Trollocs

The Dark One's greatest need during the war was that of soldiers. Before the war, his scientists set about combining living human and animal genetic material to create the ultimate warrior, a warrior that was both powerful and fierce in battle, fast, hard to kill, and intelligent enough to fight well and take order too. They used naturally aggressive animals such as boars, bears,wolves, goats, wildcats, reams, and eagles in combination with human stock to produce this soldier. The resulting man-beasts, each with faces and characteristics of the particular animal form which he was crafted and these beasts were called Trollocs.

A Trollocs stands between eight and ten feet in height, with a body of an overly large and muscular man. They were stronger than either the human or animal parts of their heritage and almost as fast as a horse. Vicious by nature, they manifested plenty of ferocity, killing for no other reason than the sheer pleasure of killing and their size and strength made them extremely difficult to kill.

As the ultimate fighting machine the creatures were initially a failure. Trollocs simply did not have the crucial discipline, nor the ability to take orders, that would characterize an efficient soldier. Instead, they had the instincts and the drives of animals combined with the worst human characteristics and a very limited (by human standards) level of intelligence. They could perform only comparatively simple tasks and they had extremely deceitful and unstable personalities. As soldiers they were usually unable or unwilling to follow orders unless driven by fear. Even then, if the Trollocs were more afraid of the foe than their commanders that drove them, they often turned and ran, sometimes trampling or killing those commanders in the process.

A Trollocs lust for killing made it virtually impossible for their commanders to take live prisoners or to use the Trollocs in situations that required them to distinguish between friend and foe. It was easier to let the beast men run free, killing and often eating whomever they found, than to use them where any restraint or discrimination was required. Trollocs were omnivorous, but preferred meat: animal, human, or even another Trolloc... It did not matter to them what they were eating.

As said above, Trollocs were tall and their towering coarse-haired bulky forms loomed over any human. They had intelligent looking eyes that glared evilly out from faces that often bore horns or tusks, and bestial muzzles full of gnashing teeth, or snapping sharp beaks. Some even had the hind legs of the animal they resembled, with hooves or claws in place of feet, though almost all had humanlike hands with thick heavy nails... the better to carry their deadly weapons.

Shadowsworn researchers struggled to find a way to make use of the Trollocs' few assets. There had to be a way to motivate and to control these killing machines for the benefit of the Great Lord. Ironically it was the Trollocs themselves that would provide that solution. By way of their throwback offspring, they produced the Myrddraal.