D&D General I hate this figure......arghhh!

[GuyBoy]

So, I was Grognarding-out on Lost Minis Wiki and this THING popped up to torment me. It’s a “small troll” by UK company Minifigs and dates from around 1975/76.....and I remember it with loathing.
Not because it’s a bad figure (though it is) and not because whoever heard of small trolls, but because this figure was the monster that killed my first ever D&D character.
I was 14 and it still hurts. Dave, my first DM, was a year older and was running my fighter, Aelric ( 1066 history study meets Melnibone) and Phil’s wizard, Amroth (Tolkien meets, er, Tolkien) and we were level one. Aelric has 7hp, Amroth had 2, but he had a sleep spell.

We were doing just fine. We’d killed a giant rat and would have taken its stuff if it had had any. Then we met the troll....

DM Dave had this figure, painted quite well, and he kept it along with a few fellows, wrapped up in loo paper in an old cigar box.

So we fought this tobacco-scented troll in a 20’ x 20’ room, with a treasure chest in view. Not that we ever opened the chest: Amroth’s sleep spell didn’t work, the troll ripped him to shreds. Aelric hit the troll. The troll regenerated the damage. The troll ripped Aelric to shreds.

I was hooked. Still am. Dave went on to work in IT in the US. Phil became a professor at Cambridge.

And I still hate this figure. And trolls. Especially ones that smell of tobacco.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Great story!

 

[Yaarel]

View attachment 142310
So, I was Grognarding-out on Lost Minis Wiki and this THING popped up to torment me. It’s a “small troll” by UK company Minifigs and dates from around 1975/76.....and I remember it with loathing.
Not because it’s a bad figure (though it is) and not because whoever heard of small trolls, but because this figure was the monster that killed my first ever D&D character.
I was 14 and it still hurts. Dave, my first DM, was a year older and was running my fighter, Aelric ( 1066 history study meets Melnibone) and Phil’s wizard, Amroth (Tolkien meets, er, Tolkien) and we were level one. Aelric has 7hp, Amroth had 2, but he had a sleep spell.

We were doing just fine. We’d killed a giant rat and would have taken its stuff if it had had any. Then we met the troll....

DM Dave had this figure, painted quite well, and he kept it along with a few fellows, wrapped up in loo paper in an old cigar box.

So we fought this tobacco-scented troll in a 20’ x 20’ room, with a treasure chest in view. Not that we ever opened the chest: Amroth’s sleep spell didn’t work, the troll ripped him to shreds. Aelric hit the troll. The troll regenerated the damage. The troll ripped Aelric to shreds.

I was hooked. Still am. Dave went on to work in IT in the US. Phil became a professor at Cambridge.

And I still hate this figure. And trolls. Especially ones that smell of tobacco.

Have you ever thought about an other character finding him and resurrecting him?

 

[jayoungr]

Have you ever thought about an other character finding him and resurrecting him?

And then they team up to take revenge on all trolls! I like this idea!

 

[LordEntrails]

And trolls. Especially ones that smell of tobacco.

I think now all my trolls are going to smell like tabaco! My players will wonder why but hey, that's there problem, not mine

 

[Lyxen]

I think now all my trolls are going to smell like tabaco! My players will wonder why but hey, that's there problem, not mine

Just be careful, because of the MM1 picture, all the players in our group make the immediate connection tobacco smell = smoking pipe = rakshasa.

That being said, troll are bad news. It was not in D&D, but in Runequest, we encountered a small troll, wielding a small spike. Because it was small, one of our more reckless players attacked it, but the GM described it that way: "small troll stabs your abdomen with the small spike and does a small critical.... 37 critical damage, you're dead"...

 

[GuyBoy]

Just be careful, because of the MM1 picture, all the players in our group make the immediate connection tobacco smell = smoking pipe = rakshasa.

That being said, troll are bad news. It was not in D&D, but in Runequest, we encountered a small troll, wielding a small spike. Because it was small, one of our more reckless players attacked it, but the GM described it that way: "small troll stabs your abdomen with the small spike and does a small critical.... 37 critical damage, you're dead"...

Spikes, eh? Let’s talk about spikes....

This figure, from the Minifigs “Valley of the Four Winds” range played an equally horrid role in my D&D life about two years after tobacco-troll.

This beast was a recurring villain in my mate Simon’s campaign and went by the name of Klarg. Now Klarg, as you may have noticed, carried a pointed stick.

The pointed stick in question had been made by Klarg (who was a unique demon) from the heartwood of a treat he had slain, and was used to maim, hurt and even kill my character’s friends and allies, before Klarg would teleport away. If Dimensional Anchor existed in 1E, I certainly didn’t know about it, neither did Tierkan, my character, who was a fighter anyway.

Eventually, Tierkan did kill Klarg with a vorpal axe before the s***bag teleported away, and doubtless went all vorpal on the pointed stick afterwards.

That was the end of Klarg. Simon went on to work in anti-terrorism. I briefly dated his sister ( Simon’s, not Klarg’s) and life went on.
Still dislike pointed sticks.

 

[Lyxen]

It's great that you still have all these old miniatures from the early days. I have two boxes of miniatures that I painted a long time ago, but they are lost somewhere in one of my moving from one country to the next. If I ever find them again, I'll post pictures too.

 

[GuyBoy]

It's great that you still have all these old miniatures from the early days. I have two boxes of miniatures that I painted a long time ago, but they are lost somewhere in one of my moving from one country to the next. If I ever find them again, I'll post pictures too.

Sadly, I don’t actually have them anymore. These are photos from Lost Minis Wiki.
I had a load of minis but let them go amidst marriage, kids, career and sports causing gaming to take a back seat. I re-connected with D&D in around 1998 and have built up a collection of more modern Reaper minis since, so the Lost Minis site is something of a nostalgia wallow.

Of course, tobacco-scented small troll was never mine anyway (I’d have melted the b*****d down!)

 

[GuyBoy]

Can I introduce you all to Jantin Ford, Destroyer of Worlds....

Jantin didn’t actually destroy any worlds. In fact, Jantin didn’t actually destroy very much of anything successfully, unless you count the adventuring party’s credibility.
I was the DM of a pickup game in a local pub. There were some very good role players in the party....and there was Jantin’s player.
Jantin was level 5. That means fireball. Jantin loved fireball. In fact, his fav phrase was, “fireball the bastards!”, delivered with the same sort of fervour that grips me when either Harlequins Rugby or New York Giants score a try or touchdown ( my rugby fervour has somewhat outweighed my NFL fervour in recent years).

The problem was that Jantin failed to distinguish potential allies or even party members in combat when fireballing the aforementioned bastards.

Jantin was killed by a fire giant having fireballed the bastard to very limited efficacy.

The party Druid cast reincarnation on Jantin.
He came back as an ice toad, which was cool, until he fell over a waterfall.