Rummy Cobbles

Small humanoids topping around 3-4ft tall. They come in a variety of colors, with shades of green being most common and yellow being more rare. They are the smallest, weakest, and most populous of humanoid monsters.  Despite individual weakness, they work well in groups and can utilize tactics and teamwork to incredible effect.

They are very cunning and resourceful monsters, but their combination of impulsiveness, curiosity, and lack of greater forward planning usually gets them in trouble or coerced by more capable beings. They can be made useful if trained and can learn quickly, and their saliva is a pretty common ingredient in things like glue and paint, but farmers and other owners often find it difficult to keep such dexterous troublemakers for personal use.

Female and young goblins are only seen rarely, spending their lives in goblin communities rather than wandering. On rare occasion, they have been spotted eating a fruit native to the dungeon called Bim Fruit in order to better appeal to males.

Goblin young are often raised communally, and goblin females are only found rarely in the wild. Based on observed behavior in domestic varieties, people assume that females are kept imprisoned by the males and used only for breeding.

Goblins share their 'goblinkind' family with hobgoblins, trolls, ogres, and a few other monster species.

Small humanoids topping around 3-4ft, they have two arms and two legs. Some rare individuals possess a tail with a small tuft on the end, and in those individuals, they also have fur at the tips of their ears.

Typically green, they are also found in grey varieties (uncommon) and yellow (rare). They most often have pupilless black or dark brown eyes, and short black claws on hands and feet. Males have much longer noses and more prominent brows than the females. All have relatively large hands, feet, and heads compared to their bodies and limbs.

They have a wide range of variants that can be bred or captured, only a few of which are described below.

Goblins have very large and expressive ears and big noses that people often consider cute.

Feral Variant: Pupilless red eyes, longer teeth, usually hairless and featuring long pointed noses.

Neoteny Variant: Not much visible difference, though usually shown to have an increased chance of having heterochromia and are flat chested, smaller than the norm, and lack hips. Pregnancy inevitably leads to complications.

Fallen Variant: Grey with black eyes, they somehow spawn more of their kind asexually. Typically hairless, they possess spines instead, and are entirely black. Unlike other variants, this not always a birthed variant. Regardless of origin, they are impossible to raise.

Goblins reproduce sexually. They are able to interbreed with many other species, but their favorites are humans. Due to this, they are able to produce many offspring, some of which may be stronger than their goblin parent—more common in goblin-human couplings.

Due to the goblin preference for reproducing with humans, the guild advises lone female dungeoneers avoid groups of goblins, lest they be abducted and kept as breeding stock.

Goblins reach maturity quickly, with those born in the dungeon developing sooner than their captive counterparts. Typically, it takes only a few months for the fast-breeding goblins to gain independence.

Most goblins do not reach old age, so their lifespan is a mystery.

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Goblin Kings come & Goblin Kings go. Their armies represent the peak of goblin power, yet so many go on to be nameless, without a lasting reign. For all the work it takes for a Goblin King to rise, more often than not, they are destined to be doomed. Disappear into history and their armies with them, slain by dungeoneers or otherwise. None of them evolve to the level of 'Boss', none of them earning a lasting name. After all… They are still just goblins.

Yet so few go and study these common monsters. They are hand-waved away, a mystery solved. Horrid, rape-y little bastards who are a nuisance at best and a fleeting threat that will pass at worst. They are monsters, and like monsters, they are seen similarly to animals, having no real culture or traditions, creatures of instinct and habit with limited capacity for intelligence. Low level monsters at that. So, Goblins have very few fans even among those that take great interest in monsters.

So it's no wonder so few go out of their way researching the simple goblin. Even at their absolute worst, dungeoneers will eventually slay them, or they go away… Assumed to have collapsed in on itself from infighting.

But why, one might care to ask, for all the times that monsters raise an actual army, do they never invade the surface? Do they truly find us so uninteresting? Would they, if given the chance, and didn't collapse? Goblins, more than any other monsters, probably have the most chances at giving it a go. So, why don't they? Is it really infighting that causes their armies to disappear?

One might think that, unless you were a goblin yourself. Then, perhaps you'd be around long enough for a goblin king to rise… And, like the kings before them, turn the vast power of their armies to something beyond the portal at the deepest part of the dungeon.

For there is something that the Guild is passing over in their lack of interest learning about goblin kings. The goblins do not build their vast armies so they may turn their swords to the human world up above…

But something beyond the portals down below. Something that each goblin king that wasn't slain by dungeoneers eventually lead their armies through the portal to confront, never to return or be seen again.

What is beyond the portals that the goblins see? What could it be that each goblin king discovered that was so important that each and every one would turn their might to in order to combat?

What do the goblin kings know that others don't?