Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Tommyboy 02-01-08, 11:26 AM	Don't kill me please! He is not an elf of any type, doesn't weild a scimitar (let alone two), and will only have one level of ranger (possibly rogue). However, he is a member of a normaly evil race, who has turned his back on his own to become a leading defender of a dwarven kingdom. The idea is to use the Stoneblessed class from Races of Stone to enable a Hobgoblin to be a Dwarven Defender. The question is; what could a hobgoblin do to earn that level trust from Dwarfs?
smeagol_lied 02-01-08, 02:05 PM	Kill a bunch of other hobgoblins? Warn them of a coming hobgoblin army?
Terjon of the Blue Rose 02-01-08, 09:52 PM	How about this one. In battle he refused to give up. He would not retreat nor surrender. He fought along with the rest of his troop and when all were dead he continued to fight. So far your still well within reason for a hobgoblin. The dwarves he fought took casualties almost as great as he and his troop did, though, and were as stubborn in their refusal to accept defeat. Eventually you come to a standstill. A lone hobgoblin of exceptional resolve versus a half dozen wounded and angry dwarves. The leader of the dwarves having fought this Hob has come to recognize and even appreciate the strength of his enemy and offers an alternative. Life as free soldier in the dwarven encampment, under his command, rather than surrender or death. Your hob, recognizing much the same strength in the dwarf accepts.
Tommyboy 02-02-08, 02:21 PM	Terjon; I like it, though I'ld prefer that he live on his own for a while (justification for ranger level needed for skills). I think I will have multiple encounters and once he has proven he is not an enemy be invited in from the wilds.
The_Shaman 02-02-08, 03:49 PM	You can always say he lived solo for quite a while before finding the dwarves; maybe he was even a bit of a trader or some such on the side - just because you can eke out a living in the wilds doesn't mean you don't appreciate what money can bring you. Perhaps he even traveled to the dwarven keep once or a few times before settling there. Just make sure you don't forget goblinoids have short livespans.
Aaarrrgh 02-03-08, 06:08 PM	How about this: he left his home, because he didn't like the way the other hobgoblins did things. Instead he lived alone in the forest, eating only what he could find/kill. One day he heard sounds of battle from a nearby road. It was a dwarven ambassador/noble/prince and his guards on their way back to their mountain home, who were under attack from bandits/monsters. The dwarves fought well, but they were losing. Your hobgoblin jumped in and helped them, risking his own life. Finally there were only the hob' and the leader of the dwarven guards still standing (the ambassador/noble/prince didn't stand up to begin with, he was sitting :P ). The guard leader, knowing the hobgoblin was the only thing that made it possible for him to finish his mission, invites the hob' to stay with him and join their troop. The ambassador/noble/prince gives his blessing, and lets the hob' wear his colours (to make sure other dwarves would not attack him on sight). For the first time in his life, the hob' felt welcome and respected, and accepted the offer.
JulesCARV 02-03-08, 08:07 PM	Okay. This is ridiculous. I had every intention of writing a concise, clean background, and then it spiralled out of control and I couldn't stop it from turning into a sprawling, R-rated, 3,500 word monstrosity. Then, beautifully illustrating the Sunk Cost Fallacy, I thought that, having put so much into it, I couldn't abandon it now, since that would turn all of my previous efforts into a waste. So I continued making it more sprawling and overdone. "It seems Processing Center Tango has need of more guards," camp superintendant Dhurkuul had said. "and it turns out that here at Processing Center Golf, we have more than enough. So I'm asking for volunteers for a transfer." My hand went up eagerly. Always volunteer when the oppurtunity presents itself. Tango had a reputation as a rough place to serve a tour of duty, but I knew I was made of tough stuff. I arrived with the rest of the Golf volunteers two weeks later. I immediately regretted it, and saw why Tango had its reputation. It was one thing to read the abstract statistics of this camp, designed not to ensure the long term productivity of valuable slaves, but to bring swift death to troublesome ones. The average slave in Tango had a life expectance of four months after arrival. Exposure, starvation, dysentery all took their toll. We guards also did our share, summarily killing slaves who could not carry their loads of ore to the foundry. By the time of their death, some of the slaves were so weakened down to their very bones that the clergy of Maglubiyet declared them unfit for the creation of skeletons. The slaves deserved everything that they received. Many were dwarves or gnomes, hated enemies of our race since time immemorial. Others were humans, orcs, halflings, kobolds, or other slaves that had proven exceptionally recalcitrant in their unwillingness to obey. Lowest of all -- the traitors to our own race: apostate hobgoblins who had taken up the worship of gods like Pelor and Hextor, dissidents spreading doctrines tainted by chaos and good, an exceptionally corrupt blue goblin quartermaster who had embezzled over a hundred pounds of gold, giving his legion inferior weapons to make up the difference. Yet still, the justified miseries they endured could not help but spread to us guards. When the omnipresent dysentery forced incontinence upon the slaves, we endured the odor. Indeed, an odor of decay occupied the whole camp. The filth that covered them at all times made them unpleasant to handle, if they ever dared resist (though this was rare), or if starvation and disease ever rendered them dazed and delusional to the point where they lost track of themselves and their orders (this being the more common occurence). I began to drink Vulyartok, trying to sear away the unpleasant drudgery of my duties with 60 proof liquor. It began slowly -- a glass before bed, to help me sleep. I also began to visit the camp brothel. Being a brothel-consort was the aspiration of much of the young female fraction of the camp, and it was not hard to see why. Here, the slaves were kept healthy and well fed, and regularly checked for any disease. Except for their (unusually clean) yellow jumpsuits and the identification numbers tattooed across their foreheads, one might hardly know that they were slaves. A dwarf woman, Ilde, was there, but I have a difficult time imagining why except for some bureaucratic mistake. I suppose that, as far as dwarf women went, she was comely enough, but hobgoblins do not lie with dwarves. Even when we seek to demoralize and destroy them in spirit, when we seek to torture any feeling of defiance or hope out of them, we do not rape dwarves -- it is a taboo in our minds enforced by a visceral disgust. There were more popular consorts: a beautiful half-elf woman, Drusilia, who said she had been a bard, before the slave-specific antimagic field of the processing centers took away her enchantments and magical songs -- yet she still sang beautifully. There was a popular orc woman, Neega, who seemed to take genuine pleasure in sex, performing her duties with unfeigned enthusiasm. There was an young, athletic drow man with a slim, muscular body and perfect, rounded onyx rear cheeks, for those guards who preferred men (I did not). These popular consorts were often busy. The dwarf, though, was always available, never taken. I imagined that soon the error would be rectified, and she would be replaced by a consort more appealing to hobgoblin tastes. One night, after a tiresome day, I became very drunk. I only vaguely remember the events of the night. I went to the brothel, and found it busy, but the dwarf as, as always, available. My inhibitions dissolved in the Vulyartok, I selected her. When we went to her chamber, I found that the liquor had sapped my ability to perform along with my self-restraint. Or perhaps it was some vestigial sense of revulsion at lying with a dwarf that prevented it. At any rate, finding intercourse impossible, I drunkenly hugged her, began sobbing, and told her much. I remember little of what I said, but I confessed how much I hated my duties as guard, how the bottle was my only solace, how I felt trapped. That morning I was quite hung-over, but even more, I felt dread remembering the last night. I couldn't exactly remember what I had done with the dwarf, but I feared the worst. I hated myself. That day, my anger at myself lead me to needlessly kill at least two slaves. (A third was a borderline case -- perhaps I would have killed him even if I hadn't been in such a bad mood, or perhaps I wouldn't have: he was beginning to lag in his work transporting the ore.) After my duties were finished, nothing was more tempting than to go back to my bottle of Vulyartok, yet I forced myself to stay away from it. I resolved that I would confront my problems forthrightly, and no more seek oblivion in the bottle. I went to the brothel, and asked to see Ilde again. We went to her chamber, and I began to interrogate her: what did we do last night? I was relieved when she told me that I could not perform that night, and remembered it myself once she reminded me. What did I tell you? I had told her many things, which she recounted honestly and dutifully. I felt my memories of the night return as she told them to me. She swore that she had no interest in divulging what I had told her in my drunken indiscretion. I thanked her for her honesty and discretion, and was about to leave, when she said, "would you like to talk any more?" "Why?" I asked. "You're lonely," she said. "you're lonely and sad. I am too. Perhaps if I were more popular as a consort, and I were raped constantly like the other consorts, then I would be in too much pain to be anything other than dazed and numb and apathetic, but I am not, so I still feel enough to feel sad and lonely. I am never chosen. I am glad of that, to some degree. Yet when you guards look at me, and I see the disgust in your eyes -- it hurts in its way. Maybe not as much as it would if you just raped me regularly, but in its way, it hurts. I think I'm here by mistake. I'm afraid that they'll figure it out soon enough. Then I'll go back to being a regular slave. Then I'll die. I'm afraid. I want to talk to someone." It hadn't occured to me that we were raping the brothel-consorts (I thought of it as a far more brutal, forceful thing). I suppose there ought not to have been anything dismaying about this idea; after all, all of the slaves of Processing Center Tango were there to be destroyed, not maintained as long as possible like the slaves of other processing centers. Still, the idea made me think. She was right that I wanted to talk to someone. I had kept my own counsel for too long. I supposed that I felt that I could talk to her. She was safe. She was in a position so drastically inferior to my own that I could tell her my embarassing weaknesses and lapses without fear; it was like confessing one's secrets to a dog or a rag-doll, but more satisfying, since we both spoke common. (She had begun to learn smatterings of goblin, but her efforts were comical at best and simply unintelligible at worst.) So we talked. We talked of our respective days. We talked of my life before I had joined the Guard. We talked of my time at Processing Center Golf, where the slaves worked twelve-hour days, but were given enough nourishing food, and even had some slave healers to attend to them if they became sick. We talked of her life before she had been captured, in the town of K'rezan, before she had gone off to talk to human herders, to buy cheese and meat to resell to the dwarves, and was ambushed by a hobgoblin patrol. We talked of the ways of the dwarves. We talked for perhaps an hour, perhaps two. Why did she show me respect, let alone compassion or kindness? I had done nothing to earn it. On the job, I regularly slaughtered her fellow dwarves when they grew too weak to work. Yet as we talked, she seemed to want to help me, to assuage my loneliness and pain. That night, before I went to bed, I had a glass of Vulyartok. It was the first time in weeks that I had had less than three glasses. I needed no more to sleep soundly. For the next four days, I went to visit her once I had done my duties as guard. We talked. I no longer had any interest in seeing any of the other brothel-consorts. On the fifth day -- the sixth straight day I had seen Ilde, actually, although on the first I was so drunk that it was something of an accident -- I saw her, and she embraced me. She told me, "I don't think I disgust you anymore. I don't think you're repulsed by my being a dwarf, but would you prove it? Would you make love to me?" I did. This time, neither inhibitions nor alcohol prevented me. For a time, there was no omnipresent smell of decay. There were no paths stained by dysentery-ridden slaves. There were no bludgeoning hangovers. There were only Ilde and I, both seeking to satisfy each other's equally desperate need. When we had finished, she continued to hold me. It was then that I first sensed that there was something wrong. "Is something bothering you?" I asked. She shook her head. "I'm okay. I needed that. Thank you." It was then that grim premonition came to me, and I suspected that I knew what was wrong. "Ilde -- have they found out some error in putting you here? Are they going to transfer you out and make you just another slave?" She nodded, relying on the stoicism of her dwarven blood to hold back her tears. "I was never supposed to be a brothel-consort. It was some kind of slip up with the slave identification numbers. Now the superintendent has found out and rectified the error, and I will soon be transferred out." I was silent. I did not know what to say. "When I first found out I was going to the brothel, I was horrified. I would rather starve to death as a common slave then endure the touch of hobgoblins like you. Then I found that no one wanted to **** me anyway, so it wasn't so bad; I was just lonely and sad and bored, but it wasn't as bad as working as a common slave. Then you came, drunk out of your senses, and I was afraid that I was finally going to have to endure being raped by a hobgoblin, but you were too drunk to do it. Then you started coming more, and I looked forward to you coming here once you got off duty. Now, just when I'm thinking I might have found a way to be happy here, I'm going to be sent back out to die. Well... thank you for at least making this night a good one." "Maybe there's something I can do," I said weakly. "I'm a guard, after all." She looked at me skeptically. "I don't know. I'll think about it, but listen, Ilde: I don't think I can survive this camp without you. I'll end up going crazy or destroying my liver with too much Vulyartok, or... I don't know. I just can't do it. I need you. Maybe there's nothing I can do to help you, but if so, then we're both doomed." After I wrote down her slave identification tattoo on a little scrap of paper, we embraced once more, and I departed. I sought out information on this slave, making inquiries regarding where she was to be transferred. Often, I did not have authorization to access this information, and I tried to discretely bring up the possibility of a bribe, without saying anything that would be definitely incriminating. The next day, my superior officer, Kurklaad, questioned me. He had apparently been informed of both my visits to Ilde, six nights in a row, and my questions regarding her future once transferred out. "It makes me sick to my stomach," he said, "to know that one of my men was ****ing a dwarf. Six nights in a row, no less!" "I didn't **** her the first five..." I began. "I didn't give you permission to speak, soldier! But I suppose I can't technically fault you for going to see a brothel-consort, even if she was only there by mistake. It's nauseating to think of you lying with a dwarf, but it's not forbidden. What I cannot tolerate, as an officer of Processing Center Tango, is you allowing your apparent... attachment to this dwarf to interfere with your duties. Going around camp, trying to find out information you aren't authorized to have about slave transfers, so that you can track down this slave once she's tranferred out of the brothel she was never supposed to be in in the first place: you're way out of line, soldier!" I remained silent, knowing that my speech was not wanted. "Furthermore, even before this disgusting little affair of yours, you've shown yourself to be lackadaisical, erratic, and undisciplined in your performance of your duties. Repeatedly, you've shown up to guard duty severely hung over, and you've sometimes needlessly killed still-productive slaves, while at other times failing to enforce discipline, being unwilling to touch slaves who are out of line." Kurklaad heaved a heavy sigh. "I'm suspending you from guard duty, effective immediately. As for the rest, I don't care. I can't afford to have a soldier like you on my squad. If the higher-ups find a new position for you chopping carrots or cleaning privies, that's their business, not mine. Dismissed." I returned to the barracks. I thought that I had been a good soldier. I thought that I was tough, dutiful, and disciplined. Yet Kurklaad's words rang true. I received orders later that day. I was to be transferred back to Processing Center Golf. That was a relief. I wasn't entirely in the clear -- the superintendent of Processing Center Golf might decide that I wasn't needed, since Golf already was somewhat overstaffed. In that case, though, I would be discharged. I was to leave the next day. What about Ilde? There was still time, perhaps. I went to the brothel -- she had already been transferred. I went back to the transfer officers. This time, I made no attempt to be discrete -- I told them exactly what I wanted, and told them that I was willing to pay any price. I ended up paying them twenty gold pieces, but I found out where she was. Then I went to her block. The block-chieftain of the then-empty block (the slaves were working) was a lizardwoman slave who had proven exceptionally enthusiastic and enterprising in her collaboration, rather than a parolled goblinoid common criminal as was customary. I asked her about Ilde. She replied that she was a new slave, but that she was, indeed, part of her block. I asked if she could let her go missing, in exchange for, perhaps, thirty-five pounds of rice (the currency of the camp). She smiled a little. "Why? Are you and your guard buddies going to have a fun night beating her to death or the like?" She said this with no judgment, as if she thought this a perfectly normal reason for a hobgoblin guard to bribe her into letting him have a dwarf slave. I hid any horror I felt, and simply nodded. Best not to make a fuss -- best pretend to be just like any other hobgoblin guard, buying any other dwarf slave. "Thirty-five pounds of rice? That sounds like a deal. It's not as if she was going to last long here anyway, from the looks of her. Well-fed and healthy enough looking, at least for now, but she looked so... broken. Seen it before -- her type has no fight, lets every other slave take advantage of her and steal her food, and ends up dead in a month." After going to the commissary and buying the rice (less than a single gold piece), the lizardwoman told me to stop by again at mealtime. I did so. Ilde walked to me, and began to say "are you sure you'll be able to get away with..." "Silence, slave!" I growled. She picked up my intentions instantly. I marched her in front of me. I pantomimed the stern guard, my mouth and back straight. She pantomimed the broken slave, her head hanging in front of her. Once we had gotten back to the barracks, I explained to her the situation I was in. I thought that if I could fabricate orders for her transfer from Processing Center Tango to Processing Center Golf, then perhaps we could leave together on the convoy the next day. She told me that Tango was, itself, only a week's march to her homeland. We discussed the possibility of going to Golf, where I might be a guard again, where the slaves are not treated so harshly and I might be able to secure her a relatively good life as my consort, but we agreed that this wasn't realistic. Whatever fabricated orders I possessed would not hold up indefinitely, and neither of us would survive the discovery of this fraud. With a few more bribes, I was able to acquire fabricated orders for her transfer. The next day we left. There were fifteen guards and twenty-one slaves in the convoy. The first night of our journey, while we camped, I woke Ilde up. I snuck up behind the night watchman -- we hobgoblins are good at being quiet, but have no corresponding advantage in hearing, so this wasn't too hard -- and knocked him out with a swift blow with a sap. I beckoned Ilde to come, and gave her the unconscious guard's sword and bow. Then we made off. She looked at the stars, and the landscape, and then lead us to what she was sure was the direction of K'krezan. We fled from the encampment, knowing that it would not be long before they discovered the unconscious guard, or he recovered. I began to think with trepidation of how the dwarves would receive me, but I hoped that Ilde would be able to persuade them that I had given up my life as a guard to save her. (Happy ending) After seven days of marching, and a few narrow misses with hobgoblin patrols, we arrived at the borders of K'krezan. I sent Ilde in first, so that she might tell them of me. She later arrived with some dwarf warriors: they escorted me in warily, and I was debriefed sternly and suspiciously by the dwarves. Nonetheless, in time, they accepted me. Ilde's slave tattoos were removed by the local cleric of Moradin. We draw stares from the dwarves, and I know that Ilde and I will never have children, but I am still happy with her. (Sad ending) As we came closer and closer to the border of K'krezan, we came across more and more hobgoblin patrols. One of them spotted us, apparently having heard of the runaway guard and slave, and although we swiftly fled for cover, one of their arrows caught Ilde in her rear. We were able to disappear into the underbrush, and although they searched for us, they missed us. They gave up after some time, but the poison that coated that arrow tip was already doing its work. We walked a bit further, but she was growing weaker and weaker. I carried her until we were within a few miles of the border to K'krezan, but eventually, she died in my arms. I carried her body to K'krezan. Showing up at the dwarf town, a dwarf body in my arms, the dwarf guardsmen were on the verge of killing me. I dropped her body, then threw down my bow and my sword, still in its scabbard. I raised my arms in surrender. They brusquely escorted me back as a prisoner, and interrogated me. I told them all that I could. Eventually, they believed me. Ilde was buried in her home town, and I swear that she will be avenged. I will aid the dwarves of K'krezan in that task.
Tommyboy 02-04-08, 11:02 AM	Um, wow. That is all. At the Shaman; where could I find information of goblin lifespans?
The_Shaman 02-05-08, 06:24 PM	O-kay... @Tommyboy: I thought the DMG or some setting book or another had those, but don't quote me on that. I'm fairly certain goblin lifespans are notably shorter than human ones, but I don't remember where I saw it.
Terjon of the Blue Rose 02-07-08, 01:12 AM	I think JulesCARV just performed a Terjon special. I'll reply again after I read it. PS If you want ranger just remember. Being accepted into dwarven society doesn't mean being accepted by dwarves. Perhaps you prefer a slightly solitary life and the dwarves appreciate that. You take up a mantle of advanced scout for that dwarven seargent after a few months earning his trust. This puts you both out, away from the dwarves for a time, and allows you to provide a valued service that brings you closer into the community when there. The act of writing a lenghty background well beyond the original request. Typically, but not necessarilly of exceptional quality.
Terjon of the Blue Rose 02-07-08, 01:31 AM	Having managed to read it I give JulesCARV an :clap: for a very well written story. That said I dunno about the appropriateness of a touchy-feely, modern-man-feeling, hobgoblin. Your lead felt a bit like the cliched drizzt clone who was simply born different and who acted out mostly on the basis that he was a good person regardless of the circumstances of his birth. Of course he still gets one up on most drizzt clones as he was at least in a setting where such a creature could survive in the depicted manner.
Empirate 02-07-08, 09:55 AM	Instead of being born different, there's the alternative of learning to be different. How about this: After a prolonged and bloody series of skirmishes and raids, both Hobgoblins and Dwarves of a particular region decide it's time to end the struggle. The other side can't be trusted, though, so binding measures are called for: Both provide hostages, and the hostages in question are children still, to be raised with all due honor among the other people. Of course, no children of just anybody would suffice - you need children of noble birth, whose loss would deal a severe blow to the other side's morale. Also, if such children grow up among the other race, and are treated respectfully and kindly there, they might grow into adults that understand and respect each other. Since the hostages are noble by birth, they'd also have a lot of political pull among their respective peoples once grown up - making future wars more unlikely. Being one such child, the PC grows up among Dwarves, learns their culture, language, and fighting styles. Being a noble hostage, he is eventually adopted into a great Dwarven fighting order to honor him, as a member by title only. However, this allows the PC to learn the special fighting techniques of the Dwarven Defender, and he, being a natural warrior, makes full use of that. Then one day, a number of hostages might be exchanged, if some degree of mutual trust has built among the Dwarves and Hobgoblins. Alternatively, the adventure might start with the news that war has broken out again, and the Hobgoblin PC must flee for his life, from Dwarves who are of two minds about actually executing him (having grown to like him).
JulesCARV 02-08-08, 06:25 PM	Having managed to read it I give JulesCARV an :clap: for a very well written story. That said I dunno about the appropriateness of a touchy-feely, modern-man-feeling, hobgoblin. Your lead felt a bit like the cliched drizzt clone who was simply born different and who acted out mostly on the basis that he was a good person regardless of the circumstances of his birth. Of course he still gets one up on most drizzt clones as he was at least in a setting where such a creature could survive in the depicted manner. Thanks for the critique. I feel like, in spite of the story being far longer than I intended, it was actually shorter than it needed to be, so the transition from loyal soldier to exile proceeded by jumps. He found the death camp unpleasant and aggravating as soon as he arrived, rather than gradually getting sick of it. He bonded with Ilde as soon as he was done interrogating her about his drunken indiscretion, rather than starting off more contemptuous and mistrustful, then growing to trust her. Yet fleshing out the transitions would have made the story still longer, and I felt like I had already rambled on long enough :P.
Mad_Jack 02-10-08, 04:46 PM	I remember it from a third-party product, so it may not be completely accurate, but hobgoblins live about 70 years... As far as the character background, hobgoblins are listed as "usually Lawful Evil", so it's not too far-fetched to have a Lawful Neutral hobgoblin out wandering around as an adventurer. He could quite possibly have gotten work as a caravan guard, thus giving him an excuse to have travelled into dwarven lands with the merchants they trade with. A merchant train may have gotten pinned down in the dwarven city when orcs or somesuch ( having it be hobgoblins would be kind of gimmicky) came sweeping down out of the mountains - the hobgoblin would certainly have proven his worth in battle, and may have gained a certain amount of respect from the dwarves. Perhaps after a decade of constant trips back and forth to the city, and having earned the respect of the dwarves for both his character and his fighting skill, he decided to settle in the dwarven city and may have actually been accepted into the city guard/militia. Living in a dwarven city and possibly even fighting in their army would definitely be a valid RPing reason for a gradual alignment shift even as far as Lawful Good. If the clan of dwarves was particularly small, there may also have been a great deal of necessity involved in their decision to train him as a dwarven defender.