Hobgoblin

Hobgoblins, also called high goblins or (in their native tongue) gorludz, are a race of robust humanoids indigenous to southern Ovaicaea, who are renowned for their martial culture, stereotyped as being concerned with strict social tradition, stoicism, and ruthlessness. Organized tribally and ruled by a landed nobility, hobgoblins are remarked as being inordinately influential for a race with such a small population (2.5 million). While existing on the periphery of civilization for thousands of years, hobgoblins have risen to become a highly organized, militaristic, and powerful people dominating the domestic and foreign politics of the Empire of Gestrin.
While hobgoblins are closely related to other goblinoids, it is now conjectured that they are also closely related to humans and dwarves. Goblinologists in Gestrin believe the hobgoblins, dwarves, and humans share a common ancestor from a prehistoric time when the continent of Ovaicaea was fused with faraway lands. Early modern Hobgoblins emerged some 200,000 years ago, not long after modern dwarves and elves, roaming the tundra north of the Ucral mountains. Behaviorally modern hobgoblins appear in the archaeological record around 40,000 years ago, showing signs of stone tool use and warg domestication. They gradually adopted a nomadic pastoralist lifestyle, influenced partly by early dwarven nomads and partly by the human Qasir civilization. The High Goblin language is thought to share a common root with Proto-Dwarven, possibly as a result of this early contact.
At one time widespread across eastern-central Ovaicaea, by the early Age of Iron the hobgoblins consolidated into a network of tribal chiefdoms in the hilly uplands of the western Aendrilad plateau. The hobgoblins successfully contested invasions from Aendriladi, Qasirite, Tethari, and Orcish armies over the next two and a half thousand years, developing a complex society based around advanced metallurgy, fortified settlements, and warfare. The tribes organized into a military confederacy, solidifying the rule of the tribal nobility or szlachta. This period, termed the Noble Commonwealth, was upheld by a principle of collegiality within the levels of the hobgoblin hierarchy. This confederacy elected a Grand Prince or Veliky Knyaz, from among them, typically the mightiest or most successful warlord. By the 2nd century IA, this position had become hereditary within the Brekacid dynasty.
The confederacy entered into a client relationship first with Aendrilad, then with Gestrin during the Imperial Age. In 684 IA, the overlord Brekakt led a coup d'etat of the Gastrinian Empire, consolidating political and military power under the office of Mayor of the Palace. Ever since, hobgoblins have held considerable power in Gastrinian affairs.
== History ==
=== Prehistory ===
The archaic ancestors of goblinoids are believed to have split from humans several hundred thousand years ago, and possibly as early as a million years ago. At one point in time, Ovaicaea was fused with another continental landmass. These landmasses diverged, leaving several distinct archaic humanoid populations in Ovaicaea.
Archaic hobgoblins are known in the paleontological and archaeological record as far back as 200,000 ago, coinciding with the migration of other humanoid races to Ovaicaea. Blood tests by Gastrinian alchemists comparing these archaic goblin remains to a range of modern goblinoids and humanoids have shown that hobgoblins share a common ancestor with humans and are a sister taxon to dwarves. The groups branched off when the common ancestor of hobgoblins and dwarves migrated to Ovaicaea, with archaic dwarves settling and adapting to the mountainous north and archaic hobgoblins adapting to the arid southeast. Both races reached their contemporary form and behavioral modernity roughly around the same time, when dwarves migrated into the Tethar foothills, and likely spread wolf domestication and complex stonework to the hobgoblin hunter-gatherers to the east. This would have been roughly 40-50,000 years ago. The periodic retreat of ice sheets and re-glaciation between fourty and twenty thousand years ago brought dwarven nomads into contact and possible conflict with goblin nomads. Dwarves and hobgoblins seemingly cohabitated in cave refugia in the Aendrilad and Ucral mountains, as evidenced by some caves showing mixed skeletal remains without indications of violent injury, though hobgoblins never had the sustained encounters with giants that deeply impacted dwarven cultural memory.
When the ice ages came to an end, hobgoblins were well-establishing in practicing seasonal migration in pursuit of antelope herds across a wide expanse of southeastern grassland ranging across modern Aendrilad, from Lake Qasir in the west to Sihua Bay in the east. The end of the last cold snap around 13,000 years ago coincided with the arrival of humans on the southern shores of Ovaicaea, and the rapid proliferation of human tribes led to conflict with hobgoblin nomads. Despite their wide range, hobgoblins were not very numerous and were overwhelmed by human incursions. These incursions were once characterized as conquests, but the archaeological records does not bear this out, and "migration" is the current academic understanding. Nevertheless, the impact on hobgoblin linguistic development was substantial, as the nomadic hobgoblins sought the protection of dwarven warrior nomads and adopted an early form of the dwarven language, which came to be influenced also by the human Proto-Aendriladi languages. As their range shrank to the western foothills of the Aendril Mountains, the hobgoblins developed a unique culture with a mix of nomadic pastoralism and hunting, and increasingly adopted copper smelting and later bronze working for tools, ornamentation, and weapons.
Material evidence from the hobgoblin prehistory is divided into several archaeological horizons. The earliest is the late stone age Varag culture, representing hobgoblin material culture from 13,000 to 9,000 BE, which evinces a hunter-gatherer lifestyle with some use of textiles and weaving. This was followed by the Dekanter culture, roughly from 9000 to 5000 BE, corresponding to the transition to the use of pottery and copper smithing; this time period shows hobgoblins continuing a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, though with gradual acquisition of animal husbandry for meat and wool. The last prior to the Bronze Age was the Grodd culture from 5000 to 2500 BE, which shows a more complete shift to copper use over stone, complex burial practices, and animal domestication for milk products and for sacrificial religious rituals; this last component is evidence of a sacrificial economy where animals became the main source of wealth, and their use in religious rituals was a paramount way of displaying and distributing that wealth. Some farming began to be adopted late in this time period, influenced by the dwarven Ucral Civilization to the north and the human Qasirite Civilization to the west, but the hobgoblin society had largely pivoted to nomadic pastoralism.
=== Ages of Bronze ===
The first written mention of hobgoblins in the historical record are in inscriptions from the early Bergaz Empire, circa 2500 BE, near the end of the Bronze Age. These inscriptions detail tribute paid by hobgoblin tribes to the south to the King Under the Mountain (a late proto-dwarven term for the monarch).
However, considerably earlier friezes on temples in the Aendriladi kingdoms to the east seem to depict horse-riding spearmen sparring with warg-riding monstrous humanoids, which are believed to be fanciful depictions of conflicts between Aendriladi and Hobgoblin warriors. The monstrous depiction of hobgoblins by the Aendriladi and Qasirite civilizations would become a common theme, now known to be inaccurate, of villainizing and dehumanizing their opponents. By treating hobgoblins as monsters, it became easier to justify violence against them, which saw a steady reduction in their nomadic range during the early Bronze Age.
Despite their entry into the historical record in the era widely called the Bronze Age, bronze tool use came late to hobgoblin civilization and lasted much longer. The Pogrebal cultural horizon represented this era of bronze use, between 2500 and 500 BE. In this period, hobgoblins shifted to a mix of nomadic pastoralism and farming. The archaeological culture and era is named after the distinctive burial practice of cremation, and interring the ashes in urns within burial chambers. The hobgoblin tribes were frequently warring among themselves during this period, but unified periodically to defend their homeland.
It is during the Pogrebal period that pygmy tribes of goblins came to be segregated and enslaved by hobgoblins, forming the modern goblinoids known simply as goblins. Near the end of the Bronze Age, an elite caste of war-slaves were bred from the strongest and hardiest of enslaved hobgoblin tribes, and were also segregated so as to breed their unique warlike traits, creating the bugbear goblinoids. Contrary to common outsider beliefs, the goblinoid races were not each descended from a common archaic ancestor, but rather represent specially-bred phenotypes of anatomically modern hobgoblins that only came about in the last 4,000 years. Due to this, it is now understood that goblins and bugbears are just as capable of intelligence, culture, language, and civilized behavior as hobgoblins, but are institutionally barred from this by the hobgoblin (and Gastrinian) power structure.
=== Ages of Iron ===
By 500 BE, the hobgoblins had fully adopted iron tool usage, replacing bronze. They developed a tributary relationship with the revived dwarven Bergaz Empire, though the dwarves often played the goblin tribes off each other. Around the turn of the Imperial Era, the tribes united to form the Goblin Confederacy; this brought a relatively united polity to confront dwarven hegemony, and to check leonin tribal incursions into grazing land in the hill country. An organized system of goblin slavery, and use of bugbears as internal security and shock troops, became entrenched. This had the effect of creating a warrior nobility from among the hobgoblin elite who now no longer had to closely oversee farmland or perform labor, though most hobgoblins became part of the emerging middle classes of smallholders and feudatories. It became progressively more rare to see hobgoblins in lower-class positions, eventually ending slavery among their own kind. The self-identity of hobgoblins as free men created a political culture of the Confederacy as a Noble Commonwealth, where each class in hobgoblin society saw themselves as egalitarian, and upheld the warrior nobility as a collegiate institution that chose their Great Prince based on merit. 
The Bergaz Empire became embroiled in a war with the Old Empire, along with the nascent Orcish Khanate in its eastern frontier. As these two long wars whittled the dwarven empire down, the hobgoblin tribes rose as a local power, coming into conflict with its neighboring human tribal kingdoms, the Qasir Republic, and the Empire of Aendrilad. The Great Prince position gradually became hereditary within the Brekacid dynasty, a tribal chiefdom with extensive history as warlords.
In 215 IA, Aendrilad made a peace treaty with the Goblin Confederacy, accepting it as a client state with considerable autonomy. The Goblins then served as Aendrilad's western vanguard, a buffer state between them and the Qasir Republic. The Gastrinian landing at the mouth of the Kaiser River presented a new strategic threat, which the Goblin Confederacy contended with on behalf of their Aendriladi masters for over a century. In 396 IA, the Goblins turned on Aendrilad and made treaty with Gestrin.
== Appearance ==
Hobgoblins, and goblinoids in general, are humanoids with skin tones ranging from sallow to tawny to reddish-orange, and typically are well-muscled for their size. Hobgoblins are massively built, typically standing 5'10" to 6'6" tall, and often weighing over 200 pounds. Hobgoblin males tend to be taller and bulkier than females, but hobgoblin women are still on average taller and stronger than their human counterparts, and rivalled in size only by bugbears and orcs among the cultured races. Hobgoblins are hairy all over regardless of sex, often sporting coarse brown or black hair along their limbs and torso, with bushy brows and sideburns but bare faces otherwise. Some hobgoblins have long hair on their heads of a lighter color than their body hair, and men in particular are expected to meticulously groom their hair as a matter of pride and social status. The half-human, half-hobgoblin prince Flavius Brekakt is well known for his long, reddish-blonde hair.
Hobgoblins are reckoned as the most intelligent of the goblinoid races, and are the only one to independently establish a complex civilization and society. It is widely believed that bugbears and modern goblins were bred by hobgoblins for servility. As such, hobgoblins are viewed with suspicion by humans of the north and west, and generally treated as dangerous, crafty, faithless, and violent, and hobgoblin lords are seen as tyrants. These generalizations are far from the truth, but the perception is deeply-entrenched in Ovaicaean culture, in part because of the hobgoblin institution of chattel slavery.
== Culture and society ==
Hobgoblins maintain a strongly hierarchical, militaristic honor culture in the context of a tribal society embedded in the larger Gastrinian civic society. To a hobgoblin individual, personal status and the integrity of their name is everything, and the prestige of their family or clan within the tribe is of great importance. Hobgoblins are often perceived as having violent tempers, but this mainly comes from outsiders who are unfamiliar with hobgoblin culture. Certain cultural practices, traditions, and protocols are to be observed in all public interactions, and even in many private settings, to avoid offending another of equal or higher status. If these are not followed, an offense can be met with a physical challenge or retaliatory violence. The lack of a structured court system in hobgoblin society meant that the swearing of oaths gained strong religious and legalistic importance, and violation of an oath was met with severe repercussions. While today, all hobgoblins have Gastrinian citizenship and can redress grievances through Gestrin's court system, many issues are still settled in the traditional way.
Hobgoblin hierarchical structure determines how an individual is treated in relation to others, such that deference is given to those above oneself, contempt is given to those below, and equals are treated with respect and collegiality. The hobgoblin class system has been synthesized with the Gastrinian class system, a process finalized with the grant of citizenship to the hobgoblins. At the top of the hierarchy are the magnates called voivode, who inherit governorship of a province of the confederacy, which may include several tribes and allods, who hold Senatorial rank in the Gestrin political and social system. The voivodes are members of the wider szlachta, a class of landed military aristocrats who own significant property; in Gestrin's social system, most members of this class correspond to the patriciate. Members of the szlachta hold land by allodial right, which to to say freely and under their own sovereignty rather than feudally; they are exempt from the usual Gastrinian land taxes as part of their treaty of federation with Gestrin, and are only subject to the King of Gestrin in the same sense that all citizens are under the supervision of the Gastrinian state. In addition to all rights accorded to full citizens of Gestrin, they have certain rights and privileges, including: freedom from arbitrary arrest, freedom of travel, freedom from property seizure even when found guilty of a crime other than treason, certain heraldic rights, the right of access to the Prince, the right to form tribal assemblies, and the right to oversee judicial and financial matters in their estates. Most important, however, is the right of participation in the intertribal assembly, the Sejm, which elects the Prince and legislates for the whole of the confederacy. The szlachta are governed by voivodes only insofar as the voivodes are responsible for communicating princely decrees and calls to arms, and act as an appellate judicial official in their provinces. Otherwise, all members of the aristocracy are equal to one another.
Below the aristocracy are the landed gentry, the ziemiany, equivalent to the Gastrinian landowning and city-dwelling middle classes. These hobgoblins are free citizens with property, but less than that of the hereditary nobility. However, their land is held by tenure rather than allod, and they are feudally dependent on the szlachcics for their property. They have all the attendant rights of Gestrinian citizens, but are subject to the normal taxes applied to their social class in Gestrin. In addition, they have semi-feudal obligations to their noble landlords, mainly in the form of money, goods, or military service. However, they are entitled to the incomes and rents derived from the land they hold tenure over, giving them real wealth in terms of money. It is not uncommon for the ziemiancics to have more money than the szlachcics, and tribal custom constrains the latter from engaging in widespread commerce, so the ziemiany class often also acts as a merchant caste in hobgoblin society. 
The next class are the smerdy, free-born hobgoblins with minimal or no property, equivalent to the combined plebeian and proleterian classes of Gestrin. For all intents and purposes, there is no hobgoblin that may sink below this stature, as they have all the same rights as full citizens of the Gestrin Empire. Most are free tenant farmers or crofters, artisans, and cottars. The vast majority of hobgoblins fall into this social class. Many join the Gastrinian Army in search of greater social status and eventually reward. Most veterans are awarded enough land or a pension upon retirement to become a yeoman, which for hobgoblins could place them into the class of the ziemiany.
The lowest level are the kholopi, or slaves. No hobgoblin is a slave, and nearly all lesser goblins are slaves. These are owned as chattel by either individual hobgoblins, families, or clans. The goblin slaves are widely employed in agricultural work, mining, and other labor. Unlike most forms of slavery in Gestrin, goblin slavery is hereditary and the kholopi form a racial caste of slaves and serfs, and a kholop can never be freed. A kholop is subject to their master's whim, and can be killed, injured, sold, or pawned at will, and is exempt to the protections that have gradually been placed upon Gastrinian slaves. However, a master is also responsible for their slaves' conduct and actions, and can be made liable for injuries or damages caused by their slave.
Within this is a small privileged subset, the kherekholop, or "war slave", composed almost solely of the bugbear race. Bugbears were bred as a caste of overseers and warriors bound to hobgoblin nobles, and have some limited right to complain to voivodes or administrative courts if they are harmed without cause, and can be freed at their master's discretion.