Nation: The Pipemen (aka "Sewer Goblins")

Flag: A tribe's flag, if they have one, is usually a variation of a shit-covered dirty rag with at least one and a half footprints on it. If a particular tribe is enslaved by a nation, they might care enough about which nation they're enslaved by to hoist that nation's flag on Tuesdays just after lunch time, or whenever they're forced to otherwise.

Type of Government: Kratocracy usually, though some tribes manifest other forms of government due to either enslavement by other species or nations, or occasionally out of the ruling bugbear's drive to be contrarian for no rational reason. A tribe without a bugbear for whatever reason usually becomes a democracy, much to the dismay of every goblin involved. Goblins go insane after roughly one hour of not being enslaved by some form of authority backed by force, and have a tendency to become extremely religious and superstitious until some intelligent voice of reason decides it wants to subjugate them, at which point they fall back in line and regain their previous standard of sanity. This religion and superstition generally manifests as the gremlins suddenly becoming convinced that a particular inanimate object has godlike powers or otherwise controls their minds, and seek to appease it through nonsensical rituals. Hobgoblins usually are slower to fall for this kind of behavior, but pier pressure wins over after a while. Hobgoblins never rule because if there's a bugbear, they get bullied into submission for being nerds, and if there isn't, they're too insecure, unconfident, depressed, or disorganized to actually be leaders of a whole tribe. Hobgoblins are, however, quite often lower taskmasters and project leaders with authority over gremlins, who look up to them because they aren't mean and like to teach them big words to say to impress or annoy their piers.

Economy: The Pipemen, when dealing with other nations, generally accept barter in the form of edible substances (see primary species below), tools, or anything the ruling bugbear thinks is cool. Goblins within their own tribes generally have no use for money and no concept of personal possessions as the spontaneous loss of object permanence common among most gremlins prevent any sort of ownership lasting long. Bugbears and Hobgoblins often have possessions, but since the gremlins are numerous, everywhere, and like to randomly mess with things, particular items have a habit of getting lost rather quickly if not constantly guarded or locked away.

Primary Species: Gremlins, hobgoblins, and bugbears, in decreasing order of prevalence. These species are collectively referred to as "goblinoids", and share many common features, including a biologically pre-programmed drive to form colonies with other goblins and become enslaved by powerful individuals, and an ability to subsist off of any organic matter, so long as they eat a quantity of mass roughly comparable to their fist per day. Due to their short, violent lifespans, goblinoids measure their lifespans in weeks, and their "birth days" are the day of the week they were born on, though this is almost never kept track of and even when it is remembered, it is rarely celebrated. The goblinoid maximum lifespan is unknown, as they seemingly always die violent deaths within a year of their birth. Goblins are never born on Tuesdays, as any goblin born on a Tuesday, upon peeking its head out into the light for the first time, immediately realizes that it isn't the weekend (see culture below), and therefore sees no reason to start working yet. Goblin children reach adulthood the moment nobody is actively paying attention to them, meaning a goblin baby could potentially stay in its infant state forever, if given enough attention. Goblin babies are rarely cute enough to justify doing that.

- Gremlins: Gremlins make up over 90% of the goblin population. They are, on average, about three feet tall, green, simian humanoids with childlike personalities. They get excited easily, and as a species find violence and explosions to be objectively hilarious. Gremlin names are usually between one and seventy three rhyming, nonsensical syllable groups, with an average of about two. Examples: "Smingpling", "Bloomk", "Frimblepimblewumblemumble", "Vulpmubulb". The first thing a gremlin ever says becomes their name, which makes sense, because their names sound like babble.

- Hobgoblins: About one in a hundred goblinoid births result in the birth of a hobgoblin. Hobgoblins look like gremlins, but incredibly skinny, hairier, covered in acne, and are usually about five feet tall. Hobgoblins have an intelligence comparable to humans, but with a propensity for extreme jealousy, depression, and greed. Despite this, hobgoblins are also the most compassionate of the goblinoids, seeing their bugbear overlords as "big brother" figures, and gremlins as rambunctious younger siblings in need of guidance and protection. While hobgoblins have both male and female sexes, they are incapable of reproduction themselves. Hobgoblins are usually named after random, and bizarrely specific objects that may or may not have ever even existed at all. Examples: "Four-and-a-half-foot-long-piece-of-driftwood-with-a-hole-in-it", "Left-shoe", "Lightbulb-that-smells-like-bacon", "That-thing-that-makes-that-sound,-you-know-what-i'm-talking-about". Hobgoblins usually name themselves after reaching adulthood. Gremlins, however, never remember a hobgoblin's name and usually just call them "Mr. hob" or "Ms. hob". Bugbears, being bossy jerks, simply refer to a hobgoblin by whatever they're doing at the time, such as "pipe-fixer-team-leader" or "idea-come-er-up-with-er". 

- Bugbears: There is a rare exception to the rule that goblinoids are never born on Tuesdays. About once per year, in each tribe, a hobgoblin will be born on a Tuesday and grow up to be a bugbear. Bugbears are seven to eight foot tall, rippled muscled goblinoids that have arguably less raw intelligence than the average gremlin, but have such charisma that they are able to play it off, and most goblinoids think of them as demigod-like beings with a divine right to rule. Bugbears are competitive, short-tempered, and hate almost everything except for themselves and one other kind of item or idea determined by some never-explored biological law. A bugbear might be obsessed with collecting a certain consistency of sawdust, or think that anything in the shape of a donut is a profoundly beautiful work of art. As such, a bugbear will drive it's tribe to any length to satiate their bizarre compulsions. Like hobgoblins, bugbears have male and female sexes, but cannot reproduce on their own. Bugbear names are titles in the form of "noun-verber" or "he/she-who-verbs", though they rarely have anything to do with anything the bugbear actually did in their lifetime. Examples: "Lugnut-finder", "She-who-blinks-fast-on-wednesdays", "Gremlin-punter", "He-who-likes-the-word-'sausage'-way-too-much". 

Culture: Due to their biological imperative to become enslaved by powerful creatures, the Pipemen as a culture are almost always under the thumb of some other nation, monster, or when isolated, simply guided by the whims of the ruling bugbear until something really awesome comes along. When that happens, usually the ruling bugbear bargains with the awesome thing, attempting to trade servitude in exchange for the thing not killing him or her in the near future. When a tribe has more than one bugbear, the one that isn't ruling generally lives in secrecy, planning to overthrow the current ruler. Bugbears are too vain to rule together, as a general rule of thumb. Apart from this, the Pipemen only have one true defining cultural belief: every day is the weekend except for Tuesday. As often as the Pipemen are forced into labors of various sorts, usually consisting of digging sewer tunnels, repairing broken plumbing, or doing jobs that their overlords otherwise consider to be beneath the working class of their respective societies, they don't really enjoy doing so. Goblins are fundamentally lackadaisical, disorganized, and just plain lazy. In the extremely rare circumstance that whatever being is enslaving them actually tries to treat them with respect and compassion, however, gremlins at the very least can become fanatically devoted to their masters. In such a case, their work ethic improves substantially to the point that Thursday morning is no longer considered part of the weekend.

Location: Theoretically everywhere, though virtually always in subterranean colonies. Pipemen tend to just tunnel in random directions out of habit or to make space when a colony grows too large, so they end up in the oddest of places. Even more rarely, a bugbear will become obsessed with exploration, and bully their tribe into tunneling vast distances out of sheer curiosity.

Climate: Cold. Dark. Wet. Stinky.

Military: The Pipemen only go to war when their overlords make them, and generally never actually wage war among themselves (i.e. between tribes), though rivalry and frequent brawls keep morale high. That said, when they do go to war, they do so enthusiastically, as violence is hilarious to them, and death is such a frequent occurrence in goblin culture that they are utterly desensitized to it. Gremlins have no talent for using weapons, but they certainly try. They do, however, have something of a supernatural affinity for causing explosions, and being good tunnelers, make for great saboteurs. Otherwise, they make serviceable cannon fodder and shock troops, with little self-preservation instinct. That said, gremlins are usually horrible at recognizing the difference between who they're fighting for and who they're trying to defeat, and what their actual tactical goal is at any given point and time, so any battle plan that doesn't involve simply ordering the gremlins to mangle anything and everything in a certain area that can be pointed at generally fails horribly.

Magic: Goblins very rarely make use of magic. As most gremlins don't live long enough and aren't really smart enough to make sensible use of any magical talents that they would manifest, only hobgoblins and the rare bugbear really become functional mages. And even then, there exists a serious speedbump on the path to magical mastery in that goblinoids can only be void mages. Most goblin mages don't realize they have powers until they accidentally use them and spontaneously get themselves killed, much to the amusement of the surrounding gremlins at large. Hobgoblins that somehow learn the theory behind magic may become interested in experimenting to see if they in fact have powers, though should their ruling bugbear come to believe they are growing too powerful (or are spending too much time playing with magic to be actually useful), they tend to get executed. Bugbears that manifest powers and survive past the accidental discovery of them AND live long enough to hone their talents become incredibly powerful rulers, and sometimes even betray the being(s) they've become enslaved by. That said, such a bugbear usually develops a nasty case of being even more insane than usual and tends to die miraculously at the hands of their enslaver due to their coup attempt being poorly thought out.

History: The Pipemen usually don't keep track of history past the lifetime of the current ruling bugbear. They often have enough knowledge of time passing to know when tuesday is or was, but thats about it. No currently existing Pipemen tribe has existed long enough to remember the age of myth, adventure, and fantasy, and few living goblins were around when they were first enslaved by whatever power currently has them under their thumb. That said, through sheer accidental oral tradition, some goblins beneath cities have a concept of the fact that they, as a species, weren't always servile to powers that used them as a labor force. The idea that they are seen, in whatever small way, as actually useful by their overlord civilizations, brings goblins a sense of pride. Further, the transition from simply worshiping dragons and liches and disembodied glowing effigies of dark gods atop tall towers to being integrated as a labor class into another parent society is understood by the few goblins (usually hobgoblins) that reflect upon it to be something of a cultural renaissance for goblinkind.