Trolls (トロール Torōru?) are a highly populous, predatory race from the nightmare world of the Qliphoth.[1]
Appearance
Trolls are hairy, apelike humanoids with black fur and faces that comprise elements of pigs and rodents. Their eyes are wide and bulging and their snouts thick and fleshy with several protrusions somewhat similar to feelers or sensors. Despite their animalistic appearances, trolls have a degree of intelligence, as shown by their ability and propensity to use man-made weapons.
Profile
Like many inhabitants of the Qliphoth, the trolls are born from the darkest thoughts of humanity's collective subconscious and thus are as beastly as the thoughts they were spawned from. The trolls have little ability to make weapons, and often steal them from humans. They are also cannibalistic, usually eating their injured. Trolls also eat humans and livestock, usually during raids. They seem to breed by impregnating human women that they drag to their lair, the women later dying when the litter of infant trolls claw their way out of the womb and eat the host parent's flesh.
They do appear to have some sort of system of leadership, if only a bare one, as the strongest and burliest troll in Qliphoth steps forward, to the exclusion of the others when they fail. That said, trolls are savages and don't show much in terms of battle skills, charging head on as Guts cuts them down in droves.
Story
Troll in the barn
Trolls first appear when Slan used her powers to create an Interstice linking the physical world with the Qliphoth. These trolls proceed to plague Enoch Village, eating the livestock while stealing the women and children. Eventually, a resident named Morgan seeks the aid of the witch Flora to rid his town of them. But as Morgan learns that Flora intends to sent her apprentice Schierke to deal with them, the Trolls kill a man named Horace after one of them abducted his sister Hannah while murdering her husband Ted.
Guts attacking the invading Trolls.
At first, accompanied by Guts and his group, Schierke assumes that she only needs to drive off the massive horde when they attack the town, which would be both easier and more difficult than she expected. Schierke's magic allows the church to remain a safe place for the most part, but a troll eventually finds its way in and is fended off by Isidro and Morgan. As the trolls are not very intelligent and thus not good at fighting off combatants with the skill and superior weapons that Serpico and Guts possess, they are not a match, but their numbers eventually back the party into a corner. Not helping issues is when an ogre appears along with a kelpie, distracting Guts and Serpico respectively and leaving the rest of the trolls for Schierke to destroy, which she accomplishes excellently by summoning a water spirit to flood the village. Unfortunately, while the trolls retreat, they drag Casca and Farnese along with them back to the Qliphoth, forcing the team to pursue them there in a rescue mission.
Waking up in the Qliphoth, Casca and Farnese are horrified by the revelation of what trolls do with kidnapped women. Several are seen being raped by the trolls, and when Hannah, the woman who was kidnapped earlier that day, crawls over begging for help, they can only watch as she is torn apart from the inside by many infantile trolls, who quickly begin feasting on her. Though terrified, the silver garments they wear protect Casca and Farnese from the trolls' touch, though that does not bar the trolls from touching them with any weapon or instrument.
Schierke leads Guts, Serpico, and Isidro across the astral border into the hellish realm of the Qliphoth, Guts dealing with the Troll horde quickly appear en masse while the rest look for Casca.
Schierke, Serpico, and Isidro have trouble fending off the remaining trolls, but eventually do find and rescue Farnese and Casca, and Isidro takes down the troll war chief. Unfortunately, their troubles are not at an end, and they all feel a powerful shadow move across them and down the hall. Guts, who has slain nearly the entire troll pack himself, is set upon by Slan after she manifested through the slain beasts' intestines, revealing the troll attack was meant to bring Guts to her as she overpowered him before the Skull Knight appears to Guts' aid.
The trolls have been nearly wiped out, but not completely. Once Farnese and Casca are rescued, the party leaves the Qliphoth, and though trolls are seen harassing other villages later in the aftermath of the Blast of the Astral World, none ever encounter the party again.
Gallery
This section requires expansion.
References
- ^ Berserk manga; Chapter 199
Appendices
Template:Supernatural Beings