Editing Discworld (section)

===[[Trolls]]===
Discworld trolls are not creatures of flesh and blood. Instead, they consist of metamorphorical rock: rock that takes the form of the stones and minerals around them. Trolls are nocturnal because of their biology: they have silicon brains, that work slower when exposed to warmth. This means that they're more intelligent and faster at night while being dumb and sluggish during the day. Likewise, trolls living up in the mountains become less intelligent when going down to warmer places like Ankh-Morpork. When a troll's brain is sufficiently chilled, the troll can become extremely intelligent, their silicon brains essentially serving as computer chips. Trolls can freeze to death this way, but they'd die long after any creature of living flesh would have perished. Unfortunately, this has led to the plains people viewing trolls as a species of morons, and Pratchett passed away before troll culture could be given the same treatment as dwarf culture, but elements- references to the clan structures, the History Chant, stone music, and the Diamond Kings- can be glimpsed throughout the series.

While trolls are more or less immortal, growing their entire lives, as they get older and bigger they become more sluggish and more inclined to sit around and think (which is why trolls call getting old "getting philosophical"). Truly ancient trolls are the size and shape of mountains, eroding in interesting ways and [[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure|eventually getting so lost in thought that they just never come back]].

Because of their silicon-based biochemistry, their booze is hideously toxic to humans and will likely devour the glass it is served in as well as the table beneath it. Likewise, the trollish diet consists mostly of rocks. To chew their way through this they have diamond teeth, which are very valued by humans and dwarfs alike. As they are also highly valued by their owners, this has been one of the many points of contention between the species of the Disc. This all means of course that trolls can not digest organic matter such as plants, cats or humans, but that doesn't stop the more rural types trying occasionally. Oddly enough, while trollish booze is an etching acid to humans, troll drugs have no effect on humans, no matter how hard they try.

Trolls hold that once in a while, a troll is born whose body consists of nothing but diamond. This physique helps immensely to cool down the troll's brain, making them extremely intelligent even when standing in the burning sun. These trolls are seen as semi-mythical beings, and when one is born they are destined to be kings amongst trolls. They all carry the same name, though it always refers to one individual at a time: Mr. Shine. [[meme|Him diamond]].

Dwarfs and Trolls have a lot of historic bad blood. It started out for fairly straightforward reasons: a quietly sleeping troll is rudely woken up by someone trying to cut off his arm with a pick-axe and a dwarf prospector investigating valuable minerals suddenly faces something big, stony, mobile and angry that's trying to pull his arms off. But the conflict just spiraled out from there with Dwarfs launching attacks against Troll tribes, which leads to Trolls attacking Dwarf holds in reprisal and so on. In particular, the Battle of Koom Valley is seen as a rallying cry for both sides in the conflict, which has resulted in several repeats. Both sides claim to have been ambushed by the other at the original battle, roughly a millennium before setting present, but until the fundamentalist mountain grags began to preach in Ankh-Morpork, nobody thought that it was possible to find out what really happened.