This is honestly more visual/game related, but forest trolls are, lorewise, bulkier than jungle trolls but shorter than Zandalari. In-game, every Amani troll using the new models is as tall as a Zandalari if not markedly taller. (And this is all of them, not just the special NPCs that get a size boost). Unless they’re one of the elders, in which case they’re default troll size, using the default troll model with green skin as is available to players.
Additionally, the new models have heavy patches of moss and cat eyes that were not present in any previous models, even the high res model for the boss in Throne of Thunder.
What does this mean? Do Amani somehow lose these features when they get older, shrinking down and no longer having feline pupils, or is it that in 1 generation the Amani gained these features via yet-unknown means? Or was it that those were originally supposed to be some special Loa-buffed trolls but they decided to just give it to everybody?
Forest trolls are leaner, more agile, and taller than orcs,
Tides of Darkness, chapter 4: “The one time [Doomhammer] had encountered forest trolls he had been impressed and a little disquieted by their cunning. Though the trolls were taller than orcs they were leaner and more agile[…]”
but still significantly smaller than the tallest of trolls, the Zandalari and Drakkari.
Troll Compendium - Other Trolls, Re: Zandalari: “significantly larger than all other documented trolls except the savage Drakkari.”
I think it’s probably that the Blizzard artists decided they look cool (which they do, I really dig the feline eyes), and probably didn’t bother to even check to see if their size would be a problem in comparison to the Zandalari.
I really doubt there were meant to be any deeper meaning and it was likely just an oversight.
We are not alike in this, unfortunately. I think the feline eyes feel really weird and out of left field. It’s not like they’re even associated with cats more than any other trolls. (See: Shirvallah and Bethekk for Gurubashi tribes, Eraka no Kimbul for Zandalari and Farraki, snow leopard whose name I forget for the Drakkari, etc.)
If it was like, a special feature-- a blessing only for Halazzi’s favored or something-- that’d be a neat world-building bit. Now it’s just “They got cat eyes.” “Why?” “Because we wanted them to have cat eyes.”
I don’t think they’re meant to represent some sort of ethnic blessing of Halazzi
Notably, Halazzi doesn’t have those eyes
I think instead it’s going to be Ula’tek, the Snake Loa. I think it’ll be revealed she blessed all the Amani with magical eyes after her fight against the void.
I mean, the moss patches are actually pretty consistent with the old Troll Compendium found on the (now removed) original site.
In exact quotes: “Due to a mutation that took place many millennia ago, the forest trolls’ bodies can support plant life to a limited extent. A thin layer of moss inevitably grows on the skin of forest trolls shortly after they are born and gives them their characteristic green coloring.”
also for height can just eb gameplay reasons
liek taurens are scaled down like 40% vs in lore and even then cant fit evry single door
(male tauren be like 3,5M tall or so, or be tot he orcs what the orcs are to the humans in warcraft movie), cause tauren are comparabnle to ogres in size
or forsaken are taller then the human model IF the stretrch up right , same for regular trolls vs zandalari fit he males stregch out fully
or why raidbosses/important npcs are so much bigger (tirion/vbarian/garrosh in icc are some of greatest exampels of that)