Goblin
From Praemal
A race of vicious humanoids.
Contents |
Goblin basics
A goblin stands 3 to 3½ feet tall and weigh 40 to 45 pounds. Goblins are gray-skinned with wide oblong heads, bright red eyes, sharply pointed ears and have a mouth full of sharp spine-like teeth. They wear clothing of dark leather, tending toward drab, soiled-looking colors. A few goblins, such as Snig the Axe have different colors of skin or different eye colors. Goblins have wiry frames but wide heads, and live in cramped warrens. Sometimes too cramped.
Garbage pits, gutters, sewers: Anywhere there's garbage, you can bet goblins are nearby. They're often found in the sewers of Ptolus. They're weirdly adept at crafting weapons and armor from refuse, and are fond of killing people with what they throw away.
Goblins love to sing. Unfortunately, as catchy as their lyrics can be, goblin songs tend to be a bit too creepy and disturbing to catch on in mainstream society.
Given enough supplies, a goblin generally takes nearly a dozen meals a day. Most goblin tribes don't have enough supplies to accommodate such ravenous appetites, which is why the little menaces are so prone to going on raids.
Goblins believe paintings and writing steal your soul. The walls of goblin lairs and ruins of towns goblins have raided are littered with pictures of their enemies. They never draw pictures of goblins, though—that's mean. Writing steals words out of your head. You can't get them back.
Goblins at war
Being bullied by bigger, stronger creatures has taught goblins to exploit what few advantages they have: sheer numbers and malicious ingenuity. The concept of a fair fight is meaningless in their society. They favor ambushes, overwhelming odds, dirty tricks, and any other edge they can devise.
Goblins have a poor grasp of strategy and are cowardly by nature, tending to flee the field if a battle turns against them. With proper supervision, though, they can implement reasonably complex plans, and in such circumstances their numbers can be a deadly advantage.
The fact that goblins think of things like ovens as good hiding places reveals much about their inability to think plans through to the most likely outcome. That, and they tend to be easily distracted, particularly by shiny things and animals smaller than them that might make good eating.
An excited or angry goblin is a noisy, chattering, toothy menace, but even then, they can drop into an unsettling silence in a heartbeat. This, matched with their diminutive size, makes them unnervingly adept at hiding in places you'd never expect… stacks of firewood, rain barrels, under logs, under chicken coops, in ovens, etc.
Burning things is one of the great goblin pastimes, although they're generally pretty careful about lighting fires in their own lairs, especially since goblins tend to live in large tangled thistle patches and sleep in beds of dried leaves and grass. But give a goblin a torch and someone else's home and you've got trouble.
Dog Slicer
A savage weapon created from castoff bits of sharpened waste metal, goblins named these small swords after the act for which they're most commonly employed. Holes drilled in the blade make them easier to heft by enthusiastic but weak-armed murderers. Most dog slicers are size Small.
Goblin mounts
Goblins excel at riding animals, but they don't quite get horses. In fact, their hatred of all things horse is matched only by their fear of horses, who tend to step on goblins who get too close.
Although goblins raise horrible rat-faced doglike creatures to use as mounts (and goblins such as the Black Reavers ride wolves or worgs if they can get them — goblins are quick to explain that wolves are NOT dogs), their hatred of ordinary dogs nearly matches their hatred of horses. The feeling is mutual, so if your dog's barking at the woodpile for no reason, chances are good he smells a frightened goblin hiding in there somewhere.
Goblin Dog
While goblins ride worgs, wolves, and giant geckos when they can get them, most goblins are stuck with these disturbing mounts. Shaped like a limber greyhound but with a feral, ratlike face and tail, goblin dogs share their masters' hatred of real dogs. Their front two paws are tiny, black, ratlike hands, and their attitudes are all snarls and froth.
Giant Gecko
There are two breeds of giant gecko in Praemal. The first is the size of a small horse or pony, maybe 8 feet long from head to tail. His eyes are bright blue and his body brightly colored. His open mouth holds hundreds of fangs, and his feet have large flat toes.
The second breed is much larger and more muscular, running about 14 feet long from snout to tail tip. This gecko has horns and a ridge of spines running down its back. Its eyes are bright red, and green smoking drool drips from its mouth, indication of its venomous bite.
Goblin Snake
This strange snakelike monster is about 6 feet long and coiled around the roots of a tree that hang down from the roof of a cave. The snake has a black body with a thin racing stripe down its flank. Its back is a ridge of tiny horns. Its head is actually that of a goblin, but with a forked tongue and no ears. It has wide white snake eyes and a large mouth with two large viper fangs in the front. Some sages hold that goblin snakes are atrophied, deformed nagas, while most goblins believe that they're reincarnated heroes sent back to this world to punish goblin enemies.
