Goblins
“Alright,” She announced to her two little apprentices, neither of which had yet to earn a name, who each stood on either side of a black, plastic crate, “I don’t think they can follow us in here, but just in case, does everyone have their droxie?”
Both the boy and the girl produced a small glass jar with holes poked in the top of the lid. Inside, reclined tiny green sprites on tiny, hand crafted beds and playing with little handmade toys. Jostled from their stations, the little pixies began making soft siren noises until the children gently shushed them.
“Here’s the plan.” Winx explained, cracking open the crate and doleing a third of its contents into the boy’s backpack, then another third into the girl’s, “The warren splits twice coming up. I’m going to keep going on the straight away.” She pointed to the girl, “You’re taking the first branch.” Then the boy, “You’re taking the second branch.”
Pulling out her own droxie jar Winx nudged the little thing into the air. The boy and the girl did the same. ‘We move as fast as we can and we meet back up at the Bent Tree Burrow.” She instructed, loading the last third of the goods into her pack and swinging it back over her shoulder. “Use the droxie to avoid any traps you don’t remember, okay?”
Both children nodded, fear and determination on their tiny faces.
“We’ve got this.” Winx grinned her biggest, most infectious grin. It seemed to work. “Now, go. Go! Go! Go!”
An hour and a half later, Winx was sitting on a table, drinking beer from a can when the boy and girl finally arrived at the Bent Tree Burrow. Exhausted, they both bent over double, struggling to catch their breath.
“The running part gets easier.” Winx announced with a chuckle as a few dozen other goblins and even a few hobs gathered round. “I’ll bet those heavy packs didn’t help any. Why don’t you dump them out and show everyone what you brought home?”
Both children did as they were told, releasing a torrent of side arms onto the hard packed earth of the burrow floor. Applause immediately erupted from the crowd as Winx stood up, gesturing for the kids to join her atop the table.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” She shouted over the crowd “Allow me to introduce our two newest clanmates!”
Placing a hand on the boy’s head and ruffling his hair, she called out “Click-Clack!”
Turning her attention to the girl, and tweaking the edge of her ear, “And Trigger!”
The crowd immediately burst into chant, “Click-Clack! Trig-ger! Click-Clack! Trig-ger!”
For their part, Click-Clack and Trigger just stared, grinning ear from ear as the crowd chanted their names. Their names! They finally had names!
Winx threw up her hand, shouting over the crowd, “Now somebody get these goblins a godsdamned drink already!”
Goblins thrive on chaos. They read it like a second language and can manipulate it like a maestro with an orchestra. Because of this, goblin plans tend to seem suicidal to the uninitiated and goblin behavior borderline insane. But, if you spend enough time with an individual goblin, let alone a coterie of them, it is possible to begin to grasp goblin logic - and why the damn thing always seems to work out their way.
Clan Before All
To a goblin, nothing is more important than the ties to their clan - even their own lives. This is actually where the outdated thinking of goblins as greedy monsters who would attack adventurers, rob farmsteads, and steal livestock came from. It’s all true, of course. They absolutely did all those things. But only because it was the only way for the clan to survive in a world that thought them monsters.Thanks to the efforts of one (formerly) plucky bard and an edict from a God-King, goblins are considered fully fledged people and can even earn citizenship within the kingdom of Ruelle. This has allowed them to take legitimate jobs and learn legitimate trades and the benefits to their clans have been enormous.
People still blame goblins when things go missing - even a God-King can’t erase millennia of prejudice - but the fact remains that most goblins in most parts of Ruelle are perfectly upstanding, if rather eccentric and perhaps overly excitable, citizens.
Then again, Paradise isn’t like most parts of Ruelle and the goblins are still prepared to do whatever it takes to ensure the safety and prosperity of their clans - and there aren’t enough jobs on the Square to support the clan on their own.
“Goblin” is a Loose Concept
Goblins are notorious for adopting into the clan other individuals who anyone else would most decidedly not understand as a goblin. Gnomes, dwarves, halflings - even a few particularly legendary humans. Well, legendary to the goblins, at any rate.The trick seems to be providing for the clan. Do it well enough once, and you’re a friend of the clan. Keep doing it, and the goblins are likely to claim you as their own. After all, you wouldn’t keep contributing to the clan if you didn’t want to be a part of it, now would you? Or, so the goblin logic goes.
Goblin Traits
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1.Age. Goblins reach adulthood at age 8 and live about 60 years.
Alignment. Most goblins are chaotic good - they will do anything to help their clan, even if that clan is a pack of adventurers stabbing pale elves to loot the Hollows.
Size. Goblins are between 3 and 4 feet tall and weigh between thirty and fifty pounds. Your size is Small.
Darkvision. You can see in dimly lit conditions within 60ft as if it were bright light and darkness, even magical darkness, as if it were low light. You cannot discern colors in darkness, only shades of gray.
Fury of the Small. When you damage a creature with an attack or spell and that creature’s size is larger than yours, you can cause that spell or attack to deal extra damage to the creature. The extra damage equals 1d6 for each level of your proficiency bonus. Once you use this trait, you cannot use it again until you have completed a short or long rest.
Nimble Escape. You can take the Disengage or Hide actions as a bonus action on each of your turns.
Tunnel Sense. You are so used to living underground in burrows and traveling warrens that you cannot get lost while underground. You can always find your way back to a place you’ve been before.
Goblin Ingenuity. You gain a feat.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write both Goblin and one other language from the following: Durasian, Vennican, Siegenthalen, Ruellen.
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