Who smoothed out all the Trolls?
Trolls are not tall Orks.
Trolls are covered in ugly dermal deposits.
Not all trolls have two perfect horns.
C'mon man some art direction!

I blame the parents and MTV.

I did appreciate when art started showing good(or at least decent)-looking orks and trolls, but I agree that we now have the opposite problem. It also seems like everyone forgot that troll's arms are longer than the ones a troll-sized human would.

I remember the big, full page troll image from SR2 in the intro to metahumans section. By far the best drawing of a troll I thought, and I've always used it as the basis for proportions of my own troll drawings. Wish there were more like it.

I've heard that Troll bodysize was massively reduced from SR2/SR3 to SR4. Is that true?

Yes, the average height has dropped from 2.8m to 2.5m, but actually most people pictured the trolls as 2.5m tall anyway, and 2.8m tall is a bit too tall for comfort nearly everywhere.

BTW, for those who haven't seen it or have forgotten, this is the troll pic I was referencing:

That's a troll

I like the one on the cover of Runner Havens.

My favorite troll art was the Mercenary from SR3 (could have been recycled from an older book; I started with SR3).


Found an image of it here: http://www.sharewallpapers.org/d/515778-2/...l+Mercenary.jpg

Always thought he looked like a comic book level of beefy human with horns.

They're all Fomori (more Handsome and smaller than the "runt-of-the-Mill-Troll")
Trolls are like the 2060's Fomori are in

HeyaheyaHeyaJa
Medicineman

Oh Yes and for the Better
SR3 2,80 with a mere 220 Kilos
SR4A 2,50 Meters with more appropriate 300 Kilos
(SR4A Fomori are 2,45 with 225 kilos)

with a better Dance
Medicineman

I don't mind it. It gives you the range, depending on who/how you want to play. Trolls can be fugly people with the skin conditions and rampid mutant growths all over them. Or it can be more tame and (pardon the usage) Realistic. Rarely do you find just radical a-symetrical traits in nature. Those "Miss matched" horns and stuff always got me. The way I looked at it was that the real real FUGLY ones with mis matched horns and tusks and stuff, were the ones that were subject to the goblinization. I.E. "OH GOD WHAT"S HAPPENING TO ME> ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRG" And happening as they were adults and all the sudden like you got mutation like results.

We're in what 3rd or 4th generation now? And when you're born and grow up as a troll you look abit more 'normal'. Yes, you have longer than normal arms. yes you have horns, but they don't have to be spiraling off in random directions. they can make a little bit of sense.

Also, pick up Augmentation. Simple cosmetic surgery is cheep. Heck they can replace your eyes on your lunch hour. It SAYS that. Start to finish, you walk into a place in the MALL and they can rip out your flesh eyes and install 100% functional cybereyes in under an hour. Getting warts taken off, or horns that match and aren't spiraling into your own eye, or miss matched tusks fixed ect, would happen ALLLLL the time.

Sure some are going to take the horrific look as a mark of pride. The 'Uglier the better' but most people don't revel in being ugly. And trolls can take advantage of the times. Sure they might catch crap if they do it and live in the same neighborhood all their lives but it's just as simple to get the cosmetic changes then move toa different sprawl or just.. 20 blocks over in the same one.

I don't think many trolls should be "BEAUTIFUL" in our "classic' Sense, but it can happen. They don't all have to look like they crawled out of a barrel of Toxic waste either.

I also see it as the progression of genetics. Each generation they begin to look a little more tame. As the generations go on, the horrific trauma cause by the first goblinizations is simmering down to a low boil, much like the universe itself. If you look at SR2 and SR3 Metalplots (I don't know SR1 well so I won't comment" EVERYTHING was turmoil and big moves. Dark cults made deals with super powerful spirits and things were just... well... uglier. So I think the Troll look cooled down with the setting. Its used to be "Oh hey a Troll... RUN!" Now it's "Oh hey a Troll, sup?" Just like the world saw the shadows in turmoil, now this is just business as usual.

Most should have, unless they live in glow city

But speaking of horns, there should be some standard where horns grow on trolls -- out of the side of the skull, as an extension of the forehead (like on the 4A cover), or something else?

Well, there is An Peng from the Denver missions. A troll magician with a single horn that juts from the right side of his head that he waxes regularly, and is a native to Denver.

Personally I like the less standard for troll horns. With the number of people who have a 'Heinz 57' mix of ancestry it makes sense that there's not going to be a consistent heritage for trolls and horn patterns. And with successive generations it also makes sense that the genetic turmoil for trolls (and all metas) will have begun to show stabilization.

The shape and size of horns will sure vary, but not where the horns grow out of the skull. The latter would realistically be about as variable as the position of the nose.

The horns thing actually bugs me a bit. There's only so much you can do with horns before they start to look like antlers...

Somehow, I had to think of Hellboy, and how similar he actually looks to SR Trolls.

You can make him two different ways: 1) Cyber-Hellboy, or 2) SURGE'd Hellboy. You can also make Diablo and Mecha-Diablo (from the games of the same name).

I enjoy the mix of trolls. I like playing the big guy, but I also sometimes like playing handsome characters. I think that trolls and orks should be able to run the range of ''really handsome'' to ''holy crap what ugly tree did you fall out of''-just like any other race. (I think that there should be more art of some elves who aren't particularly handsome as well, on that note.) Like a dirty, scarred Rat Shaman elf with a patchy, part-bald head of hair and a very uneven, partially missing beard. I tend to agree that maybe after the whole Goblinization thing stopped and maybe some just started growing up maybe in more healthier environments with a proper exercise and diet, maybe they turned out healthier looking in the process(instead of uneven growths, missing tusks, and the like.)

Besides, nowadays, Biosculpting can really do *whatever you want.* You can make a troll look like Adonis if you so choose. (The Fomori I play just has a pair of small, well-cared for tusks, and nice sized horns, but is quite the looker. He's also considerably larger than most Fomori, and his Elongated Legs proportion out his body more to make his arms look less hanging down to his knees. The Elongated Limbs perk actually states it can be arms, legs, or both. When I made him, I was trying to get a look that can be boiled down to ''Jackie Estacado as a Fomori.'')

Official Shadowrun Online Artwork:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=270...0835&type=1

That may well be one of the images that sold me on the game way back when.