Trolls Goblins Giants Elves Dwarves

A supernatural creature of Scandinavian folklore, variously portrayed as a friendly or mischievous dwarf or as a giant

I'm quite picky when it comes to how troll should look. Trolls come from norse mythology and the same story in differnt translations makes them dwarfs or goblins or sometimes giants. They had long crooked noses, only four fingers and toes on each limb, and most of them had long bushy tails and were stupid and would turn to stone in sunlight in some storyies in others they evolved smaller, smarter and crueler into the dwarves we don't know and love.

In Icelandic mythology, Trolls were a race of giants. In Norse mythology Trolls are represented as a type of goblin.Norse dwarves They are often identified and seem to be interchangeable with the Svartalfar (black elves) and the trolls. "No valid distinction though can be drawn between the dwarfs and the dark elves; they appear to have been interchangeable." the Dokkalfar, or dark elves, are the light-avoiding counterparts to the ljosalfar (light elves). While the Dokkalfar and the Svartálfar (black elves) may be one and the same, there is a confusion between these names and that of the Duergar (dwarves). In the Dungeons & Dragons the duergar are a race of cruel and evil dwarves. They are best referred to as the dwarvish equivalent of the drow.

So, just to F with you in Norse myth dwarves, trolls, and Svartalfar (black elves) are the same thing, Svartalfar (black elves) are Dokkalfar (or dark elves) but not maybe not the Duergar (dwarves) so it looks like the world of the underdark has one mother, where a drow, a troll, a goblin and a dwarf are all the "same" thing. It seems that they have evolved over the last century into there differnt races.

at least they had differnt types of elf.

 

Everybody...

...'borrows' from everyone. Kind of like Balrogs and Balors. Same thing, different name. I've even seen them referred to as pyroclastic demons, which makes for a great effect in movies.

 

The elves/trolls./dwarves probably come from the Kurgan progenitors of modern Indo-European languages.

In Celtic mythology, giants were tall as mountains and strode 6 leagues with a stride. The Mabinogion is great fun with it's accounts of the pre-medieval super heroes who fought the giants.

Tolkien drew bits from Icelandic (dwarves), Celtic (elves) and Saxon (trolls) mythology. You also see how he wove these threads into his world through the languages; Quenya is based on old Finnish and Sindarin on Welsh whilst Rohirric is Old English.

I've not played DnD outside of PC games (well, a few hours in a campaign as a follower counts for little). So my view of 'monsters' is heavily tinged by Middle Earth. I couldn't really get over how many liches you fight in BG2. In MERP using Rolemaster, a lich would annihilate any player group not playing munchkin rules. And as for dragons...

 

Yes, there is a lich in BG2 and he is very tough!

D&D trolls were nothing like Tolkien's. D&D trolls regenerated all but fire and acid damage and could spend all day in the sun, although they preferred not to.

 

Tolkien's contribution should be understood and acknowledged.

I remember reading somewhere else that when the original creator of D&D, Mr Gygax, put out his game he got into trouble with the Tolkien estate for the way he seemed to rip off a lot of Tolkien's monster creations or ideas. Examples are: orcs, ents (which Gygax changed to treants I think), balrog (changerd to balor) and halflings. Gygax though seemed to get confused. He thought that orcs and goblins were separate monsters but Tolkien quite specifically says that they are the same thing. AD&D, and many spin offs have perpetuated this error.

Tolkien though took much of what he created from earlier norse, germanic and finnish mythologies, I seem to remember. This doesn't excuse rip-offs by Gygax and later writers, game developers and others who ripped off Tolkien, as Tolkien did not rip off anybody, he only drew inspiration from these earlier mythologies, in order to flesh out his work and bring it to life for a modern audience.

Having said that I think role-playing and adventure gaming would be much poorer without AD&D and it's spin-offs. I just think Gygax and others should acknowledge their debt to Tolkien.

I also wish that people would stop making orcs and goblins separate races. Orcs should be called something else to completely distinguish them from goblins. As long as they are called orcs they are really goblins which leads to this contradiction. This is my understanding of the situation, others may differ.

 

Orcs and goblins are the same in Tolkien but they are extremely diverse. Some resembled the golins of DnD (snaga tribes) others would more resemble hobgoblins or orcs as they are portrayed in some rules' systems.

ICE had the MERP franchise for ages, but even in their RM rules they still split up orcs into a variety of races (presumably to more resemble DnD).

On the subject of trolls in Middle Earth, there are at least six different types mentiones by Tolkien and all are different. Stone trolls are the only ones which turn into stone, with hill trolls, black trolls and stone trolls being given language. They also don't need to be burnt after death. Which is reassuring because they are darned nasty in MERP/RM (mind you add real physics to any RPG and you start to see the problems with fantasy worlds' assumption one hero could beat a troll single handed).

The liches in BG2 weren't tough for me sadly. But then BG2 really went overboard with munchkin equipment and I find that the BG series makes me go off and explore everywhere, boosting XP, so by the time I return to the main quest, the party is grossly overpowered. If there was only one lich in vanilla it may be that my ex had some mod installed which gave you more. A long time since I played now. Just re-ordered BG1 and sincerely hoping that it is going to be ok to play - UK version on 4 discs (TotSC included) is renowned for lacking vital information and being unplayable past original release's disc 2...

 

Orcs are just goblins by another name, they are they same thing.

I don't know which version of Tolkien you have been reading but in the version I have Tolkien never said orcs were elves. I seem to remember he wrote that Morgoth the original dark lord created orcs to mock elves which he hated. Also orcs are not the slightly more intelligent cousins of goblins, they are goblins, they are one and the same.

Orcs and goblins are the same thing. Orcs are not different from, related to, slightely larger versions, or anything else.

Allyx is showing that he, like a lot of others who read Tolkien, or bits of Tolkien, really does not understand why Tolkien called goblins orcs. Gygax got it wrong when he thought the orcs in Lord of the Rings were a different race than the goblins in The Hobbit. The truth as I understand it is that Tolkien used the name goblins in The Hobbit because he was writing a book aimed at children, whereas when he decided to write The Lord of the Rings he wanted to appeal to an older audience and so changed the name of goblins to orcs throughout that book. In The Hobbit Gandalf wields a sword called Orcrist, which translates into 'the goblin cleaver'. If goblins and orcs are separate races then the sword would have cleaved orcs not goblins, or be called goblinrist to cleave goblins.

Those who think orcs are different from goblins just do not get it. That D&D, AD&D, and all related spin-offs still make orcs different from goblins shows that a lot of people still just don't understand what Tolkien was doing.

I repeat: orcs and goblins were the same monster, just two different names. That's what Tolkien wrote. That's how it should remain.

Unfortunately because so many people have made the error of making them separate in publication after publication, game after game, it is probably almost impossible to undo what Gygax did all those years ago.

But Gygax did get it wrong. Orcs are not separate from goblins... they are the same monster. Allyx, go and re-read Tolkien again and see for yourself.

 

Allyx has it right here. Orcs derive from elves Morgoth captured in the East who he then tortured and twisted. Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales are two good background books for this kind of thing.

edit: in his notes Tolkien considered making Orcs derived from men and orcs derived from animal spirits trapped by Morgoth. In the end he returned to the elven idea.

Goblins and orcs are the same, but I can understand why interpretations of Tolkien got it wrong (or made a design choice). Have a read of the conversation between the snaga and the uruk in LoTR III. They are so greatly different that you could be justified that they are two different species. It's kind of like giving a chihuhua (sp?!) the same stats as a mastiff. It's easier to split them off in some way rather than trying to cover it under a range of sizes system.

 

I don't think Gygax was trying to replicate Middle Earth, he was drawing inspiration from it--the orcs are certainly portrayed larger and more menacing than the more childish goblins, you can see where he got the idea. And, it is a good one. I see no wrong done, only imagination at work; and imagination always relies on error to get things done.

 

Actually, Orcrist was Thorin's sword. Gandalf's sword was Glamdring, "the Foe Hammer".

 

There are several reasons...

...for different names of things in Tolkien's tales. It goes something like this: the manifold languages spoken yield different names. One example of this is Balrog, the Sindarin name for the Demons of Might which serve Morgoth,which were originally called Valarauko (spirit of fire) by all the Quendi. Language changes by region, by culture, and often enough by misunderstanding. Remember, Professor Tolkien was a linguist by training and a novelist by choice. The words Uruk, Orc, and Yrch all mean the same thing as goblin. It's just that one is a much more degraded and common form used by common folk in a common language.

Another thing to consider is that just as the race of the elves (Quendi) became sundered; so to did they become possessed of varying degrees of potential, based on how pure (or holy) they had become by either taking or refusing the journey to Aman. Morgoth made war upon all of the elves,(well, everything in Middle Earth, really...) and made captive an untold number of unfortunate creatures...including each type of elf at one point or another. It stands to reason that the more power a thing has , the greater it's potential for weal or woe. One of the Eldar is more powerful than say, one of the Moriquendi. Galadriel compared to Legolas is far more powerful. And if twisted to evil, capable of doing far more harm. I suspect that the lesser creatures of evil were derived from the less powerful of Morgoth's captives.

BTW, orc comes from latin orcus, meaning death. Tolkien didn't create it, but he did create Balrog, which is why orcs are still in D&D and Balrogs are not. Anything Tolkien's estate could say was their intellectual property has long since been removed from D&D because of legal action.

And Orcrist would cleave any creature of goblin-kind, regardless of whether he was spawned in Moria, Isengard, or Barad Dur itself.