It is typical for rock pokemon to spend most of their amazingly long lives virtually inert, tripped over by travelers and mistaken for rocks as they rest the days away. Rolycoly are an exception – both in the enthusiasm with which they barrel across caverns and mines, and in the fact that, should they not quickly gain the strength to evolve, they can burn out their life force as quickly as bug pokemon.

Rolycoly may be short-lived, but it is a brilliant existence, oblivious to the fact that they use their own life force for fuel. While other species, faced with such a problem, might have become ambush predators or sought out trainers to better rest (inside pokeballs) between matches, Rolycoly seldom stop moving, even when alone in a vacant mine. It is worth noting that, as a species born in the wild from spontaneous generation and not eggs, selective pressure has not blunted its energy. Prospectors have learned to watch for Rolycoly, for one roaming around the general vicinity is often the first sign of a coal deposit. Trainers going through caves they are known to inhabit must carefully watch to avoid tripping over one, for Rolycoly roll down walls like platform game antagonists without a care in the world.

Interestingly, it appears to have been from its pokemon form that people first realized they had something special in coal. Geologists, aware of the parallels between other rock pokemon and their mineral counterparts, experimented with burning coal like Rolycoly do. These experiments made the industrial revolution possible, for coal burns with an efficiency of which fire pokemon can only dream. But environmentalists and futurists have also seized upon Rolycoly as a metaphor, fearing that, should modern society not evolve beyond greenhouse gases, it, too, will burn away its life.