Has anyone here ever considered how they would design a helmet for a troll? would they just go around the horns? what if the horns go outwards? What if the helmet needs to be chemsealed?

I'm curious how people would solve this problem. I've been doing a lot of shadowrun related art sketches lately (I'm really not that good, but they help with visuals) and I'm ambitiously thinking about drawing out the heavy milspec armor for a troll character. This is a major project and I think before I get into doing (meta)human form drawings to do the whole thing, I would start with the head. And this is where I smacked straight into my problem, what to do about the horns?

For reference, the horns for this troll (somewhat originally named James 'Tank' Abrams) are somewhat similar to the ones on the troll on the SR4A cover, going back and both upwards and outwards on a diagonal, complete with the middle kink. The troll in question is one big mean black mofo (BOD 9 STR 9, 310 kg and 2.6m tall + horns), so the armor on him is going to be just plain huge when I finally get down to drawing it. I'm still not quite sure how I'm going to work with that sort of scale, so it will be an interesting project.

Clearly the helmet is cut in half with holes in each half (one for each horn) and he puts them on, then zipps it up down the middle.

I HAVE NO IDEA.

it is an issue because any helmet that clips/zips/locks together in pieces to fit around the horns is going to have weakness at the seams. But I can't think of any other way to do it.

EDIT: You could go the Hellboy route and cut down the horns. Just kidding, big guy!! No! No!

Safest thing is to rule that trolls can't have them.

I see it was a two-piece, full-face helmet with holes in place for the horns. As the Horns of a troll aren't standardized, you almost have to customize the helmets to them (Or have standardized sizes).

However, most military groups that employ trolls will see this extra cost as worth the price, as, well, a troll is a major combat multiplier just by being a bloody TROLL!

I was all set to agree with the two piece helmet, but then I thought about chem-sealing the thing. would it be enough to seal around the horns, or would the horns have to be covered as well. The latter seems more likely, but also more expensive as each helmet would have to be completely custom made to match the horns, and would likely need semi-regular replacement as the horns grew (or do they stop growing at some point? Has that ever been covered in shadowrun cannon?)

Another option is that Trolls need to grind their horns to make a helmet fit. Just like a haircut for the rest of the troops. That might be how the cheaper military companies do things.

In fact, it might even give the Troll another form of ID tags, if they can do Scrimshaw.

I don't think the horns would need to be armored, I would imagine they're just like rhino horns, just dead keratin or something similar. I can't see anything there to be infected, presuming you could get a decent seal around the base.

..i think i saw mention " Custom fitted for each person" in description of military
grade armor.
if troll want this, armorer would measure entire body,
for helmet shape & size for head
shape & size of troll's horn/ horns would be measured..
" digitalized" image for troll's head saved.

Easy. What to you do for "protection in close quarters"? The horns don´t get hard cover, just protective "socks" to avoid contact with chemicals after taking the helmet off.

Brilliant!

I do think that violates the rule of cool though. I mean, if a troll walked up to me with two of those on his horns I'd be TERRIFIED but I can't imagine drawing that on the cover of a book.

For a book cover, just leave the horns un-covered. If anyone asks go "yeah, clear plastic 'bags'."

Milspec armor is by definition custom tailored, so no problem there. any other situation, trolls don't need armor and helmets anyway. bike racing? pff

It's not like anyone is going to get into a headbutting contest with a Troll to begin with...

Drill a pair of holes large enough to fit the horns through the helmet. Add a set of gaskets attached to a chem-seal 'sock' for each horn. Troll gets helmet that has a full seal, everybody wins.

My GM came up with an interesting idea. Sticking with the sock concept but having the sock be made of some sort of memory plastic or something similar so that once it's in place they can apply a charge and it will become rigid and somewhat molded to the horns themselves.

Not bad, not bad - wouldn't necessarily need to be, though. Another possiblity is that they just take a mold of the Troll's head and then pour the material or what-have-you. If I was to mod one, the drill/gasketsock combo isn't a bad way to go.

Find a critter with natural armor that has Horns.
Kill said critter.
Clean skull.
Saw out Horns.
Wear Skull as Helmet.
Gain +10 to intimidation.
Gain +20 to intimidation if said critters was a sapient one.

Completed a rough sketch based on a two piece helmet design with individual memory plastic 'socks' over the horns that harden to a form that roughly follows the shape of the horns. The back half of the helmet is permanently attached to the torso section of the armor and the front half forms a faceplate that links in magnetically underneath the lip of the back half.

At the moment the sketch is way too light to scan (and actually too large for my scanner), but I'll post it up once the whole thing is done.

I always figured a helm like this, but more modern and with a continuation of the eye holes for horns.

http://www.weaponsemporium.com/WE-Helmets.htm

Course, this can't be chemically sealed.

I can't say I've ever drawn a troll like this. I usually kinda fake it, like I did here for NightLife.

http://squinkyproductions.deviantart.com/g...set=24#/d2m5ulb

Use a helmet composed of a framework with removable panels (and framework segments) to allow fitting so the horns can pass through. That's good enough for non-sealed helmets, although the exposed horns might be an injury risk since the could transmit impact forces right to the skull. Its good because you only have to customize a couple of panels from the "stock" helmet for any given troll, and can even re-use the helmet for different trolls (with different custom panels). If you need a chem-seal, you just need to fix the spots that the horns pass through with something like a kevlar-coated blood pressure cuff lined with gekko grip, assuming the helmet is otherwise sealed.
On the other hand, probably the hard core mill-spec stuff would either fully encase the horns, or require them to be cut off. The later is not really a big problem- police and military forces have always had personal grooming restrictions anyhow, often on the basis of interfacing with safety equipment (eg, no beards because gas mask designs don't allow for them).
However, full custom fitting probably isn't much of an issue either- with 3d body scanning and rapid fab techniques, that might be SOP for all helmet users anyhow. Ever since 2020 or so, there's been a lot more sizes of helemt to keep in stock- even the same "size" probably won't fit both an elf and a human. I;d guess that in general, ALL clothing and armor is made-to-spec using a set of templated designs and tools like lazer cutting / welding of cloth / plastics, etc.

Sure, but the hard part isn't getting the helmet with horns made, it's figuring out how to put the bloody thing on! Esp. if you have curly-cue horns of some sort.

Customization is included in the increase price hike for resizing troll gear (SR4A pp. 310-311), which is 10%-25% more expensive than off-the-rack stuff. During character creation it's a freebie.

The easist thing for a troll in the military would be:
Saw your horn of, than drill a hole into the horn and stick a magnet into it. Then attach a small metal plate onto the horn stump at your head.
Now you can reattach your horns for all social circumstances, and nobody will notice.
When putting on a unmodified helmet, just take your horns of, put on the helmet and reattach them to the helmet.

Making your own horns removable and reattachable will be practical as a troll anyway. I could imagine many situations in which your horns bother. Sleeping on your side for example.
Considering that, you won't have to make the removabel horns in DIY. There will be professional products for that.
And trolls in the military will probably use them, because weaknesses like horn-holes in your helm might even be the difference between life and death. (Horn isn't as durable as Kevlar X when being hit by a bullet.)

I would assume you would have some sort of soft layer arming cap under a full face helmet, so the portion going over the horns can be malleable densiplast that hardens when exposed to an electrostatic charge. You would still have the cool goat horn look, but they would be covered in a layer of densiplast. An interlocking back and face plate would provide the hard protection. I imagine the back portion of the helmet would have a cut out for each horn with a half ring or armor extending around the rear base of the horn and the remaining portion of the back coming a few inches forward of the horns. An interlocking face plate would cover the cut outs, and have a small half-ring of armor for the front of the horns base. Chemical sealing would be handled with a gasket around the horns base surfaced with a woven synthetic fiber on the arming cap and a microvilli ring on the hard armor pieces. The same electrostatic charge that hardens the horn coverings would also seal the gaskets around their base (normal residential windows create a near air-tight seal using the same principle.)

That is essentially the solution I went with in my design, albeit with a touch more technical detail. I still haven't gotten back to finishing the damn drawing to scan though.