Trolls
Trolls are a people of Eslura who keep for the most part to the mountains, and who are described as very sociable despite that seclusion.[1] Individual trolls live and work across the rest of Eslura, from Blighburrow to the gang canyon of Varaar.
Appearance
Trolls come in more than one colour. Nordwelg is an old troll, squat and heavy-set, in overalls, with a pipe more or less permanently between his teeth and a chubby finger for tamping it.[2][3] Vendalis is dark purple, and Barnaby Britto notes she looks a little like Nordwelg while being less squat, leaner, and carrying much longer hair that drags along the ground behind her.[4] The troll who keeps the door of The Hollowed Shadow in Varaar is squat and grey, with a wiry mop of hair.[5]
Portraits on Vendalis's walls, painted by her own hand, include trolls of a similar purple to herself.[4]
Society
Trolls stick primarily to their seclusion in the mountains and have a knack for botanical earth magic. They have no direct access to the magic of the Sacred Books, but some have worked out over the years how to harness a natural earth magic through the flora they grow in the mountains.[1] The books show no troll using that magic on the page, and no troll settlement is named.
Vendalis lives alone high on Alakyer, calls herself the keeper of the cliffs, and is content to be known instead as that purple troll up there in the mountain. She knits, paints, keeps a gully, and takes in an orphaned dragon egg because its mother has died.[4] Guests in her home, she tells Piercio, cannot remain nameless for more than one cup of tea.[4]
Trolls elsewhere in Eslura keep ordinary company. Nordwelg keeps company with Alistair Archibald at Blighburrow, one is taught to waltz by a drunken deer in The Avonbourn, and one serves Burkhan in Varaar.[6][5] Tabitha Glowdish, who knocks that last one senseless with a staff, takes no pleasure in it: she reckons him a pawn in Burkhan's game with no more real choice than anyone else roped into the world of the gangs.[5]
The books name no troll representative on The Council, and record no troll part in the War of Shadows.
History
Blighburrow
Nordwelg is at Alistair's side in the Blighburrow greenhouse when Beatrice Tidal is carried in with her Sacred symbol darkened, and it is he who explains to her what a Shadow Reaper does to what it touches and why part of Demise is still inside her.[3] He fetches water and a cloth, cuts her a branch to lean on, and walks them out along the glass tunnel toward Gewa before turning back at the Sacred Chamber door.[3] He is present again when Seely lays out the research that clears the Olphins, and is the one who reminds the room that Seely has been expelled from the Knowers.[7]
Alakyer
Vendalis pulls Barnaby, Alpin Loomin and Piercio out of a high moon season storm on the mountain, feeds them, and knits each of them a fitted coat overnight, along with a scarf and hat for Mauz and a pair of spiked boots for Barnaby.[4][8] She gives them the dragon egg, a wagon she had begun building, and the landmarks to follow to the core, telling them the egg must go into the lava to hatch.[8] The dragon that comes out of it is Egras.[9]
Known members
Behind the scenes
Trolls have an entry in the illustrated appendix "The Many Creatures of Eslura", printed at the back of both novels, and that entry is the source of everything the books say about trolls as a people rather than as individuals.[1]