The Adventures of Captain Skillet and His Merry Men - Character Lore

Bullet

The unnamed goblin was only just a child when he was taken.

On a dark, moonless night, the High Elves swarmed the goblin's tribe. They snatched away every able-bodied goblin that lived in that camp, taken against their will to become thralls for the High Elves; that is, every goblin that wasn't killed as they fought tooth-and-nail to save their freedom.

The unnamed goblin's mother pleaded with him to not fight against the High Elves, as that surely meant death for the small child. "Go with them," she had said, holding the child by his shoulders. "Go and survive, you can always escape them later." The unnamed goblin, naive and trusting, agreed with his mother and allowed the ruthless High Elves to shackle him and board him onto a great wagon, but not before seeing his beloved mother return to the fight against the elves, to be surely killed as she attempts to defend her home.

The unnamed goblin was whisked away from his camp, from everything that he had ever known and loved, to be taken to a small town in the countryside with high towers and squat homes. The High Elves living in this town worshipped the Demigod of the Sun and of Light named Adall, and was constructing a large and meticulous church made of gold and glass. The unnamed goblin was forced by his High Elf captors to dig and build this church for the Demigod whom he did not even worship, enthralled to the High Elves until the day he died.

However, as each gruelling day had passed, the unnamed goblin's hope and resolve did not falter; instead, the goblin grew stronger, driven to survive by his desire to escape the village, to see the world, to become an adventurer. He dreamed of being an adventurer, just like those he had seen passinging through the village from the trenches he dug for the castle, those muscular warriors and wise scholars on large, majestic horses and gleaming armour and swords longer than he stood tall.

Those dreams had always led to trouble for the poor, unnamed goblin. The High Elf enslavers hated the goblin for his tendency to daydream and fall behind on his work, leading him to be beaten often and sent to the barracks for the evening without his dinner (if you counted grey, lumpy gruel as 'dinner'...). His kin, the other goblins who were enthralled by the High Elves were not much better company; they ridiculed the young, unnamed goblin for his big dreams and unachievable goals of escaping the village and their masters' iron fist. Soon, the goblin came to despise not only the High Elves for thralling him, but the other goblins, too.

It was one day, early in the spring of a new year, during the construction of the church for the Demigod of the Sun and Light, when a team of adventurers rode into the village. Hearing the commotion that the adventurers' arrival had caused, and a lack of supervisors around the build site as the guards had left to welcome the newcomers into the village, the unnamed goblin felt brave enough to sneak away from his work to watch the adventurers ride past. Ducking into a nearby alley-way, hidden by shadows, the young goblin admired the adventures. To him, they were absolutely glorious, with gleaming, polished armour of iron and silver, with carriages drawn by horses that were packed with gold and other treasures.

It wasn't long before the goblin was discovered missing from his work. His pointed ear quivered as he heard a man's voice call out, and two High Elf guards were pointing at him from out on the courtyard as the procession of adventurers marched through. He gasped, and took off down the alleyway, the two guards loping after him.

The goblin ran as fast as he could, weaving through side roads and through peoples' gardens as he climbed the hill that led to the church's construction site. If he could just make it back to the trenches of the site and hide amongst his kin, he could lose his pursuers and avoid punishment.

Lost in thought on how to escape, the goblin ran into a figure before him and fell backwards on the grass with a grunt of surprise.

Before him stood an High Elf with a permanent snarl on his face, one of the many that patrolled the build site to keep order amongst the thralls. This High Elf was a particularly nasty guard, usually ruthless and unnecessarily cruel to those he punishes, and having a goblin, especially one who was known to slack off and daydream, run into him like this made a murderous smirk play on his pale yellow lips.