I have this one - bought through Lulu for 7.95. Shipy can do a print version but I'm based in Asia, living out of a suitcase so pdf is the best way to go for me.
I don't know much about Tori's earlier work (never seen a copy of Sorcerer's Apprentice) but he writes well and his ideas are prolific. He does have a website with some tasters of what to expect in this book (and it's written with both 5.5e and 7e in mind).
Now, I've seen this book described as the "companion to the Keepers of Lingusia". I didn't get "Keepers" but that sounds like a massive 300 page volume on his campaign world setting - I think it's written mostly for Castles and Crusades which is an unknown to me. Troll's Companion might repeat a lot of detail already in Keepers, reworked for T&T but if anyone's got it let me know.
Anyway to the book... it's 84 pages it has a number of distinct sections:
1. New Character Types (27 pages)
There are loads - Tori's introduction to this part is a bit wishy-washy and apologetic - maybe you'll like 'em, maybe you won't - he knows this section will rub some people the wrong way and he's right. I did get a feeling like I was getting into some D&D book about "another" bunch of prestige classes and their "feats" (ack!).
But this is T&T and Tori also knows what that's about so he's kept his descriptions to a page each and they're all interesting reading. I can't say I like them all but there are more than a few here that I'll come back to. In my games I'll probably add these as new variations of Specialists. Several, like the Combat Mage, are already in 7e but Tori has given them all little extra twists. I'll give a special mention to the Priest type - this has been mentioned a couple of times on Trollbridge forums. I don't know if this is exactly the same one as was covered in his Sorcerer's Apprentice 'zine years back but here it is again with a batch of spells too.
To whet your appetite I guess it's ok to list the types - archetypes, Tori calls them:
Barbarian, Black Knight, Fighting Monk, Gladiator, Knight, Musketeer, Woodsman, Sword Saint, Assassin, Beast Master, Mesmerist, Scholar, Skald, Thief, Ascetic Mage, Battle Mage, Druid, Elementalist, Necromancer, Priest, Shaman, Eternal Champion, Legend, Templar
2. Combat Moves (7 pages)
I have to say this section is my favorite and one of the main reasons I got the book. I should mention that a lot of this I already saw on his website but I think these are updated and revised here, and all maneuvers have brief examples also.
Almost all of these ideas work well for the way I play (I call it solo GMing - my sessions involve large groups, and all the characters very expendable). I don't want to go over the details of the combat moves here but suffice to say I dropped some, tweaked some and added one or two of my own ideas - and my combat sequences have been made all the better for it. Do check his website and you'll get the gist of what you'll see in this section.
3. Hero Points (1 pages)
A short set of rules on giving characters second chances.
4. Priestly Magic (5 pages)
A bunch of spells (18 of them - levels 1 to 8) for the Priest type in Section 1.
5. Magic Weapons (6 pages)
A neat set of rules for randomly generating magical weapons, apart from the usual adds you might expect, the majority of this part is a collection special powers and curses. There are other random magic weapon tables I have access to but this one has good variety and it's the one I'm currently using in my games.
6. New Talents and Drawbacks (4 pages)
Basically this is just a list of ideas for talents (or skills) with a single sentence on each. As Ken didn't elaborate on talents in the 7e rulebook I'd guess everyone has thought about similar lists. Fine but ho hum, I already created my own list, and IMO talents simply don't add much play to a solo game anyway.
7. Bestiary (17 pages)
A bunch of new critters from Tori's Lingusia campaign (17 of them). All seem well written up with variable MR, attribute modifiers, special damage, special abilities, habitat, organization, treasure, and long descriptions of how the creature fits into the Lingusia campaign world. I'm not really a fan of monster manuals and I haven't used any of these but they are nicely done.
6. The Iron Keep (12 pages)
A GM scenario set in medieval times. I think this one is also out on his website as I'm sure I've seen it before. Haven't really had a chance to look closer at this but I notice it comes with four pre-generated characters.
So that's a summary of Troll's Companion
Need it?: Nope, like all supplements it's here to give you ideas.
Want it?: Well if you liked the 2007 House Rules you'll certainly like this (and less than eight bucks!)
Summary: Tori has enough ideas and the writing skills to fill a dozen Hobbit Holes. It's great to see someone other than Shipy publishing T&T material and even better to see this available at low pdf prices. I'd be happy to purchase any future T&T material that Tori comes out with.
While I'm here I should mention I also picked up issue #42 of the Sorcerer's Apprentice on Lulu ($4.95 I think). The bulk of the 53 pages in this magazine is for D&D which I'm not going to mention here (except to say there is a 4e scenario included). I'd say 80% of the material is written by Tori.
T&T Content
There's a 3 page review of T&T 7.5e - gets an A+
-, and a 10 page T&T article that gives a few more ideas on tweaking the various kindred. Descriptions of kindred seems to be something that Ken specifically left out of 7e rules to allow people to make their own interpretations. If you haven't thought about that already then Tori's got a few "short" ideas to bounce off you here. All my Leprechauns now have deep pockets, and my ogres are prone to random mood swings. I'd like to have seen a few more pages of this for the other kindred in the rules.
There's also six "new" kindred, or new creatures if you like, which are written up in quite a lot of detail. These do feel a little bit like a D&D Player's Handbook of race descriptions - just a little too chunky for my tastes. And, Batrachians and Chaos Creatures seem ok... but Amazons as kindred? Hmm.
Summary: For a $5 pdf I'd make this a regular purchase if he keeps up the T&T content. Tori is looking for submissions (on a wide range of different systems) so I'd hope to see a lot more T&T material published in this mag in the future.