The fungal Greenskins came to the lands that would be known as Khuresh eons ago, attached as spores on the space-faring silvered ships of the Old Ones. Bellicose to the extreme and tremendously prolific, the Greenskins proved such an indefatigable foe that even the Saurus armies at their prime could not wholly exterminate them. Tribes of primitive Savage Orcs and Forest Goblins now roam the northern reaches of the Hinterlands, warring between themselves, and against the Beastmen and the civilization of the serpent-Naga.
In Skon Basin dwells the largest population of Forest Goblins within Khuresh, sharing their arboreal and cavernous homes with the Earth Tiger, Great Khureshi Huntsman, and Gravid Orb Weaver Spiders. Just as in many other regions, the Goblins were preyed upon by gigantic arthropods that inhabited the forests and chasms of the peninsula when they first arrived. They turned to the worship of these monsters, their spider venom-drugged Shamans building totems and learning to tame and coerce the arachnids as mounts and pets. The isolation of Khuresh from other large mountain chains meant that the local Forest Goblins could not easily trade with the mountain-dwelling Night Goblin tribes for iron weapons, so their tools of wood, stone and bone remain primitive and of minor hazard to the Snake Men.
The earliest generation of the Forest Goblins had entered the primeval rainforests of Khuresh shortly after the Naga and Snake Men were abandoned by their creators. In the Goblins the Naga found a furtive species of thieving and spiteful yet cowardly beings, natural sneak-thieves and backstabbers. However, they observed that the little Greenskins possessed the aptitude and dexterity to construct more complex tools and contraptions that the larger Orcs lacked the wits or motivation to make. The Naga also saw that tribes of Orcs were able to bully the smaller Goblins into compliance, creating a labour force that built and maintained their devices and weapons of war. Seeking an inexhaustible supply of labourers, the Naga attempted to dominate the extremely numerous Goblins through similar displays of power and intimidation. The Greenskins proved poorly disciplined and frequently staged daring escapes, sabotages or wide-scale rebellions when the opportunity arose.
In the search for a way to overcome their innate disobedience, the Naga Queens captured countless numbers of Goblins and vivisected them in gruesome magical experiments, though only when they came into contact with humans and the parasites that afflicted them did the Naga Queens make their ghastly breakthrough. Half-lobotomized Forest Goblin subjects were grafted with body parts from human children, then implanted with a parasitic mutant hairsnake that commandeered the mind of infested warm-blooded hosts. The mutant horsetail worm would burrow itself deep into the remaining portions of the Greenskin's brain and take control of the Greenskin's higher functions, amalgamating with its host as time passed and rendering it compliant. Prior to the operation, the worm parasite would be imprinted with specific Naga or Pannaga, establishing a magical link that allowed the Serpents to direct their new puppets with only their thoughts. The body of the former Goblin would then be embalmed and placed within an ensorcelled urn or jar filled with oil extracted from other dead Goblins, where it would emerge days later for service.
Taught craftsmanship by the Naga, the impish Toil-Puppets were sent to work on the great Serpent sanctums, where the Toil-Puppets proved themselves as skilled but mercurial craftsmen and workers. Though the creation process had made them more suggestible, the host organism had remarkably retained a sliver of their capricious Greenskin nature that urged them to cause harm. Grasping and prone to boredom in peacetime, the Toil Puppets would inevitably instigate acts of ruin during building projects, though to a far less damaging extent than pure Goblins and were more easily placated with gifts. Undeterred, the serpent-Naga repurposed many of these first Toil-Puppets as agents of subversion and sabotage, sent forth to steal vital resources, correspondence and artefacts from the enemy, spy on their rivals, harry supply lines and assassinate vulnerable targets by swarming them on occasion. Successive generations were infused with the essences of Djinn and Spites during the embalming stage, further improving their furtiveness as the creatures could now obscure themselves in shadow until they wished to reveal themselves or were detected through witchsight.
Referred to by local humans as the Toyul or Look Tap, the fully developed Toil-Puppets have the repulsive childlike appearance of a Goblin-Human hybrid: a large sickly green or brown misshapen infant covered in tumorous growths with a stooped posture and retractable claws hanging off gangly arms. Unfocused milky eyes emerge from the creature’s husk of a face, above a perpetually grimacing mouth filled with needle-like teeth. The Toil-Puppet bears a malevolently playful and erratic personality like that of a vicious child. Agile and swift as the langurs of southern Cathay despite its disproportionate limbs, the creature delights in scaling walls and trees where it stalks those who pique its interest.
The Toil-Puppets are incapable of conventional speech, communicating with their handlers telepathically. The voice boxes of the Goblins are always the first thing removed in the creation process, as the Greenskins' incessant blathering has always annoyed the Naga. Instead, faint childlike giggling and tapping noises can be heard from no distinct source whenever a Toil-Puppet lurks close and wants their presence to be known.
When inactive the Toil-Puppets sleep inert in urns and large jars filled with viscous dark oil. These containers are placed throughout the temple-laboratories, and secluded in tree-alcoves and statues that demarcate the borders of Blood Naga territories. Large concentrations are scattered throughout the northern borders of Khuresh with Cathay and Ind, near the southern border with the Asur-controlled Gates of Calith, and around the web-festooned Greenskin stronghold of Skon Basin in the northern Hinterlands. These wake from fitful sleep en masse to alert the Snake Men of incoming invasions and screen their armies when the Serpents launch punitive assaults.
Ever since the primitive Orcs and Goblins began attacking the human inhabitants of Khuresh - the chosen prey of the Naga - the Snake Men have used the Toil-Puppets’ subversive abilities to keep the Greenskins of the Hinterlands in a constant state of attrition through inter-tribal warfare, by playing on their superstitions and implicating each other in thefts, murders and abductions. The Forest Goblins have only the vaguest notion of the vile experiments their kind are subjected to and their tribes often accuse one another as serpent collaborators.
In times of war, the Toil-Puppets are brought to the battlefield where their elusive qualities and vexatious personalities are exploited for lethal effect as stealthy scouts and skirmishers. They are armed with wicked daggers and the venom-laced Rambite throwing darts, which the imps employ with savage glee against the Gors of the jungles in twisted games. Little more than a sharpened stake with a course black-feathered tail, these darts allow the Toil-Puppets to attack at range before swiftly slinking away into the gloom.
The Toil-Puppets begin their unnatural lives with fragile constitutions, easily harmed by mundane weapons. The Serpents are careful not to needlessly expend too many of them, as the death of entire packs of Toil-Puppets can debilitate a linked Naga Queen, Kanya or Pannaga for hours through a feedback loop curse affected by the mental tether. As the years pass however, their strength increases from a diet of blood, milk and raw flesh until their speed and reflexes rival that of elves. Horrific in aspect, the elder specimens called Talismanics are ethereal creatures vulnerable only to enchanted weapons.
The Black Candle Troop of the Ebon Stone marga and the gold-leaf covered Auric Young of the Golden Cradle marga are particularly formidable packs of Talismanics that have survived for centuries. Shrouded in Dark Magic with Shyish-cursed darts and Ghur-cursed blades, these scuttling aberrations can puncture through armour and pluck out the hearts of Beasts, Elves and Men with barely an inconvenience. They are particularly empowered during Geheimnisnacht and Hexensnacht under the light of Morrslieb, rampaging freely under the jungle canopy of the Hinterlands and sowing misery wherever they go.
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