The difference between Trolls, Ogres, Orcs and Goblins?

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**MechaEmperor7000**

So one thing that always bugged me was the differences between these four things. I did some research and, as it turns out, Ogres and Trolls essentially mean the same thing depending on where you're from while Orcs was largely a Tolkien invention (or at least most of what we know as an Orc came from him and anything before has largely been lost to time) being more or less similar while Goblins are usually lumped in as "Orcs or trolls, but smaller and wusser". And while they usually have differentiating traits when they do all appear in the same work, which traits goes to whom seem to differ wildly across works of fiction. Like sometimes Trolls are huge and fat, other times they're lean and tall. Sometimes they're short and lean, and can range anywhere from "just taller than Orcs" to "about the median between a human and a Goblin". Ogres vary just as much, with the only common themes being "larger than most bipeds except for giants" and "dumber than Orcs or Trolls". Not even skin color is consistent since even Orcs, which are usually nicknamed greenskins, have appeared as brown, red, and everything in between (and then there's the type of creature they are since there have been reptilian trolls, mammalian trolls, and all sorts in between).

This is in contrast to some other mythological creatures and races, such as Elves (universally magical, long ears, long lived and graceful, even santa's elves), Dwarves (stout, strong, beards, tinker a lot and have a strong tradition), Vampires (bloodsucking undead with magical powers), Zombies (just plain undead and mindless), Dragons (powerful reptilians with breath weapons and often magical) and so forth. Hell I think Dragons make the perfect contrast as the different types are usually clearly defined even across media (Wyverns being dragons without forelimbs usually, unless the dragons are defined as such like in Skyrim, Wyrms being Dragons without limbs, and Chinese Dragons being serpentine with no wings and divine). Even in exceptions they're usually at least identify as being related to Dragons in one way or another.

So what are your thoughts about these? I feel like I'm missing something here since the four generally are lumped into "evil/primitive counterparts to humans" in media and I'd like a little more insight, especially since I like writing fantasy stories and getting some guidelines would be nice for narrative purposes. I'm specifically talking about both folklore and modern media.

(Mods, if this is the incorrect forum, I apologize and ask for it to be moved to the correct one, but I feel like it should go into geek media since this is more about their popular depictions).

**LordofHats**

They're all more or less iterations of the rather varied and diverse European folklore surrounding fairies (also known in hoitytoity literary circles as "fairy lore"). Modern fantasy has mostly bastardized the diversity and complexity of this mythology, while reducing the word "fairy" to flowery cuteness when in the actual folklore fairies are more often than not insanely metal and you do not want to feth with them. Elves are also part of this lore background.

A not so brief brief rundown;

Spoiler:

Elves are Germanic/Nordic, spread to England and Scottland following the Saxons. Associated with causing sickness in people in live stock, and gradually conflated with demons/evil spirits by increasingly Christian Europe. Some places associated Elves though a ambivalent to humanity, and might help or screw you over depending on their demeanor and mood at the time.

Goblins evolved from the Germanic Kobold. The Gnome is a later Renaissance creation based on the same mythology. While very similar to Dwarves and Leprechauns the Goblin/Kobold differ markedly in depiction and really the only thing in common among the three is that they're greedy little gaks. Similarly related creatures are hobgoblins, boggarts, the Scottish brownies, and the much later gremlin. Kobolds were generally not particularly harmful unless you pissed them off. The House Elves of Harry Potter are derived from the legends of Kobolds as house hold spirits who help you out in exchange for leftovers. Goblins by extension abandoned most of the positive aspects of the kobold, leaving only the temperamental personality and greed.

Dwarves are Nordic, and you can read much about their history in the Poetic and Prose Edda. These two sources give them different backgrounds, depicting them either as children of Brimir (a giant) or as maggots that emerged from the rotting flesh of of Ymir (who might be the same giant... maybe). Note that dwarves in Nordic legend were not stout shorties, but were a variation of elf, namely black elves. The Svartalfar were a particular tribe of "black elf" mentioned in the Prose Edda. Dark elves/Drow are modern fantasy interpretations of these beings, while what we commonly think of as Dwarves is much closer in depiction to renaissance gnomes than the dwarves of nordic myth.

Ogres are monsters derived from much older legends about Orcus, a monster of unclear origin (some thing he's a pre-Roman monster, some think he's Germanic, others think he was originally Greek). Orcus was a monster who ate human flesh and Beowulf's Grendel is a related monster. The word "ogre" itself is pretty new being coined by some author I can't remember in the 18th century or something but it's all basically a long series of folk lore about grotesque man eating monsters that like living in caves. Orcs ultimately derive from this same conception but orcs are almost completely a modern invention whose existence is really owed to Tolkien. Tolkien initially derived Orcs directly from Grendal, you may notice that in LotR that Orcs like eating "man flesh".

Trolls these days are often conflated a lot with ogres but the original trolls are of Nordic origin and... well they're a lot like Ogres really XD. Fond on caves, grotesque may or may not like human flesh. They're kind of mountain spirits/monsters who don't really go out of their way to hurt people but will if people cause them any problems. Trolls make a brief appearance in the Prose Edda, where they're not really described that much outside of not liking sunlight and that they were descended from the Jotun (more giants).

Elves are very... confusing. The word itself is Germanic, but the idea seems to have originated further north. In contrast to the dwarves who were black elves, the elves were "white beings." The Elves are associated with the norse gods, as the nodric word for elf is a root for the word "Aesir" but the Eddas while frequently mentioning elves don't describe them very much. Their depiction is more common in the Icelandic Sagas where they're depiction is as otherworldly and supernatural spirits. It's not clear how Elves and Fairies are related. Some people think the later came first and inspired the former, some thing its the other way around. Either way, for western Europe in particular old Celtic legends of spirits and Nordic/Germanic Elves became very closely linked and conflated ideas for much of Europe inspiring the likes of A Midsummer Night's Dream,

Zombies are actually interesting, because the folklore surrounding the living dead in European history is extremely varied and rich, but almost never resembling the modern idea of a shambling mindless corpse hungry for flesh. Most of the time the living dead want blood and these myths formed the basis for the modern vampire myth (and the modern werewolf is very closely related in terms of how it came about). Look of draugr, revenant, ghouls, and wrights as related concepts.

The whole thing with dragons is also very modern really. Old timey Europeans didn't classify monsters in that way, and the way we think of drakes, wyverns, dragons etc etc is mostly derived from Dungeons and Dragons and other works of modern fantasy.

Aaaaaand done. At the end of the day the first thing you need realize about most of these things is that the categorical classifications of monster are very modern. In the past before the Renaissance and Enlightenment period these things were very fluid, blended and mixed together all over the place, and often meant slightly different things to different cultures. The mass spread of literature and literacy in the past few hundred years has kind of brought "popular notions" into play when before these things all would have spread orally and by word of mouth resulting in a hell of a lot of variety. EDIT: Oh, and none of these things are necessarily evil in folklore save the living dead (who will feth you up) and ogres (who will feth you up then eat you). Fairies, elves, and dwarves could be good or bad, but it mostly depends on the being in question. Mostly they were simply beings who existed a world apart from humanity, and possessed supernatural ability that meant you really didn't want to offend them lest you incur their wrath. These days they tend to fall cleanly in good and evil categories but that's not really how the folklore developed. It's mostly a byproduct of modern fiction.

This is partially why Tolkein wasn't particularly concerned with getting the depiction of any of this stuff exactly "right" to begin with. As a man well versed in the folklore and myth of Europe he knew very well that all of these ideas were abstract. It's kind of an irony that he ended up cemented the modern depictions of elves, dwarves, orcs, and many other mythical creatures for future generations.

**Voss**

Look of draugr, revenant, ghouls, and wrights as related concepts.

Wights. But yeah. Also liches, which comes from either old English or Anglo-Saxon for corpse, sometimes actually means un-dead in a similar fashion, but not the super-spellcaster that D&D or Warhammer ran with.

Trolls and Ogres are pretty distinct to me- ogres being a much later thing, and mostly big stupid brutes, while norse trolls have a pretty big range, both in size (down to smaller than humans), but often intelligent, not always ugly and sometimes relatively nice, even to the point of intermarrying with humans. Sometimes they have more of a Rumpelstiltskin vibe, where they'll do magical favors for a price.

Zombies are weird, because they're relatively recent and unrelated to body of folklore most fantasy novels draw from. Traditionally, zombies are drugged, not dead. But the shambling corpse has all but overtaken that, thanks to movies.

MechaEmperor7000 wrote:This is in contrast to some other mythological creatures and races, such as Elves (universally magical, long ears, long lived and graceful, even santa's elves), Dwarves (stout, strong, beards, tinker a lot and have a strong tradition), Vampires (bloodsucking undead with magical powers), Zombies (just plain undead and mindless), Dragons (powerful reptilians with breath weapons and often magical) and so forth. Hell I think Dragons make the perfect contrast as the different types are usually clearly defined even across media (Wyverns being dragons without forelimbs usually, unless the dragons are defined as such like in Skyrim, Wyrms being Dragons without limbs, and Chinese Dragons being serpentine with no wings and divine). Even in exceptions they're usually at least identify as being related to Dragons in one way or another.

Eh. Most of this isn't really correct. The elf dwarf thing certainly not (as LordofHats says, these blend in the Nordic myths), and the magical with pointy ears isn't a consistent thing.

Vampires are weird. There are myths of dead blooddrinkers from all around the world, but they're wildly different in details, with different appearances, abilities and behaviors depending on what/where you're talking about. They're diverse to the point of being unique in places.

Dragons aren't nearly as consistent or well-defined as you think. The classic film Dragonslayer happily used a dragon with wings for forelimbs as the creature. Breath weapons are sometimes a thing, but not always (and rarer outside D&D and anything but fire even rarer). The 'classic' dragon (of St. George the Dragonslayer) is actually typically rendered as a wingless lizard a bit smaller than a horse.

Wyverns are a weird one, and traditionally may just be a regional term for dragon rather than something different. In modern media, Warcraft takes a page out of the big book of stupid and calls the Horde flying critter a wyvern (despite it looking exactly like a manticore and not at all like anything ever called wyvern)

Norse linnorms (often related to dragons) are wingless, generally (which makes Skyrim even more campy)

There is basically a huge bed of literature on all these things, and none are really straightforward, partly because as made up things, and oral traditions, very little can be said to be absolutely correct. But from a modern novel approach, people will likely expect a Tolkien or D&D version (though that is partially redundant when it comes to elves/dwarves/halflings/orcs) and the mythological versions are generally lost on them. For fairies they sadly expect Tinkerbell, though Seelie/Unseelie have some traction and Ogres often get stuffed in the latter if the concept is around, because people random assume that means Good/Evil.

Which is frankly a reason to cut someone's hamstrings and leave them out for the redcaps.

**Turnip Jedi**

Lord of Hats pretty much covers it, the same trope of monsters with names varying by region appear over and over, getting remixed down though time via oral retelling, so you get the large stompy thing (Orges, Trolls, Fomor), sneaky shifty things (goblins, kobolds, fairys), graveyard lurkers (vamps, ghouls, zombies), things from the depths (merfolk,Umibozu , kraken), their 'powers' are loosely defined and usually are whatever the story needs, I think modern RPG's have taken old words and assigned a set of skills to them so whilst an RPG Liche is a fairly particular being, half a dozen or more folklore monsters could be considered the same thing

**CthuluIsSpy**

According to wikipedia, Orcus was an old, obscure, and rural Italian / Roman god who punished oath breakers and ruled over his own realm. Basically the Roman devil and hell. i say obscure because apparently he wasn't really acknowledged in the major cities and was more of a rural thing, out in the country sides. Ironically, this actually meant that he survived for longer than the more wellknown gods, as it took longer for christianity to reach those parts, and managed to be incorporated into rural medieval traditions.
Orc is also a character from William Blake's mythology, who represents rebellion. He might have been inspired by the aforemention Roman hell.

Tolkien also wrote this in an letter -

Orc I derived from Anglo-Saxon, a word meaning demon, usually supposed to be derived from the Latin Orcus—Hell. But I doubt this, though the matter is too involved to set out here.

**Alpharius**

From a fantasy standpoint (common):

Goblin --> Orc --> Ogre --> Giant

Somewhat related and size based.

Trolls being an a thing onto themselves, or possibly related to giants.

I find my thoughts highly influenced by 1E AD&D too though!

**CthuluIsSpy**

Yeah, In terms of size, trolls tend to be a between ogres and orcs in most works of fiction. Sometimes they can be giant size though.
In most cases they have incredible regenerative abilities. Not sure if that's how they were in myth though. I think its a DnD thing.

**MechaEmperor7000**

The Dwarf origin genuinely took me by surprise, but then again they're the only ones I never really looked into. I guess Skyrim is technically the closest "correct" depiction in modern media?

As for the generalizations, I meant that it's how they're generally seen in modern media now, where the races/creatures have pretty clearly defined lines, whereas a Tolkien Troll looks not that much different than a WoW Ogre. I remember reading that, for terminology at least, Wyvern, Wyrm and Dragon were pretty much interchangeable depending on which region you're in if you're talking about folklore, mythology or historical records.

I was kinda hoping that old mythology actually had something more for them as, like you all said, most of what we know of them are pretty much cemented in what Tolkien and DnD has defined. However the Norse mythology depictions do interest me.

**Turnip Jedi**

if you are looking for some truly oddball folklore creatures check out Myths and Legends podcast, the monster of the week segment that wraps up each show has some real gems

**LordofHats**

MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
The Dwarf origin genuinely took me by surprise, but then again they're the only ones I never really looked into. I guess Skyrim is technically the closest "correct" depiction in modern media?

There's also the Jotun in Guild Wars, who despite their name are rather plainly inspired by Nordic myths concerning Trolls. Frankly so are the Norn.

I was kinda hoping that old mythology actually had something more for them as, like you all said, most of what we know of them are pretty much cemented in what Tolkien and DnD has defined. However the Norse mythology depictions do interest me.

If you want to write good fantasy, and not just repetitive fantasy I think you'll gain a lot from reading the classics. You can get big book collections (physical and ebook) of the Icelandic Sagas,and the Prose and Poetic Edda. These collections of stories forms a major basis for a lot of European folklore and myth. Read Grendel if you haven't already done so in school, and once you've done all that I highly suggest looking into the Irish Cycles (the Ulster and Fenian Cycles are the best ones in my opinion) which can also be found in big book collections of Irish mythology. Go further back even. Grab yourself a full read of everything we have on the Epic of Gilgamesh. Read Shakespear's the Tempest, and Midsummer Night's Dream. The man knew how to plot a narrative and derived a lot of inspiration for his work from the folk tales and myth of Medieval Europe. Tolkein's the Silmarillion is fairly modern, but it derives so much from older works that I think it belongs in this category.

Reading modern works is good too, but I think modern fantasy (especially popular fantasy) can teach new writers bad habits.

If you want to write you need to read. Something that I think modern fantasy has lost is the wonder of it all (and the corresponding terror of the unknown and unknowable). Modern fantasy is too codified, too full of people who know all the details of the world around them. People didn't have GPS for most of time. The world beyond our shores, mountains, and forests were strange and mysterious places they only ever heard about through word of mouth. One of the reasons many of these things are so weird is that no one was really writing it down and even when they did they were writing it for an audience who had a lot of assumptions we don't. Take for example the Dwarves. One of the Eddas says they come from Brimir, another from Ymir, but those names are related in Old Norse and no one is sure if the two Eddas disagree or are just using different names for the same being. The authors never specified, because presumably the audience for which the stories were originally written knew the answer and didn't need it to be explained to them.

Don't try to make everything neat and clean. It doesn't have to be. Drop hints. Reference past events and distant lands without dedicating an entire paragraph to detailing it. Leave some things a mystery, and your world building will benefit and the characters and the lives they live will be much more authentic.

**CthuluIsSpy**

HP Lovecraft apparently has a fairly fun quote that might be relevant - "never explain anything"

Its very unlikely that you'd know the creature in front of you is a goblin. The only thing you'd know is that its a monster and it wants to eat you.
People back then didn't really know; they were all folk tales about things that go bump in the night.

I really doubt that a viking would look at a troll and go "oh, its a troll" He'd probably go "I don't know what that is, but I do know I don't want it near me" Later on he might refer to it as a troll, but really, its a bit silly worrying about what to name something when its trying to eat your face.

**MechaEmperor7000**

I was born in China so I'm more well versed in eastern mythology, although most of it came from my dad so I'm unsure how much is genuine and how much is his rambling (however he IS very well read and studied chinese literature, folklore and history, so he's not exactly a novice either) but western mythology interests me more. I don't know, it seems more manly and straightforward whereas eastern ones tend to be...esoteric and weird.

Like one of the funnier weird ones I discussed was the Bone Demon, which is apparently a demon born from the bones of a dead person gaining enlightenment. My friend immediately asked how it gained enlightenment, if it is technically a zombie or undead (surprisingly no, as it turns out) and what happened to the soul of the original owner of the bones and what would happen if it was raised (something my dad was unable to answer).

**LordofHats**

MechaEmperor7000 wrote:

Like one of the funnier weird ones I discussed was the Bone Demon, which is apparently a demon born from the bones of a dead person gaining enlightenment. My friend immediately asked how it gained enlightenment, if it is technically a zombie or undead (surprisingly no, as it turns out) and what happened to the soul of the original owner of the bones and what would happen if it was raised (something my dad was unable to answer).

Ah yes, the legendary bone vampire;

One thing I will say, especially if someday being published is something you want, I think that marketing a fantasy universe that draws inspiration from Far Eastern myth and folklore might have an easier time standing out than another one based in Western traditions. We have hordes of the later, and the professional publishing industry can be quite cut throat for new authors. Standing out from the crowd in and of itself goes a long way. You could also do a blending of the two. Neither of those things are exactly common in fantasy literature right now (in the west anyway).

**CthuluIsSpy**

The Hopping Vampire is fun too.
Its just a zombie that's so affected by rigormortis it can only move by hopping. It also absorbs the qi of living organisms, usually humans.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

LordofHats wrote:
MechaEmperor7000 wrote:

One thing I will say, especially if someday being published is something you want, I think that marketing a fantasy universe that draws inspiration from Far Eastern myth and folklore might have an easier time standing out than another one based in Western traditions. We have hordes of the later, and the professional publishing industry can be quite cut throat for new authors. Standing out from the crowd in and of itself goes a long way. You could also do a blending of the two. Neither of those things are exactly common in fantasy literature right now (in the west anyway).

Yeah, that would be neat. Then again, you do see djinn a lot so its not as if its all western stuff.

**MechaEmperor7000**

Dad says the Jiangshi (hopping vampire) might have had a grain of truth to it, although not supernatural. The long short of it is that it was basically the old timey version of retrieving a dead body from far away. Some families, too poor to pay for transporting the entire corpse, instead just has the head brought back (which was deemed "close enough"). For whatever reason the courier would wear the head on top of his own head like a morbid hat while his own head is draped over or something. It's either to give the illusion that the entire body is walking back home or, more likely, the guy was afraid to let people know his identity as he's carrying a severed head.

Whatever the case, he'd awkwardly walk back to where the family that hired him lives, bringing the head the entire way. From a distance, it looked like a corpse awkwardly hopping along the road. According to my dad, it's best to leave them alone lest you get cursed.

Dad doesn't know if they actually did this (like how the Bloody Eagle is passed down in oral tradition, but no one knows if it was actually done or just told to scare people) but I wouldn't be surprised if they did.

The Bone demon I remember came from one version of Journey to the West, where it turned into a lady and tried to seduce Xuanzang. Weirdest. Boner. Ever.

**CthuluIsSpy**

MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
Dad says the Jiangshi (hopping vampire) might have had a grain of truth to it, although not supernatural. The long short of it is that it was basically the old timey version of retrieving a dead body from far away. Some families, too poor to pay for transporting the entire corpse, instead just has the head brought back (which was deemed "close enough"). For whatever reason the courier would wear the head on top of his own head like a morbid hat while his own head is draped over or something. It's either to give the illusion that the entire body is walking back home or, more likely, the guy was afraid to let people know his identity as he's carrying a severed head.

Whatever the case, he'd awkwardly walk back to where the family that hired him lives, bringing the head the entire way. From a distance, it looked like a corpse awkwardly hopping along the road. According to my dad, it's best to leave them alone lest you get cursed.

Dad doesn't know if they actually did this (like how the Bloody Eagle is passed down in oral tradition, but no one knows if it was actually done or just told to scare people) but I wouldn't be surprised if they did.

I really hope that's true, because that sounds hilarious.
Myths have odd origins like that. Apparently Mermaids were actually manatees that drunken (and possibly horny) sailors mistook for women, and the unicorn was a poorly described rhino.