Heartstone

The Goblin Chieftain

The Past

Owd the Survivor

A nameless goblin had been born to a random litter like any other. There was no record of how many littermates there'd been nor of what female had served as the mother. Green goblins weren't sentimental like that. They had no sense of family or even the concept of a mother. Females were just birthing tools, used until they broke, then chopped up and thrown into the cooking pot. Because goblins were very practical creatures and never, ever wasted anything edible.

His original tribe had been slaughtered when he'd been only a few months old. Wood elves had filled his brethren with arrows, then tossed them onto a pyre together to burn. He'd been part of a trio of goblets, goblin young, that one of the hobs had buried in a hole and covered with moss to hide them, and the only survivors.

The three had crawled out days after the rest of their kind had become ash. In the following months, as they'd scrounged for food, one of the trio had been eaten by a bird. Another had been stung by a poisonous plant and withered to death. The wilds of Heartstone were deadly.

He'd eventually come across a young human female, alone in the woods, out collecting herbs and flowers. Bashing her in the head a couple of times with a rock, it had taken all his strength to subdue her and drag her off, keeping her away from the eyes of the other humans who'd come looking for her.

He'd used her to breed his first tribe. Twenty-seven strong they'd become before her scrawny body had given out, and he'd grown into a hobgoblin. Then the dastardly humans had discovered them, bringing a half dozen adventurers far better armed and armoured than anything the goblins had from materials scavenged in the forest or from farms they'd raided.

Once more, he had survived. This time, he'd managed to save four others as they'd fled.

His rage had burned hot in the following weeks as they'd tried to avoid the adventurers tracking and hunting them, calling them monsters.

Damned humans. Damned elves. Damn all the other species who tried to kill him! He hated them all.

He vowed to survive and found a new tribe. He would do it as many times as it took to grow powerful enough to grind every other species into the dirt, to make them slaves and cattle. He would make leather of their skin, jewelry of their teeth, and gorge on their meat. He would show them just how monstrous a goblin could be.

They had begun to call him Owd. He tolerated no challenge to his leadership, no threat to his power and ambitions. If another hob developed even a hint of greed in their red eyes, he removed a limb. If that act of mercy didn't work, he culled them and threw them into the stew pot. A few mouthfuls of their ambitious fellows and the other gobs grew wiser.

Not that many tried to topple him from his reign. Only the most foolish made that mistake. For most of the tribe, it was easy to see that following Owd was smart. For he had gained cunning over the years. They raided judiciously, a village here, a farm there, but never in the same place too often, lest it bring about retribution.

He had taken great pleasure in killing humans and even more when the goblin tribe managed to corner a couple of elven scouts, such a rare and stunning feat that the elves always died with shocked expressions, unable to believe such lowly monsters could have gotten the better of them.

For years, he'd carefully cultivated his tribe in secret, limiting their growth to prevent the need for too much space and food and the discovery that wanton rampaging would lead to. He wanted to build his strength, make them a force to be reckoned with. Even so, failure had come.

Adventurers. The scourage of goblins everywhere! A large party had come for him and his tribe. Their ranks had been decimated, and only his own power and cunning had saved the rest. He cared nothing for the deaths of so many of his own kind, but the setback had struck deep into his heart. He'd begun to doubt that goblins would ever have a place in this world. Perhaps they were nothing but fodder, too inferior to other species to thrive. Perhaps he was too weak.