Usually small, generally unintelligent and always vile, it is commonly assumed that the goblins were a creation of the Lord of Endless Night. Coming in a variety of shapes and colours, goblin folk are united only by their love of chaos and warware. The older races consider them a close relative of humanity.

Most goblins live in tribal groups on the edges of settled lands, raiding and generally seeking to cause havoc. Individually, they are no match for a human, dwarf of elf. However, they are seldom encountered individually. When they fight, goblins use every dirty trick they can lay their hands on - ambush, poison and treachery are favourites. Goblins rarely tolerate a leader who expects them to face an enemy in open combat.

Incredibly tough and able to withstand extremes of temperature as well as eat almost anything, goblins are very hard to get rid of.

Goblins and Magic

The only magic-using goblins are those who are inhabited by Shades, voluntarily or otherwise. Shades despise taking a goblin host and the unfortunates rarely live long. However, they can prove a nasty shock to anyone who underestimates their opponent.

Goblins and the Gods

Goblins follow the Lord of Endless Night and are proud to call themselves his chosen. Their hatred for humanity stems partly from a vague fear of being displaced in their Lord's 'affection' by the larger, stronger humans.

Goblin priests, as those closest to the Dark, have a great deal of prestiege tempered only by the widespread belief that eating the brain of a priest confers great power on the eater. This means that in all inter- and intra-tribal conflict, priests are favourite targets and their bodies usually a source of further squabbles after the fighting is over.

The Golden Empire

The goblins within the Golden Empire live as slaves of the human population. The majority of them speak the human tongue and have little left of their own culture. Open worship of the Endless Night is, of course, absolutely forbidden within the Empire. There is no such thing as a 'free' goblin within the Empire; a goblin which does not have an owner is assumed to be a marauder from outside the Empire and is liable to be killed. Goblins may not own property, carry weapons or travel without the orders of their owners.

Black Coast

A proportion of the goblins of the Balck Coast are escaped slaves from the Golden Empire. Perhaps it is the presence of these goblins who have been trained for agriculture than makes the goblins of the Black Coast slightly more civilised than most others. They undertake a fair bit of crop raising, in between raids into the human lands. Protected by the Shifting Lands, they have an economy based primarily on sheep-raising, crops (mainly oats) grown on the little available arable land and the spoils of raiding. Their tunnels extend deep into the thick ash deposits and the few punitive raids mounted against them have had little success. When not raiding human lands, the goblins spend much of their time in intra- and inter-clan warfare.

The Borderlands

Goblins always thrive where there is conflict and bad government, and the border between the Golden Empire and the duchy of Bretanny is no exception. With the exception of a narrow coastal strip, the border runs through low hill land, which connects to the mountains to the west. From these mountains, goblins and ogres make their way through the hills and raid out on both sides. It is even rumoured that some have reoccupied old warrens beneath the hills, or dug new ones.