Common Legends and Lore: Kraszkarr
by Sir Rezaldo Perelli, Master of the Adventurers Guild
Year - 750
“Thank you for reading, brave adventurers, this issue I bring you a special entry, with a format new to us both. While traveling from Lentaine to Mansguard I came upon an interesting discovery. A hobgoblin captain was captured alive just outside Potato Pass, which was relayed to me upon my arrival to the infamous gate keep.
I pressed my fame and fortune for an opportunity to speak with the captive, for I speak the goblinoid tongue. A vital skill in Pyrennia! I was brought to his cell, and seeing how he was chained and harmless in his current state, I motioned to be allowed into the room with him. I made an agreement with the hobgoblin and the guardians. If I can glean some information from him regarding his homeland, and he cooperated with my questioning, he would be spared being put to death. He willingly chose to take the deal.
What follows is my interview with Skar’chak’thur of The Bladeback Warband:
Me: “Hello, I am glad to be speaking to a hobgoblin of your rank, Mr. Skar’chak’thur. I only have some questions about where you come from, and where you were going so far from home.”
Skar: “And I get to go?”
Me: “Correct, sans weapons and supplies, of course. It is a rare deal, Mr. Skar’chak’thur.”
Skar: “Don’t speak my name. About Kraszkarr, what do you need to know?”
Me: “What is it like? We have very little image of your lands, I am amongst the most travelled of all and even I only have heard rumors.”
Skar: “Mmmmhhh...In the shadow of great smoke towers, and snug against the sea. It is where the encampments set up and fight the wars. No thing grows, we take food from spoils of war and steal herds. The soil is gray in most spots, green is rare so we pay no mind. Beasts of shadow and smoke roam at night around the camps, picking off the weak. No other race lives in Kraszkarr, it is only the hobgoblins who have the might to tame it.”
Me: “Fascinating, sounds hellish. About the other hobgoblins, how does your society work? Do you have a king? Spiritual leader? War captain?”
Skar: “I will only say what I can. Hobgoblin army is huge, all of us take a part. Each family is in a clan, each clan in a legion, each legion fights the wars, always. There is never peace, we always fight for more food and slaves. We build castles that fall, camps of millions that move with the front. At the top is the our leader, and I do not speak his name. I have not earned the privilege.”
Me: “So it is a regimented, fully mobilized militia force?”
Skar: “Yes. Next question.”
Me: “Who do you fight?”
Skar: “The old ones and their great ships. The pink skin behemoths of the tundra. The short ones and their toys. And you.”
Me: “Why us?”
Skar: “You dare ask why? You took our ancestral home, you slaughter our cousins and kill us on sight. Of all enemies it is you we enjoy warring with the least. There could have been peace but your fathers killed my fathers.”
Me: “Is that where you were going? To the other goblinoids in the confederacy? Are there more of you making that trip? Why? What’s going on? You aren’t the first hobgoblin caught doing this.”
Skar: “That I will not answer.”
Me: “It’s the most important question here, all the other stuff, thats for me, but you need to give us some straight answers if you want to live.”
Skar: “Then end it, I fight for Kraszkarr and The Bladeback Warband! I will not sell my people out. Try to kill me, you pink flabby devils!
He was promptly killed by the nearby guardians and displayed on the ramparts at Potato Pass. Several more hobgoblin reports came later that week in Mansguard. I do not know what the Hobgoblins are doing, but I swear to one day walk the gray battlefields of Kraszkarr and see that land for myself.”
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