and a revolting, melted looking troll has formed from the few fleshy parts that were left

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