Goblin

Goblins were a species of Mystical Creature that lived during the Mage Wars and presumably at earlier times. Though modern scholars find them enigmatic, most contemporary accounts refer to them as either terrifying or extremely annoying.

Physical Characteristics

Goblins come in many varieties of ugly. Much like Dragons, even goblins within a small familial unit can exhibit extreme differences in both size, physical proportions, and basic characteristics. Most goblins have large teeth and long noses, and all were said to have impressive senses of smell. Their sizes range from small dwarfish humanoids of less than three feet, to lumbering giants as high as twenty feet, all of whom co-exist within tribal structures (as well as any goblins can be said to co-exist; they are a highly quarrelsome species).

Personality and Mental Acuity

By all accounts, goblins are said to have been intelligent. Not overly so, but smart enough to possess language. By some accounts, they even had writing, mathematics, and even art and literature. The philosopher Viatark even wrote of a shining, beautiful goblin city that flourished in the Barrier Range: most likely Kuu-Allaa, though modern scholars agree that Viatark never actually went there.

The most widely-agreed upon trait, however, is a complete and utter lack of self-preservation. Goblins were often described as "fearless in battle" by those who fought them, with many accounts of how a small goblin force would make a frontal assault against a much larger and obviously superior army, and that the goblins seemed entirely unfazed by military losses. They seemed to have no concept of death, though surviving accounts indicate that they did. They simply didn't care.

History

Goblin history had no single culture or heritage. Goblins lived in clans and tribes that seemed to change in number every day with the uncertainty of a desert sandstorm. They were highly adaptable and could "live" in nearly any Earth-normal terrestrial environment, but their highly unpredictable nature makes any kind of historical survey very challenging.

They were wide-spread throughout the Greater Continent, with evidence of them having been found nearly everywhere. The longest-lived tribes were found in The Dragonlands, where they were kept as slaves and apparently did quite well. The oral history of the Phoenix Tavern Flight, on the Djr Archipelago, indicates that the goblins were well-liked, eager to serve their masters, and tasted excellent with the proper sauce. Ferrimeso, a dragon from Phoenix Tavern Flight, who spoke with historian Herbet Patric Galactis, explained some of her flight's history and answered "the goblin question" thusly: that goblins required "massive" populations in order to remain remotely stable. Ferrimeso postulated that, had the Mage Wars never begun, it is still likely goblin civilization would have ended as it did, because "They seem vehemently convinced that matchsticks soaked in gasoline are the finest building materials, and you cannot convince them otherwise. This sort of thinking applies to their entire mindset".

Kuu-Allaa

Of particular note is Kuu-Allaa (lit. "Shiny City"), a place which all historians agree did exist, but baffles all logic and understanding.

Festivals

Goblins celebrated many festivals, and Kuu-Allaa was the center of their social and spiritual world.

Tek'O Mahh

(Lit. "Ooo, shiny! HOT!") is the goblin's tri-annual fire festival. The celebration involves dancing, singing, group chants, and lighting anything flammable. The goblins consume copious amounts of "fire wine" (a beverage which, oddly, is non-alcoholic, but contains highly flammable acidic compounds), and at the center of the festival is Mahh-Mahh-Ray (Lit. "Hot! Hot! OW!"): a goblin who is set on fire and sent running through the streets. Officially, only one Mahh-Mahh-Ray is required, but every group of revelers traditionally elects its own, so that more goblins can share in the merriment. It is theorized that in Antiquity the festival only called for a single Mahh-Mahh-Ray, but as the goblin city grew in size and prosperity, the goblins could not agree on a single participant, and so allowed each group to ignite their own.

Kuu-O-NaN!

(Lit. "Shiny, Ooo, pretty!") Another festival celebrated a few times a year, centered around gold and other precious gems, which were ritually thrown into the air and consumed. This ceremony also involved a good deal of fire. Kuu-O-NaN is said to commemorate the founding of the city, and involved a game called "The Running of the Torches", in which teams of goblins carrying torches in each hand would run as quickly as possible through the Carenocarbide mines. The team with the most members won. Since space was limited and only goblin numbers counted, many of the more competitive teams would use as many children as possible.

Stories of Kuu-O-NaN are thought to be what prompted the attack by Weagal, who believed the city held great riches.

Decline and Fall

Ferrimeso referred to goblins as "a dead-end", speculating that given no outside intervention, they would still be doomed. It did not help, then, that various civilizations, from the Dynastic Period onward, tried to eliminate them. For empires such as the Marcon Alliance, this did not go well. Somehow, despite a massive military and magical advantage, and even owing to goblin kind's utter lack of self-preservation, Marconian losses were staggering. The same scenario played out nearly everywhere; a goblin won't fight to keep himself alive or to protect his children, but if anyone comes by looking to throw down, they'd better be ready for some bite wounds.

Ironically, the goblins in the more war-torn regions did better than those at peace, as Ferrimeso explains: "We were kind to the Goblins, we helped their lands be productive, and asked little of them besides tribute and to not raid human settlements. They still managed to die off with staggering frequency. Had The Dragonlands not fallen, I doubt our native goblins would have lived many more centuries".

By the end of the Dynastic Period, goblin tribes were rare. They frequently fought with Viverren and Sauro-Taru, occupying many of the same niches. While there was no concerted effort to destroy them, the goblins' war-like nature made them frequent targets, and, by the beginning of the Golden Age, goblins were all but extinct.

Though Eieber's men fought them, Eieber himself never saw one, and believed them to be a myth. An exact date for final extinction is unknown, but by the end of Eieber's life goblins were definitely extinct on the Agras and Lowland Hills regions. By the early Golden Age, Goblins were thought to be extinct everywhere.

Foundation Notes

The Gudersnipe Foundation likely never encountered living goblins. While they had armies active on the Greater Continent during the Second Chaotic Period, the regions they were fighting in were not known to then house goblins.

The later-formed Foundation sought to study them. The Foundation has stated that they have no directly preserved Goblin remains and has an open bounty on anyone who can find them. Numerous archeological expeditions led by the Foundation have helped them obtain many well-preserved skeletons and artifacts. Ultimately, representatives of the Foundation had this to say:

"Based on cranial capacity; we believe the typical goblin to have been capable of a high degree of inteligence, definitely as smart as humans, and clearly capable of problem solving and reason. As with any population, intelligence varied by individual; part of what makes goblins unique is the massive degree of variability. If we put this in terms of Intelligence Quotient, most humans fall within a very narrow range of about 90 to 110. While the exact range is different, the same is true for most animals and all recorded intelligent alien species. The numbers are always different, but for most life forms the vast majority of their population fits into a 20-30 point range.

"This is not true for goblins. While the smartest goblins easily held genius-levels by human standards, the entire population averages about 70, with no real range. Goblins could literally be anywhere from 1 to 250+ on intelligence, with 90% of the population spread nearly evenly throughout the 1-90 range, and about 10% clustered mostly at the low end of the 91-200s.

"This means that, within a single household, you could have one goblin as dumb as a dog, another as smart as a human, another highly intelligent, and a fourth practically brain-dead. However, what little is understood about goblin culture indicates that they did not differentiate between intelligence levels, all goblins were regarded as equal. Therefore, the dog-like goblin could be king if he were in the right place at the right time."

Foundation studies further indicate that, while goblins certainly had the capacity, they were utterly inept at passing on knowledge. Any great discoveries in science or mathematics likely died with their discoverers, which, statistically, meant they lasted less than thirty years. Short lifespan coupled with a lack of record-keeping led to cultural stagnation, and, eventually, the death of the goblin race.