In the interviews leading up to the release of dragonflight, Production Director Patrick Dawson had mentioned that one of the races we will be interacting with are “primal trolls.” However, throughout Dragonflight, we have not yet seen these primal trolls.
Well, it looks like the idea was delayed for TWW. Based on the appearance of the Harronir, a subterranean elf-like race being introduced in TWW, I believe these are in fact the primal trolls mentioned by Dawson.
Their appearance is striking… very troll like but also elf like. Some players have coined “trelf / trelves / trelven.”
I haven’t seen anyone else bring up the mention of primal trolls since the discovery of the Harronir, the only discussion of primal trolls has revolved around “where are they?”
Nonetheless, I think we can more or less confirm the primal trolls were saved for TWW, in the form of the Harronir.
When I think ‘Primal Trolls’ I think of trolls that would’ve been the species that all other Troll tribes originated from, long before the first Dark Trolls started changing from exposure to the Well of Eternity.
The Harronir, to me, appear to be too ‘elven’ to be a primordial version of Trolls and more so strike me as a halfway point from Troll to Night Elf like Karestae mentioned. There is also a possibility that they are another species entirely, and just share similar traits to the two.
TBH I think I’d be pretty disappointed if these were the Primal Trolls that were talked about because I envision a Troll-like species way more primordial and elemental in nature, similar to Drogbar.
The Well of Eternity sped up the Troll’s evolution into Night Elves. The Harronir are Dark Trolls that, due to currently unknown reasons, did not join their brethren OR are a splinter group / tribe that never encountered the Well, and have since then slowly evolved over time. I don’t want to hold fast onto the primal troll concept that was announced pre-DF, I imagine it wasn’t fleshed out and there has been changes to them over time.
These feet are crazy hahaha. From what I saw, these are another swap so to speak for them, as I remember seeing an option for them having normal feet too.
Yup. There’s even other additions like fur, quails, and reflective eyes.
Curious if Hir’eek could vouch for us. I believe that Loa owes the horde three favors.
If I could add to the theory, there must remain some essence of the Well of Eternity in the War Within to change the Arathi and Nerubians into elves too.
The term “Primordial Troll” pre-dates Dragonflight. It actually first came up in talks about Legion. I’m quite certain at this point is that Drogbar were originally intended to be proto-Trolls, and the term continued to be used for them internally even after they were launched without any links to Trolls.
It’s weird that they’re adding a new elf variant directly before Midnight, where we’ll be getting (probably) nothing but elf lore for a couple years. I would’ve liked to see an actual dark troll society in TWW to exposit where trolls actually came from. That said, I do like the story implications of discovering a new race that blurs the line between troll and elf.
I still stand by my theory that trolls came from elementals.
I have strong suspicions 11.1 will be to do with the Harronir and their duty to protect the roots of Elun’Ahir. Perhaps they will have it be a bit of a B-Plot patch and show a conflict between the Harronir and invasive Botani who want to hijack the power of Elune and Eonar in the roots and create an Azerothian sporemound or some such.
I am beginning to believe that Harronir and not related to Trolls so much so that they are “Elven”, which is super unfortunate. I don’t even think they are Elves either, might be their own species entirely - like some sort of Fae from the Emerald Dream, but on Azeroth/reality.
Dark Trolls and Primordial Trolls are quite literally forgotten by Blizzard. So much so that, the reason we never saw them in Cataclysm was due to (Dark Trolls) being wiped out by the Twilight Hammer, which is a goofy af reasoning.
Not all of us follow dev interviews and podcasts, and if the concept never made it beyond a talking point, it’s no surprise that “everyone” forgot about something they never encountered.
The devs talk about so much stuff that never makes it past the cutting room floor that I’ve longed stopped watching their casts.
They do have a heel claw on this feet option, it’s just not visible in that image. The feet option doesn’t work on the Wowhead Dressing Room either, but there’s a datamined NPC named Orweyna using these feet and they have an additional claw on their heels.
They may in fact be related to Trolls considering this little detail. The Harronir do appear to be somewhere between Troll and Night Elf.
It’s probably too early to tell either way, though. All we really have so far are some character models where some of the datamined customization options aren’t even fully hooked up yet and a single apparently complete NPC model (probably the Harronir racial leader) without any animations.
They retconned the idea of Drogbar being “Primordial Trolls” during Legion’s development due to the fact that the Drogbar were established as being created by the Titans, which would have wrecked the lore on Trolls had they made the Drogbar “Primordial Trolls.”
The Drogbar could still potentially be explained as being mutated from the Trolls by the Titans, but they clearly cannot be considered “Primordial Trolls.” In fact, I doubt the Harronir will be “Primordial Trolls” either.
It’s unclear what the Harronir are, or whether or not they have a connection with trolls at all.
Yet it is still interesting that they are fairly close to ‘Primal Trolls’, and Dragonflight implemented no such things. Possibly the concept was reworked into Harronir.
I think you’re onto something. In Legion there was word of “ronir” by Drogbar. It’s not coincidence that in an underground expansion we are seeing it pop up as a root for Harronir.
the Zandalari are the original trolls and it should stay that way. Nothing can good coming from the guy who invented turning the Amani evil(Metzen) on purpose once we try to find a link towards the first elves or STH like that. Leave the Trolls out of this expansion at least. Full scale. Blizzard is not capable of giving them a good anything.
