The Troll-King

The vast frost-scarred dire troll that dens at the heart of the Frostmaw Brood — old enough to have broken a hold-gate before, and patient enough to wait for the next.

Trolls do not rule, but they gather around the one too big to challenge, and in the Northern Rampart that one is the Troll-King: a dire troll grown immense and white with frost on a diet of everything that climbs the passes. It remembers the last time a hold sent armed men up after it. They did not come back, and it has been waiting, with the bottomless patience of a thing that heals faster than you can hurt it, for the next ones who try. It is less a leader than a reason the only road north is walked in numbers or not at all.