Aristocles

Goblins of the Wilds

@Gigan

It's fine! Glad to have you on board!

Goblins of the Wilds

Breden walked through the village, hoping to see some of his friends. In truth, his walk was almost a limp, as he tried his best to keep pressure off of his somewhat-injured toes. The village had streets of dirt and had no concept of sanitation in the ways humans or elves understood it. As such, Breden had to watch his step in some areas of town even in the best of times.

He made it to Koglan's smithy. He knew the old blacksmith, but given his age and lack of major successes, never had the money to purchase an iron weapon from him. He wasn't sure how much longer Koglan had, given the short lifespan of the goblins. He stood, watching the smith work, seeing that his endeavors had attracted no small number of females, young and old alike. Most were either too young or too fixated on Koglan to pay an unproven male like Breden any heed, but there was one female who was different.

"Look at that swing. It's almost hypnotic. I could watch it all day." Breden snapped out of his daydream of owning an iron blade by a familiar voice.

"Oh. Siwa. How's the dancing thing going?"

"Pretty well. I still get a few copper coins for it. Wish they'd give me food instead of little metal discs. Can't eat those, and it takes a lot of these coins to get a tiny bit of food from the humans, and they're useless here." The goblins bartered for items among themselves, only using money when they had to interact with merchants from other races. "I don't know why they put faces on them." Siwa showed Breden a copper coin with what appeared to be a king's head on the obverse, with the symbol of the town it was minted in on the reverse; the symbol was that of a triskelion.

"Huh, interesting."

"And how've you been doing, Brey?"

"Eh, so-so. I was on a hunt earlier. No luck."

Siwa took a moment to look him over. "And I see you hurt your foot again."

"Again? How'd you notice?" A small smile came over Siwa's face.

"I'm not just a dancer, you know. My mother taught me the art of massage, and with that comes a certain eye for other goblin's bodies. I noticed that you're avoiding putting pressure on your right foot, that you have a tense posture, and even though I can't see a bruise, there's some discoloration on your toes."

"I... may have kicked too big of a rock after failing to kill a deer."

"Well, if you like, I can help you with that, but not quite yet. When I'm done here, I'll help you out with your foot." She looked directly at the smith, giving a smile. Breden thought about it for a moment.

"Oh, you want to-"

"- I'm thinking about it; not like I'm gonna do anything like that today; I'm just not in the mood. Still, if I'm going to have my first litter, I want a good sire, and getting some blacksmith blood in my children's background might be good for 'em. Plus, if I'm gonna get him to help me there, it'll have to be soon. Best to at least bring the subject up with him."

"You'll have me for a long time, Siwa" Breden looked down at his feet, embarrassed. With a warm smile, Siwa walked over to him and gently ran her right hand through his red hair.

"Brey, we'll have plenty of time to consider that later. You've got years of hunting and fighting ahead of you, and I'm sure you'll be a great prospect for mating one of these days, but for now, a girl's got to go with who she thinks will be good for her kids, not who might be good someday." She gave him a little hug, only serving to interest him in her further. He wasn't going anywhere with her today, tomorrow, and possibly ever. "Plus, while we can't be sure who the father is, it would be nice to think that he'd sire an apprentice or two with me."

"Yeah, yeah. I understand" Breden remarked, not happy at being snubbed yet again.

Siwa waited until it looked like the old smith was nearly done with his work. When the crowd began to die down, she stepped into his shop while Breden waited outside.

Goblins of the Wilds

@Searat

It's not a problem, real life must come first. I'll be able to post in character again after work tomorrow evening.

Goblins of the Wilds

@Shadow Dragon

Yes, as a craftsman more than a mage, but it works. Or a craftsgoblin, I suppose.

Goblins of the Wilds

@ShadowDragon

It's a lower magic setting. It's mostly nature-related for the goblins, like making plants grow, healing injuries, basic alchemy, curing minor diseases, that sort of thing.

Goblins of the Wilds

@BigPapaBelial
Agreed

Goblins of the Wilds

The first IC post is up!

Goblins of the Wilds

Breden was in over his head, and he knew it. The green-skinned goblin had tracked the doe for three miles, doing his best to follow her subtle hoofprints. At long last, he had found her in a narrow clearing in the woods, but to what end? While Breden hid in the nearby bushes, he could see that the female deer was just as alert and skittish as ever, her eyes fixed in his general direction. The young hunter did his best not to do anything which would give away his location, but the doe somehow knew where he was.

With few other options, Breden leapt out of the bushes, a stone-tipped spear held above his head. The deer bolted from the clearing down the path she had entered, easily escaping from the goblin's weapon. Not for the first time, Breden drove his spear into the soft Earth in anger, beating his fist into the ground as he cursed his luck.

"Damn it! How does anyone do this?!" It took him a few minutes to calm down. One ruined hunt was no big deal. Not by itself.

Unhappily, he picked up his spear and began the long march back to his village.

"Looks like I'm having a squirrel for dinner again..." he muttered to himself, kicking a pebble as he walked. It made a skittering sound as it bounced forward before coming to a halt. Not satisfied with kicking little shards, Breden kicked a larger rock. It moved, but it hurt. Although goblins had tough, leathery soles not entirely unlike those of a halfling, the same couldn't be said for the rest of them, including their toes.

"Ah, gods! Sonofa-!" he hopped around for a moment, clutching the first and second toes of his right foot. The pain mostly died down after a few minutes, but a lingering soreness remained. It would be hard to run like this, let alone do any more hunting. A tougher male would have been able to suck it up and go through it, but he wasn't a tough male. Not yet. As much as it pained the goblin to admit it, he was still a member of a fragile species, even if goblins were said to be strong for their size. Even hunting a squirrel was out of the question for him today. Not wanting to make things any worse, he slowly made his way out of the woods, eventually reaching the grassy space between the woods and his tribe's village.

The clearing in which his village lay was natural, although it had been expanded to make room for farmland as well as to prevent enemies from launching an ambush from the cover of the trees directly onto the village itself. The soft grass surrounding the village felt much better on Breden's feet than the pine needles and twigs of the forest, and he soon found himself growing relieved as his home grew visibly closer and closer with every step. The walls of the village were made of wood, and were easily the best-built part of the entire settlement, consisting of tall, conical pieces of wood with sharpened tops reinforced by ramparts which were little more than flat surfaces to walk on which the defenders could reach by ladder. Humans called them 'ramparts' but Breden was unsure of what to call them himself.

The huts inside the village were cylindrical structures made of twigs and straw, and it wasn't uncommon for them to catch fire. Fortunately, they were built far enough from each other that the flames were unlikely to spread in that event, and few goblins ever died in the village itself. Few adults, at least. Most goblin huts had just one or two rooms each, apart from those belonging to the chief, shaman, and a few of the more skilled artisans. Privacy was hard to come by, although it was obtainable by putting a blanket between two halves of a one-room hut and staying on the far end of each half.

Breden looked around the front entrance to the village, which was kept open in peacetime. It was little more than a pair of big wooden doors which could be closed and blocked with a thick wooden board, but it did its job well. He scanned the area, looking for anyone he recognized. The village was bustling with activity, and there were plenty of other goblins around at this hour in the late afternoon.

Magic RP (Open to new players)

@Shadow Dragon

Ophion took a deep breath. This would not be easy to explain.

"Well, it is a complicated situation. Most dracon realms prohibit the worship of at least one deity which is considered dangerous for whatever reason. In most cities, if a god is not on a prohibited list, worship of that god is allowed. Except for Hekaga and a few other places, where if a god is not on a permissible list, worship of that god is forbidden. Since your god isn't technically on any list in this city, you should be allowed to worship the Reaper. What I meant earlier was that it might make others think you are cavorting with similar gods who are actually banned. Like Sem. He's a god of necromancy and the perversion of the flesh. His idea is that living things are just raw material to be fashioned into monstrosities once they perish. His followers call it 'being reforged.' Disgusting stuff."

Once more, he took a deep breath.

"As to your other question, yes, dracon worship consists or prayer, ritual, sacrifice, and the maintenance of hold objects, among other aspects of reverence. How the gods work depends on the god in question. For some gods, their mode of operation is a mystery. Others spell it all out in a book. Still others entrust those secrets to their clergy in an oral tradition."

Magic RP (Open to new players)

@Shadow Dragon

"Your patron? I-I suppose you could try it, but don't make it too public" Ophion suggested. "There are legally sanctioned and legitimate gods of death in most dracon cities, but none of them involve the undead. In fact, most of them are best described as gods of funerary rites, so if the reaper has any aspects of himself which deal with warding off the undead through rituals during a funeral, it would be best to emphasize those. I understand that I'm still talking to someone who is undead, even if you are wearing that flesh as a vessel for now. As to whether or not I count that as a god, I guess I would but that doesn't make worshiping him a good idea."

Aurescia returned the bow. "Ophion and I wish to have children, and we can have a family when we want to, but we've both agreed that until things have settled down some more, it would be irresponsible for us to have any. And either word works, but 'clutch' is generally used to describe the eggs, and 'brood' is more common for families."