Curse-Gift Troll

These aquatic trolls stand over eight feet tall, with spindly arms and wide jaws packed with needle fangs. Their hide runs from blue-green to olive with a reddish tinge. Generations spent on beds of the red mineral dust of the frontier coast have changed them, and every one has reached the curse's deforming final stage for its gift, though without any penalties or ability loss.

Which gifts appear depends on where the troll lives, usually tied to Strength or Charisma. Region 1: Armor (scaly hide), Grow (one limb permanently doubled), Burn (red skin), Senses (very long nose, ears, fingers and tongue). Region 2: Animal Form (stuck half-fish), Crimson Fire (red-glowing eyes), Farsight (eyestalks), Meld (chameleon blending), Sleep (drooping features), Spikes (soft spines all over). Region 3: All-Around Vision (an extra four eyes scattered at random), Ball of Fire (red skin), Separation (a body part permanently detached), Shock (hair on end), Shrink (head half size). Region 4: Acid Touch (drooling), Duplicate (illusory third arm), Poison (a stinger), Spell Shield (scales), Weaken (wasted look).

They fight exactly like ordinary trolls, and in water they regenerate 3 hit points per round. Gills or not, they can spend up to an hour on land and often do so to hunt. Shamans use Elemental (water) spells.

Colonies of 1d8 live in rivers, lakes and shorelines up and down the frontier coast and in the great bayou, mostly in clusters of underwater nests built from debris cemented with gland secretions. Any group bigger than two follows a large female chieftain and shaman, always the most monstrously deformed. Loners may den in caves within big coral reefs, with a 50% chance of a moray or wolf eel companion.

Immune to the ability loss of the crimson curse, they have no urgent need for the curse-warding red metal, but they raid coastal villages for it, and for food, because it briefly eases their deformities.

Besides the usual uses of troll blood, theirs can be brewed into a potion that temporarily suppresses the deformity of the donor's former gift; blood from an Armor troll, say, wards off the Armor deformity. They are thought to live more than 150 years.