Goblins

Goblins are vermin with language. Not monsters. Not quite animals. Pests—with culture. They don’t march in daylight or draw swords in lines. They skulk. Scavenge. Scurry through ruins and corpse piles, vanishing before you can react. If you see one, there are three more watching. If one talks to you, it’s either a trap or a test. They live near things. Under cities. In the old bones of keeps and mines. Some say they’re in the walls. In the rafters. In the spaces no one looks. If your attic starts to stink and you find a pile of buttons tucked under a rafter, you had a goblin guest. They don’t care much about gold. Not the way others do. But they like it—like a bird likes a bead. They’ll steal your ring, then try to trade it back for a three-legged frog. Or a broken music box. Or a rock with a hole in it. Why? You won’t get an answer that makes sense. Most folk agree on this much: goblins are dirty, loud, and unpredictable. They talk funny. Laugh at odd things. Cheat without shame. But they’re not stupid. That’s what makes them dangerous. Their minds don’t follow the same roads as yours. They zig where others zag. They don’t plan in lines—they plan in spirals. They don’t build homes. They steal them. Find a crumbling mine, a sunken fort, a chapel with half a roof? There’s goblins in it. Or around it. Or planning to be. They carve out niches like moss, reshape spaces like termites with tool belts. Not quite builders—but not just squatters either. They're adaptive. Opportunistic. Ask five people what goblins are and you’ll get five answers: To a noble? They’re thieving parasites. Beneath treaties. Beneath notice. To a commoner? Annoying. Dangerous. Or maybe just a nuisance. To an adventurer? Useful, if you speak their language. Trouble, if you don’t. They hate the sun. They can smell gold. If you break a deal with one, your tongue rots out. They can’t count past ten unless they’re chewing something. They don’t bury their dead. They eat their own when food runs low. You can distract them with a mirror or a shiny gem. They whisper when they think no one’s listening. They hoard secrets like teeth. Some say they worship shadows, or that they speak to bones, or that their chiefs aren’t the strongest, but the ones with the weirdest dreams. One goblin might run from a fight. A pack of them? That’s a different story. And everyone’s got a story.

“Oh, they’re sneaky little bastards. Pop out of holes, steal your boots, disappear again. Can’t trust ‘em.”

— Farmer Lekid, lowlands of Brindar, currently missing three chickens and a shovel