We run into trolls a lot throughout Elden Ring. These giant, naked, lumbering beasts with full heads of hair hound us as early as in Limgrave, sometimes attacking us with golden swords, sometimes simply pummeling us with their fists. We even see a few clad in armour wielding blades emblazoned with the symbols of Carian Knights as we venture to Liurnia — but have you ever dug deeper into the tragedy purveying their very existence?
Long ago, Queen Marika sent Godfrey, the first Elden Lord, to stamp out the giants atop their mountain, leaving only one to guard the flame of the blasphemous Fell God for eternity. It's an incredibly inhumane punishment of crushing solitude. But their descendants the trolls are still found all over the Lands Between.
Their stomachs are empty caverns filled with tangled roots, and this isn’t a natural phenomenon. Like the last Fire Giant who we find defending the forge used to set the Erdtree ablaze, they once had faces protruding from their stomachs with a single ominous eye forever burning with the sigil of their god. With their punishment, the Golden Order quite literally stole their divinity from them, leaving in its place strange, stone tablets.
Are The Trolls Slaves To The Golden Order, Or Did They Choose To Betray Their Own Kind?
As VaatiVidya pointed out in one of his early lore videos, these stone tablets can be found in Queen Marika’s bedchambers, and they ly resemble the shackles we use to bind Morgott and Mohg, the shunned Omen children hidden away in the sewers by the demigods. It’s likely that the stone tablets inserted within the trolls, taking root where their god once did, binds them to the will of the Golden Order.
Even Ranni’s loyal blacksmith Iji has such a tablet wedged within their torso.
It’s unclear how much autonomy these trolls have, however, as the Knight’s Sword tells us that they were “Called into service when the Queen invoked an oath they swore”, indicating a level of free will. The humans they fought side-by-side with are also described as “comrades”, with a weapon dropped by Carian Knight Moonrithyll in Shadow of the Erdtree telling us that she was a “friend to the trolls” and wielded their weapons as she fought alongside them.
The trolls are also said to have helped in the battle against their giant ancestors in what is described at the Sword Monument as a betrayal. It's never explicitly explained why they helped slaughter their own cousins, whether it was because of the tablets, out of fear of Marika, or true loyalty to the Golden Order, but their remnants paint a bleak picture regardless of their reasoning.
The stone tablets point to enslavement even if they once willingly joined the Golden Order, while the hollow shells of those who survived after the betrayal of their ancestors have been long abandoned anyway as the demigods continue to fight their civil war.
They are a decrepit species, not even permitted to keep their own profane flesh. It's a tragic tale, but an enemy as generic as a troll having such rich depth speaks volumes to the intricacies of Elden Ring's world and how it leaves so much to our own speculation. For you, they may have willingly attacked the fire giants as allies to Queen Marika, but for me, they are unwilling pawns in the game of gods. Both stories are equally valid.
