The Lady of Webs and the Great Queen’s Region
North and east of the Goblin Kingdom, and east of the headwaters of the Omdal River, lie the lands claimed by the Lady of Webs and her familiar, the Great Queen. An ancient hag and her gargantuan spider familiar, the two have ruled over the Broad River Valley for centuries. On the surface, they continue a war with the wyrm Spiderslayer, but beneath the Krond Heights, they lead a nation of spiders and kobolds through the darkness. Their goals are somewhat inscrutable, and may have changed over the centuries.
In the Spider’s Lands, passage is nearly impossible, unless you are a spider or as slight as a kobold. Webs choke many passages, and silk is used as a building material. Influence from the Lady of Webs means that kobold sorcerers and witch doctors are exalted, and that spiders are the most common familiars and enthralled animals; the kobolds even train some of the smaller spiders as humans might train a dog, and ride larger spiders as one might ride a horse. However, the chiefs of their clans are often subservient to the greater spiders; massive and gargantuan spiders who are, themselves, subservient to the Lady of Webs and the Great Queen.
It is difficult to describe life with omnipresent spiders. Whereas the orcs and Dejy of the Broad River Valley worship and propitiate the spiders, the kobolds of the Deeps simply embrace them. They speak with them. Spiders crawl across kobold’s bodies and they do not notice, unless the spider bites them to request attention. The kobolds themselves are never prey of the spiders among them, and conflict between tribes is resolved between the spiders. Few enter the domain of the Lady of Webs and her consort, but those kobolds who leave are equally disturbing. Goblins have reported searching kobold emissaries or escorts for weapons and finding that their clothes contained egg masses, or that they would poke through blankets and several spiders would spill out and scurry to their kobold, climbing up their bodies without the kobold even blinking. Those goblins who have entered the domain of the Lady of Webs report kobolds riding on the back of spiders, tracking their movement with long spears and bows. When the two realms have clashed, goblin dead left on the field are given to the spiders, then dessicated or filled with a writhing mass of spiderlings. Goblins, superstitious to a fault, loathe the Spider Lands, but the Goblin King knows of deposits of silver and iron in the north, and alternately treats and battles with the Lady of Webs.
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Sidebar: Spider Legs and Bodies
Gigantic and larger spiders have two different DR numbers, depending on whether one strikes their legs or their body. Their legs are more difficult to damage, and are immune to damage from crushing or piercing weapons. Why would anyone ever strike their legs, then? The answer is reach. If your reach does not exceed the spider’s own (two feet for Gigantic and Massive, three for Gargantuan), then you may only attack the legs. Furthermore, ranged attacks from the flanks allow the body a cover save of 16; if the save succeeds, the missile has struck the legs, instead of the body. Unsurprisingly, spider-hunting is often done with spears or other pole-arms.
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The Kingdom Under the Mountain
Built in the ruins of the dwarven kingdom of K’Ran’da, the Goblin Kingdom spans the upper reaches of the Netherdeep beneath the Krond Heights. Its tunnels allow quick passage from the Durimdar river in the Shashyf Hills to the Omdal River above Dorndern in Cosdol in a matter of days in well-patrolled safety, provided you are a goblin of sufficient rank. From its mines flow a wealth of silver, copper, and iron, each ingot stamped with the blood of the slaves whipped to death to produce it. This wealth flows through the region; the goblins use it to purchase slaves from humanoids on both sides of the mountain, to purchase food from the muscheron, even to hire spies to look into the doings of P’Bapar, Cosdol, Korak, and Norga-Krangrel.
Almost a million goblins, male and female, live within the Krond Heights, under the dominion of the Goblin King, and another half a million slaves; some stolen, some bred for centuries in the dark. Similar to Norga-Krangrel and other humanoid realms, the Goblin Kingdom is capable of incredible mobilization, if necessary; in the event of an invasion, they could field four hundred thousand troops for a few months, with the remaining 20% of their male population staying behind to manage slaves and keep the economy from completely stagnating.
Government in the kingdom is goblin society writ large. The “king” is a chief of chiefs, as well as the titular head of the House of Shackles and Order of Agony. The chiefs of the various tribes answer to the King, much as a sergeant might answer to a chief. However, the sheer size of the kingdom means that even this level of organization is inadequate; there are hundreds of tribes in the kingdom, and so another layer of organization is imposed, which is the city. Each city is ruled by a single chief, or a council of chiefs, who report to the king. The official religious representatives in each city advise the chief or council, and, sometimes, will take control of it for a time, until a chief comes along to dispute their claim. A chief in a city must answer to the chief of the city, but may choose to challenge him at will.
Punishments are decided by one’s immediate superior, but failing to impose adequate punishment is, itself, a crime, so punishments for goblins tend to be harsh, though seldom fatal. “The dead do not suffer” is a common phrase among goblins; while humans may take it as an expression of nihilism, goblins use it to remind themselves that if you kill someone, you can’t torture them any further, and so almost killing them is far preferred. Many goblins, when faced with punishment, will challenge their leader’s right to punish them, forcing a dominance challenge. If the goblin wins, then it becomes the responsibility of his new leader to punish him, and he simply may not care; what is against the rules for a private is not necessarily against the rules for a sergeant or a captain.
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Sidebar: The Goblin King
Who is the Goblin King? What month is it? The Goblin Kingdom gains and loses kings quite rapidly, sometimes several in a year; the record is 16 kings in one year, while the longest in the office held it for almost ten years.. In theory, any goblin may, at any time, challenge the king for the crown, just as any goblin may challenge their chief. In practice, those goblins who try but are not deemed worthy will be counter-challenged by his bodyguards, a slightly irregular procedure with lower-ranked goblins, but acknowledged as how things work with the king. In practice, the king only needs to meet challenges of chiefs or those goblins famous enough to be worthy of his time. Since dominance fights are not necessarily to the death, some goblins have been kings on several occasions, replacing their usurpers or another king down the line.
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Approximately half of these goblins live in smaller communities in the hinterlands, near smelters or mines, farms or military outposts. The rest live in the fabled Seven Cities of the Dwarves, the Jewels of K’Ran’da, each named for a dwarven precious metal. Iron, Copper, Tin, Silver, Gold, and Platinum surround the capital, Orichalcum. Broad roads carved long ago connect the cities, with Orichalcum at the hub, Iron at the north Silver to the northeast (closest to the Broad River Valley), Copper to the southeast (near the Shashyf Hills and the Durimdal River Valley), Platinum to the south, Gold to the southwest, and Tin to the northwest. That there was a spindle of Iron and Platinum, and that the other two pairs formed alloys with their opposite (bronze and electrum) was of deep significance to the dwarves; there was a balance based on usefulness and harmony, with iron at the top and nigh-unmeltable platinum as a base. In the middle was the mythical Orichalcum, the metal of metals. Many of the broadways have fallen in the intervening centuries; the road between Silver and Copper collapsed with the fall of K’Ran’da, Gold is connected only to Platinum, and much of the path between Iron and Silver belongs to the Lady of Webs and her spiders.
The cities are massive caverns, holding tens of thousands of goblins, slaves, and allies. Where they have been maintained or repaired, water flows to most of the buildings from a lake or river through a system of aqueducts; where they have fallen into disrepair, the cities may be dry or partially flooded. Waste might be taken away by sewers, or back up into the streets, or fall into a cesspool inhabited by muck men and stercuses. Giant flies buzz through the skies; some carrying goblin riders, others simply carrying disease. The walls glisten with respirating slime molds, and colonies of glowing fungus provide a constant dim light through much of the city. Rooftop prowlers haunt the ruins, rats the size of dogs may roam the street, and vermii scuttle through shadows.
City goblins squat in dwarven buildings or construct ramshackle shanty-towns amidst their rubble. Lacking the art of the dwarves, the goblins’ own buildings are ugly blocks; functional, but only for their original function. Many of the lowest live in tents, and slaves are often kept in open pens or broken buildings. Filth accumulates everywhere, to the point where cleanliness is suspicious, indicating that a giant amoeba might have come through. Larger buildings may keep an amoeba for waste disposal, giving them just enough space for fission, then killing the offspring; more common is to simply dump waste in the street, reasoning that the slaves will get it. It would be a fire hazard, if the primary building material were not broken stones.
At one time, the cities had well-organized layouts, with different quarters given over to different clans or guilds; now, the only remains of that organization is the tribal structure of goblins, with each chief claiming the most choice territory he is able to keep, erecting what facilities his tribe needs, and ceding that territory when a superior chief comes to the fore, abandoning facilities that may then fall to ruin. Knowing where one is going in the cities is less a matter of Cartography than Current Affairs; who has access to clean water and solid housing, and who is contributing to the maze of tents and shanties in the outer rubble.
There are only two constants in organization: The King’s Hall, and the Market. Frequently on opposite sides of the city, the King’s Hall is where administrative tasks under the authority of the king will happen. Most often, this is a meeting place for the chiefs in a given city, where the king’s representatives will confer with the city’s chief’s and give them directives and hear their grievances. Formal challenges for higher ranks (captain or above, plus any challenge that demands neutral territory) will happen at these locations, and there’s often a bookie nearby to take bets.
The Market will be where individual goblins spend what coin they have, but also a place for goblins wielding authority (theirs or a master’s) to negotiate larger trades of goods. While many chiefs will prefer to be self-sufficient, the fact remains that few in the cities will have the breadth of resources under their command to maintain complete autonomy (something that the king seldom allows). So, chiefs with significant agricultural holdings will seldom have mines and smelters, those with mines and smelters may not have many craftsgoblins, and those with significant numbers of blacksmiths may have to outsource much of their leatherworking. This interconnectedness of the goblin economy keeps power from concentrating in the hands of a few chiefs, and kings have, in the past, destroyed or disabled chiefs who were able to gather too much independence.
Like human markets, there will be a variety of goods. Raiders may sell excess weapons, slaves, or booty. If a slave has a special talent, their output might be sold, as will the work of enterprising goblins of all levels. Goblin liquor is truly foul (they use urine to regulate pH in the process), but a popular hobby among city goblins, and more than a few slaves will be prostituted for coin. Since most goblins are illiterate, there’s no market for parchment or ink; the few mages and clerics who require such things will frequently have arrangements with those who produce them, rather than gathering them at the market. Goblins do not mint coins, but copper and silver are relatively common, and are traded by weight.
There are temples to the major faiths in each city, and a variety of shrines, totems, and chapels, as well, dedicated to a variety of deities. The House of Shackles always maintains the most prominent temple, prefering to usurp a dwarven temple to the Founder or The True and pervert it to their own ends. The Order of Agony, always more concerned with the lives of the average goblin, tends to have a number of shrines throughout the city, while the House of Knives will have a single, well-located but not ostentatious, temple in a well-fortified building. Other temples will scatter themselves throughout a city, vying for supremacy among themselves, while shamanic shrines and underground cults will have more humble (or entirely secret) locations.
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Hopefully, I won't forget a week this time!
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