Mountain king

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Mountain kings are the greatest, most powerful and most ancient species of trollbloods. To look upon a mountain king is to see the primal essence of the troll: hunger, rage, and the strength of nature. Set loose upon the world, these terrible beasts shake the ground with their tread and sunder granite with their roars.[1]

History

Trollkin legend describes mountain kings with fearful reverence. Such tales, which originated long before the age of the Molgur and the mastery of runes, speak of a time of plenty for the trollkin throughout Caen. Those trollkin respected and feared full-blood trolls and kept their distance from mountain kings, already ancient in those nearly forgotten days.[1]

The stories say the mountain kings were the first trolls to emerge from the ground, given life by the harsh joining of Dhunia and the Devourer Wurm. They kept largely to the remote mountain ranges, far from the first trollkin communities. In time, however, trollkin populations began to spread and intrude upon the territory they had claimed.[1]

The encroaching trollkin enraged the mountain kings beyond all consideration. The primal brutes incited one another with furious howls that echoed across the mountain chains, and even those in remote regions came forth to slaughter. Like emissaries of the Wurm, the mountain kings devoured all in their path, their blinding hunger overcoming any sense of kinship. Trollkin myth suggests the Gnarls and the Thornwood were part of a single forest until mountain kings stripped the region between them bare.[1]

As the terror they had unwittingly provoked continued, the trollkin saw that in time the great trolls would devour not only their people but also the entirety of the world itself. An ancient epic describes a gathering of great trollkin chieftains, warriors and shamans who sought to subdue the mountain kings. Shamans discovered a way to forge chains infused with spiritual energies that could restrain mountain kings, and the trollkin entombed them within the mountain peaks from which they had come. Many trollkin died to bring the mountain kings to those rage-filled barrows, which were marked with great rune-inscribed stones warning against future disturbance.[1]

At first, the mountain kings stormed beneath the earth, consuming stones in their hunger and causing the earth to quake as they strove to snap the chains that bound them. They eventually fell into a restless torpor, their turbulent dreams filled with images of hunting and feeding. When they stirred in their sleep, avalanches and mudslides plagued the slopes above them. For these ageless beings, sleep was the only escape from the gnawing emptiness of their hollow stomachs.[1]

As ages passed, the mountain kings slowly faded into myth; few trollkin even dreamed they still lay in chains underground. Their existence wasn’t proven until Madrak Ironhide and Hoarluk Doomshaper, pressed to desperation, set out to harness their tremendous might. At no small cost, the two succeeded in their quest to bring the first reawakened mountain kings down from the Wyrmwall Mountains, eager to satisfy their undiminished hunger for the first time in millennia.[1]

Appearance

A mountain king evokes terror in all who behold it. It lopes forward to fill its fathomless belly: an urge that grows even stronger when the creature becomes injured. Uneasy trollkin watching such staggering rampages must wonder at the price paid to ensure the survival of their people. They are truly primeval creatures, so closely connected to the essence of creation that their very tissue continually spawns small whelps, which they ignore until hunger calls.[1]

Employment

The trollkin strive to control the mountain kings they have already awakened. The ravenous beasts make little distinction between friend and foe, and even the greatest shamans must take care in their presence, using the enchanted chains that still dangle from their hulking bodies to forestall their hunger between battles.[1]

References

Creatures
Sapient Bog trogBogrinCephalyxCroakDragonDreggDwarfEfaaritElf (IosanNyssStrider) • FarrowGatormanGiantGobberGrymkinHumanInfernalLetheanOgrun (Black ogrun) • Pygmy trollSatyxisSkorneTharnTotem hunterTrollkin
Non-sapient AnimantaraxAradusArchidonArgus (Argus moonhoundWinter argus) • BasiliskBisonBlackhideBlack tatzylwurmBletcherBrute boarBurrow-mawgCataphract beetleCeropsCrypt spiderCyclopsDeep drakeDesert hydraDevil ratDracodileDragon fishDragonspawn (Nephilim) • DrudgeDune prowlerDuskwolfFeroxFog drakeFrost drakeGallows groveGiant hogGnarlhorn satyrGoraxGorgandurGrotesqueHornbeak traskHorseHull grinderIncubusIronback spitterKaelramLemaxMammothMonstrosityPainted tatzylwurmPale tatzylwurmRaevhan buffaloRazorbatRazor boarRazor wormReptile houndRhinodonRip horn satyrRotterhorn griffonSaquScarabScarsfell griffonSea drakeShadowhorn satyrSkiggSkirovik mountain goatSludge bruteSnapperSpine ripperStorm raptorSwamp horrorThornwood maulerThroatfishThrone of EverblightThrullgTitanTroll (Dire trollEarthborn dire trollGlacier kingMountain kingNight trollPitch trollPyre trollSlag trollStorm trollSwamp trollTroll whelpWinter troll) • UlkUrthekVektissViper tatzylwurmWarpwolf (Pureblood) • Widow bear
Undead BoneswarmDeathlessDuelist wraithDreadDreadboundEldritch (Riven) • EntombedExcruciatorFeralgeistGenzoulHollowedIron lichIron maidenKovaasMachine wraithPistol wraithRevenantSand dervishScyllaSepulchral lurkerShadeShaft wightSpectreSwamp shamblerThrall (Bane thrallBile thrallBloat thrallBrute thrallMechanithrallScrap thrallSkarlock thrallSoulhunterStitch thrall) • Void spirit