The tangle of bridges is a loose and evershifting thing, a burgeoning society built from emergent intellect and ancient ancestral claims, all developing just underfoot. Trolls have always staked out their territories, vying for the best hunting grounds or hollows under the most traveled pathways. Over time these territories have become a network of lairs, communities, and markets, and the routes between them, collectively known as the Underbridge. These underground borders have little correlation to the countries and roadways above them beyond the prevalence of travelers, attentiveness of guards, and sturdiness of architecture.

Like any environment, some sections of the Underbridge are well-traveled and well-maintained, while others are difficult or impossible to traverse, due to structural damage or the presence of monsters or hostile locals. Additionally, there is rarely an efficient route from one above-ground settlement to another (and no guarantee that tunnels even exist under a given settlement), due to a given Underbridge community’s unique priorities and engineering abilities, as well as the area’s geographic and livingdangers. Overall, however, the tangle is a unique resource for anyone attempting to move covertly or to acquire anything illicit. It is trollkind’s relentless hunger that drives this trade, and great quantities of wealth, baubles, and especially food of all kinds flow below the streets—subject to tolls paid to the trolls in question, of course.

In addition to trolls and their kin, many runaways, vagabonds, and other outcasts find themselves living underbridge, often rubbing shoulders with smugglers in the dangerous but lucrative employ of ravenous troll patrons. Children are often raised communally and put to work early in life, running messages and packages below ground and serving as lookouts for collection parties above.

For those that grow up in this underground network, the world above is a dangerous place to be ventured into cautiously and only out of necessity. Like the sea to a sailor, or a forest to a hunter, the cities are where the sustenance and prosperity are drawn from before returning to the safety of home below.
 

Characters raised in the Underbridge culture share a variety of traits in common with one another.

A Nose for Vice. Growing up underbridge has made you familiar with illicit activity. You gain an expertise die on Investigation checks to locate or gather information about black markets and similar locations.

An Ear for Gossip. Your childhood spent in the Underbridge’s markets has given you a knack for gathering and spreading rumors. You gain an expertise die to all checks to perform the Gossip journey activity.

Underbridge Skills. You are proficient in two of the following skills: Engineering, Insight, Nature, Stealth, Survival.

Underoute Native. You gain an expertise die on checks to navigate while underground, which increases to 1d6 while you are in the Underbridge. Additionally, while you are in an urban environment (including, but not limited to, sewers, cemeteries, settlements, or ruins) or a bridge, you can ask the Narrator if the Underbridge reaches to this area. If it does, you are always able to locate a safe, hidden location to use as a haven —though it may already have occupants.

Languages. You can speak, read, write, and sign Common, Giant, and one other language.

Trollkin Traits

Characters with the trollkin heritage share a variety of traits in common with one another.

Age. As trollkin are constantly regenerating, they show few outward signs of aging besides the length of their horns. These start as mere nubs in childhood and progress into great curling crowns with age. Due to the nature of their regeneration and the resulting malignant mutations, a battle-hardened trollkin may live only 40 to 50 years, while a pacifistic one may live for multiple centuries.

Size. The endlessly mutable trollkin vary wildly, ranging from 3 to 7 feet tall and running the gamut between muscular and stocky to thin and lanky, and they weigh between 75 and 300 pounds. Your size is your choice of Small or Medium.

Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Darkvision. You have superior vision in dark and dim conditions . You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray

Claws. You grow retractable claws from the tips of your fingers. Extending or retracting the claws requires no action. The claws are natural weapons, which you can use to make unarmed strikes that deal slashing damage equal to 1d4 + your Strength modifier.

Mutable Resilience. When you are injured, your trollish flesh can become more resilient to the threat. Whenever you take energy damage (except for fire or acid) you can use your reaction to gain resistance to that energy type. This resistance persists until you use this feature again to change it. Once you have used this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency modifer, you must finish a long rest before you can use it again.

Ravenous Metabolism. You have some of a troll’s ever-present hunger. You require 2 Supply to sustain yourself for a day and suffer 2 levels of fatigue instead of one when you fail to do so. If you have a feature that lessens your need for Supply, such as Eat Like a Bird, its effects are halved.

Divergent Trolls

Your setting may have even more mutable and divergent trollkin capable of extreme adaptation in response to injury and threat. The following heritage feature is an alternative option that can be included at the Narrator’s discretion and directly replaces the Mutable Resilience feature.

Reactive Mutation. When you take damage or are forced to make a saving throw by a hostile creature, you can use your reaction to manifest a reactive mutation. Consult the following table for damage sources and their effects. These effects persist until you have finished a long rest . Once you have used this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.

Trollkin Gifts

Trollkin inherit traits from their widely varied trollish ancestors, who themselves absorbed them through generations of feasting upon specific creatures.

Ancient Strain

Some trollkin are not of a specialized lineage, making their mutations more diverse. You have the following traits:

Continual Mutation. Your form shifts as you rest, granting a bonus to certain skills. This is represented by a physical change in your form. For example, an extra arm may grant a bonus to Athletics, your skin may shift colors to grant a bonus to Stealth, or another eye could give you a bonus on Perception. Whenever you finish a long rest, roll 1d4. 1—Acrobatics, 2—Athletics, 3—Perception, 4—Stealth. Until you finish your next long rest, you gain an expertise die on checks with the rolled skill. These mutations do not grant you any additional attacks or actions.

Fixed Mutation. Choose one of the effects from the Reactive Mutations table (see Divergent Trolls). You gain the chosen mutation permanently. If you have the Reactive Mutation feature, you can’t activate it to gain your chosen mutation a second time

Cavekin

Trollkin whose ancestors hunted in caves move easily in lightless places. You have the following traits:

Advanced Darkvision. The range of your darkvision increases to 120 feet. If you didn’t have darkvision already, you gain darkvision to a range of 60 feet.

Altered Resilience. Your Mutable Resilience feature can grant you resistance to fire and acid, but not to radiant damage.

Cave Hunter. You have an expertise die on Perception checks that rely on hearing or smell, as well an an expertise die to all Stealth checks made amidst natural rock.

Craggy Hide. While you aren’t wearing armor, you AC equals 12 + your Constitution modifier. You can use a shield and still gain this benefit.

Faerie-Formed

Descended from trolls that feasted primarily on fey, these trollkin have the wild coloration and unpredictable magical nature one would expect from the Dreaming. You have the following traits:

Fey Traits. You gain an expertise die on saving throws against being charmed , and magic can’t put you to sleep. In addition, instead of being humanoid, you have the fey creature type.

Eldritch Belch. Your stomach is an arcane cauldron of digestion, allowing you a guttural belch of nauseating strength. As a bonus action, you can emit this belch in a 15-foot cone. Each creature in the affected area makes a Constitution saving throw . The DC for this saving throw equals 8 + your Constitution modifier + your proficiency bonus. On a failure, a creature is poisoned until the end of your next turn. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Constitution modifier (minimum 1), and regain all expended uses after a long rest.

Scragkin

Surviving in the oceans, rivers, bogs or marshes, the scragkin have inherited fishlike fins and scales. You have the following traits:

Aquatic Adaptation. You have a swimming speed of 30 feet and can breathe air and water.

Murk Lurker. You are perfectly adapted to stalking aquatic prey. You gain an expertise die to Stealth checks made in or under the water. In addition, your claws instead deal damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier.

Slippery Skin. Your skin is coated in a fine layer of mucous, making you difficult to hold onto. You gain an expertise die on saving throws to avoid being grappled and on checks to escape a grapple.

Trollkin Paragon

When you reach 10th level, you become an exemplar of your people, and you gain the following paragon gift.

Faerie Eater's Resistance

Fey-consuming troll ancestors somewhere in your line have given you an edge against magic. Choose one of the following saving throws: Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution. You gain an expertise die when using the chosen saving throw to resist magic.

Instantaneous Mutation

Your ability to change your form becomes truly astounding. You are able to cast alter self a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus between each long rest. You can cast this spell without components, and your spellcasting ability for this spell is Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma (whichever is highest).

Render

You have developed some of the terrifying, snatching claws of your troll forebears. During your turn, your reach with melee weapons, increases by 5 feet. Your claws now deal slashing damage equal to 1d8 + your Strength modifier and they count as magical for the purposes of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage. Additionally, when you hit a creature your size or smaller with your claws, you can choose to grapple that creature as part of the attack.

Trollkin Culture

Given the many potential forms of trollkin, they are found in an equal variety of circumstances. While some are given to be loners that leave their small family group to fiercely guard their chosen territory—such as a bridge, swamp, or mountain pass—part of the development from troll to trollkin has been an increasing tendency towards communal living. So, too, has been an inclination to live in secret, as many are keenly aware that many other peoples see them as too trollish to trust, while their giant kin see them as inferiors at best and an interesting meal at worst. This has lead to close-knit family groups with communal child-rearing, whether they travel in merchant caravans or form permanent settlements in sewers or cave systems. However, more urban trollkin can also be found above ground in all sorts of walks of life, especially in particularly cosmopolitan cities or notably accepting settlements.

As a heritage standing between two worlds, trollkin find themselves most at ease with folk in similar circumstances— motleys , planetouched , and heritages resembling beasts, such as the madrai , birdfolk , oxfolk , spiderfolk , and the like are all likely to find a warm welcome from trollkin. They also welcome those that so-called conventional society has rejected, and more than one street urchin or beggar, regardless of heritage, has been saved from starvation or cold by the trollkin beneath the city.

Suggested Cultures

While you can choose any culture for your trollkin, the caravanner , forgotten folx , itinerant , and lone wanderer cultures, as well as the new Underbridge culture, are all closely linked with this heritage.

You ran a small shop, market stall, or similar business, buying from suppliers and selling on to others. You navigate markets and interactions, working to bring people closer together with what they need, or at least what they want.

Why did you step out from behind the shop counter? Is the business still going? Who tends to it while you’re away?

Ability Score Increases: +1 to Charisma and one other ability score.

Skill Proficiencies: Insight and one other of your choice

Tool Proficiencies: One of your choice

Suggested Equipment (Cost 9 gold): common clothes, abacus, merchant’s scale, common clothes.

Feature: Let's Make a Deal. You gain an expertise die on ability checks made to barter, sell, or trade for goods.

Adventures and Advancement. Once you have found a way to effectively ply your trade while being an adventurer and gained a degree of prestige, you can choose to join a guild or do your own business. If you join a guild, you gain the Guild Business feature from the Guildmember background. If you continue on your own, you have an ongoing business that provides you with a poor or modest lifestyle, depending on how good business is. At the Narrator’s discretion, this business may eventually take the form of a shop-type Freelinking: Node title stronghold does not exist .

Connection and Memento. Roll 1d10, choose, or make up your own.

Shopkeeper Connections

1. Your best customer who you always looked forward to seeing.
2. One of your longest-standing workers.
3. The neighbor of your shop or stall in the market.
4. One of your suppliers who always treated you especially well.
5. A guild master who denied your application to join.
6. A local politician who you traded favors with under the table.
7. A particularly adroit rumormonger, always eager for gossip.
8. The mentor you took over the shop from.
9. The local eccentric you relied on for appraising odd finds.
10. The disreputable landlord who evicted you on false pretenses.

Shopkeeper Mementos

1. A small dog you used to guard your stand with its strident barking.
2. The piece of cheap jewelry you accepted in lieu of payment from the parent of a sick child.
3. A journal recording all the best finds that passed through your shop.
4. A reference book for the product your business specialized in.
5. A pipe that you would appreciate during long days.
6. An intricate puzzle box you would hold precious finds in.
7. A false purse filled with caltrops, to ward off pickpockets.
8. A set of fine cloth gloves for handling delicate materials.
9. The first coin you earned in your business.
10. An antique that you paid a pretty penny for, but cannot recall why.