Erik Amundsen's Blog, page 28

The Beast Fears Fire - Wisps

Wisps [Disaster 2-3]

Impulse - Deny passage, lead astray.   Starting at the end.  Whatever they start as, evil spirits always end up as wisps, tiny glowing motes of memory and resentment, each particle grouping with the others out of a sense that they comprised a single being, once.  It can take centuries for a spirit to degrade to this point, or it can take weeks, depending on the personality of the spirit and the method they used to remain conscious.  By the time the spirit has degraded into wisps, it's not really capable of meaningful communication or recalling any of its knowledge or anything about its (their) identity.  Individual wisps can separate from the the main group and continue functioning independantly, but tend not to last very long.  Wisps have enough cunning to recognize dangerous features and situations and lure people into them in hopes of bringing them to grief.

Harm - Moderator Hard Moves.  Wisps try to get you killed.  They hang around dangerous terrain features (swamps, rocky passes, ravines, rivers) or in the vicinity of flesh-hungry beasties (many of whom recognize the potential boon that wisps represent and play along), and try to convince people to wander into the teeth of these dangers.  If it works, the wisps congregate to feed on fear, desperation, and the psychic energies that release upon death.  A well fed wisp colony can limp along indefinitely, and, at this point, self-preservation is one of the two things a wisp has.

The other thing it has is enough cunning to realize that most of the time, people are going to recognize a wisp for what it is.  Wisps can change their color, their brightness, become invisible if they want, spread themselves out over a large area, flash in patterns, control which individual wisp is lit and which is dark, they can resemble little flames or crafted sprites (little balls of light), but what they cannot do is undo all those warning tales about them.  Occasionally, they will trick a person into following them, sure, either because the person is desperate, ignorant or believes an ally is sending a sprite to help them.  Most of the time, though, it isn't that easy.  Small children get lots of warnings not to follow lights in the dark without verifying their identity, and wisps are just clever enough to take that into account.  They are expert herders, preying on the knowledge people have of them and indecision, or, failing that, they lead monsters right to you.

The Blue Light Special
When wisps are active in an area you are trying to travel, face Disaster.
On a Hit, you manage to skirt the dangers the wisps had planned for you, but the Moderator can have them keep harassing you with a Soft Move.
On a Hard Hit, you can choose to turn the tables on the wisps, lose them completely, or turn the tables on any monster the wisp was leading to you.
On a Miss, you done goofed.  Moderator Hard Move.


Shine an everloving light on me.
Wisps aren't exactly corporeal, so unless you are a breaker or have some charms about, swinging at them is not going to help you.  They are pretty suceptible to will and even a non-practitioner can cause a couple wisps to wink out with some focus and desire to do so.  That said, they aren't completely defenseless, and screwing up when facing off against their Malevolence is badly disorienting and results in the same outcome as missing disaster against them.

Depending on what kind of evil spirit they were before, destroying individual wisps can cause their energy to crystalize into one of the seven supernatural minerals.  For this reason, there are people who specifically hunt them, usually shadow witches or folks who are adept at spritecraft (you can craft sprites specifically to kill wisps, and, in doing so, the added energy makes it all the more likely that the wisp will produce crystals) and are good at navigation.  There is the occasional story of some villain who arranges for people to form into wisps after death in order to farm the minerals off of them, but this seems... Impractical, if not unpracticable. 

The Beast Fears Fire - The Evil Dead

People in Crickton have access to enough evidence and information about the afterlife that they can be fairly certain what it's all about.  For most people, there really isn't one.  You can summon up a spirit with all the memories and psyche of what its living person once had and they will tell you right out what they've experienced since leaving their body: not a whole hell of a lot.  There's some initial disorientation, but then the spirit slides into shadow, into its own mind and experiences, and relives them, in no particular order.  This accounts for a very small amount of time, though, most of the time, they aren't; they're asleep, or gone, or something.  Over time, the spirits tend to degrade, dreaming less and sleeping more, harder and harder to distinguish from the world.  Some of it comes back in new bodies, new lives, and it may be, in large part of and from a person before, but not all of it, not even most of it.  The strongest cases of spiritual preservation comprise maybe a third of a new spirit in a new life.  They have ways of figuring this out.

Point is that when you die, you are not coming back.  Bits of you will come back, but you aren't you anymore, and the potentially thousands of people who will be born with pieces of you aren't you.  There is no you.

For some of you, this is going to be a difficult thing to swallow.  You aren't alone.  Folks have been messing with spiritual preservation since they knew that useful postmortem survival wasn't an option.  There are methods, some are quite elaborate, some very difficult; some aren't even particularly evil and don't result in becoming a horror, but none of those have really taken.  The ones that have, the ones you're likely to see, are ones that a person can do accidentally, or have done to them against their will, the ones that make monsters.

Because we are here for the monsters.

There is a notion that someone can be bad enough, or so focused on postmortem survival that the shadows won't take them, that once they have the design on coming back, or more accurately, on sticking around, that they taint themselves, and can't go back.  It's a comforting thought, since what sticks around is dangerous, unpleasant, and well, I did use the word "evil" in the title and the coffin fits the corpse, so to speak.  And they usually bring a handful of people over to their side of the dividing line, so it's nice to believe that your loved ones won't be bunking with them.  Sadly and happily, depending on how you look at it, this is not the case.  A spirit gone all wrong like that is sort of like a person who has decided not to sleep ever again and manages it.  Stay awake for long enough, and you will lose your mind.  Cricks learned that in the war and the Dahanish prison camps.  The human body will die if kept awake for long enough, but a spirit can't, so the degradation of the psyche just goes on and on.  I suspect this plays a role in their behavior towards the living, and also presents the best hope for dislodging them from the living world.

You have to knock them out.

The Beast Fears Fire - Goblin Markets

Goblin Markets [Want 2-4]

Impulse – Make you buy.  The most sociable goblins around are traders.  Either that or traders are the most sociable goblins around; sociability and therefore trade or trade and therefore sociability.  Goblins tend to have fewer needs than humans, or, at least, they pay them a lot less mind, unless they are hobgoblins and doomed to a life of frustration and disappointment.  In any case, goblin traders like to congregate in sort of out-of-the-way places to ply their trade and swap their goods.  And goods they have.  Over time, hospitable places have begun to accept and host these meetings, usually open only after dark, and not generally spoken of directly, and others have joined them.  Still predominantly goblin, shoppers can find spirits, more singular underworldly denizens, witches out on the lunatic fringe of witchcraft and assorted other hustlers and hucksters.

Goblin markets have things for sale.  There is a steady stream of the lost, strayed, stolen and hobgoblin made, there is goblin fruit (though goblin fruiters tend to keep out of sight for the sake of causing less trouble) and native ruegoblin produce.  Then there are singular things.  Magical things and otherwise.  Things you never knew existed but need.  Things that are dangerous to possess and more dangerous to let fall into someone elses’ hands.

Things.

Harm – Moderator Moves.  The market isn’t the safest shopping experience, but it’s not violent.  In fact, a lot of trouble goes into keeping it from being violent.  That said, there is a lot of latitude for strange and unpleasant things to happen to an unwise or unwary shopper.

When you go to market, you’re best off knowing exactly what it is you are seeking.  You’ve got a better chance of finding it there than most places.  Going for entertainment is a bad idea that courts disaster.  In between is the real purpose of the goblin market, shopping for a solution to a problem.

Dark Market

When you go to a goblin market looking for a solution to a seemingly insoluble problem, face Want.

On a Hit you get something that will serve, if obliquely, and comes with plenty of difficulty and danger in making happen.

On a Hard Hit, you find something that matches a plan you would like to enact, with only a Soft Move or two to gum it up.

On a Miss, I hope you like your bargains Faustian, because that’s what we’ve got.

You’re looking for something that’s hard to find and I think I have what you have in mind.

Okay, seriously, do I have to spell this one out for you?  A market where you can get anything you want, and you will, good and hard, full of colorful characters, dangerous goods and run by the underworld’s own little chaos batteries.  If you can’t make anything out of this, I despair for you.

The Beast Fears Fire - Ruegoblins

Ruegoblins [Violence 2]

Impulse – Make the grass grow.  Ruegoblins are the horticulturists of the goblin world, goblin farmers.  Sort of.  They are a sort of counterpoint to hobgoblins, where the hobs keep goblins housed and clothed, rues keep them fed.  Rues are the goblins with the longest and most contact with humanity, and it is because of the rues that people tend to depict and imagine goblins as green.  Rues steal and scrounge human tools and clothing, observe human farming and generally try to copy their techniques.  Unfortunately for humanity, rues caught on to the ancient notion that blood sacrifice was an important part of agriculture, and never outgrew it, so rues are the hunters of goblinkind as well as the farmers, and hunting to a goblin means anything with blood in it.  Humans were once the most powerful form of sacrifice back in the day, and the rues remember that sort of thing, even if they never quite understood why.

You can tell rues from other goblins by the fact that, regardless of their other attributes, rues are always some shade of green.  Other goblins can also be green, but you can tell rues further by the flowers growing out of their scalps, scattered in their hair and the bitter aroma they constantly give off.  They are generally better clothed than most goblins, too.

Harm – Injury 2, Peril (Capture).  Ruegoblins are unabashedly physical and their form of combat is very athletic and almost suicidal in its courage.  Flying kicks and tackles, body blocks, head butts; rues usually carry farming tools with them when they go hunting, but with the exception of rope darts, set snares and the odd bow or sling, they don’t really use them.  Rues attempt to subdue their enemies and prey and take them back to their gardens for sacrifice.

We’ll Build a Better Garden.

Rue gardens are as accidental and chaotic as anything you can expect from goblin workmanship, but, as usual, the reality defying bloody-mindedness of goblins combined with the actual power of blood sacrifice and the underworldly influences on any area where goblins settle combines to make a kind of haphazard and ultimately dangerous magic.  You can find just about any significant herb, fungus or flower in a goblin garden, if you look hard enough, and can convince the rues that sacrificing you to it is not worth the trouble involved.  Rues aren’t much different from common goblins in temperament until they start fighting, and you can convince them to trade with you.  They especially like freshly taken organs from, well, just about any animal (humans are best, to them.  Just saying.), and will usually deal, though it’s probably easier to go to your local goblin market for that stuff.

Since Crickton is sort of the cradle for unarmed martial arts, some people have taken to adapting the rue’s particular fighting style.  Goblin fist focuses on a lot of long-range strikes and full-body leaping attacks.  It’s considered fairly effective for those with the athletic ability required.  Goblin fist makes much more extensive use of rope darts in terms of related weapon styles than the rues usually do, and some folks think that’s not such a good idea, as the rues are almost always watching, and one of the few blessings of the rue hunting and fighting style is that they tend to forget they have those things.

The Prospectus Fears Fire

So I have finished writing up the goblins (Tomorrow: Ruegoblins, all agricultural and scary.  Wednesday: Goblin Markets, 'nuff said).

This is what I am looking at next.

Evil Spirits (because some people remain dicks in death).
Wisps, swarms of pathetic little spirits who try to frighten, lead astray and kill to liven up their deaths.
Shades, darkly cold and minty fresh and want to share, with you, their death.
Vampires, fly by night, drinking blood and spreading their curse while thier body lies somewhere they hope is well hidden.
Specters, who make the walls bleed, and relentlessly stalk anyone who triggers their kill condition.
Wraiths, kind of like phantom hitchikers who appear and challenge you to a fight.  Never fight fair.
Liches, who hang out in trees and make life miserable for anyone in their territory.

Ghouls (The other major group in the Underworld).
Goolies, who grab you.
Ghasts, who eat ghouls and make everything sick and nauseated.
Kappha, who took to the water and know how to scry.
Gholes, who are everywhere, sometimes all at the same time.
Ghouls, just the regular kind, eaters of the dead and all.
Necroleptes, burrowers who are the reason we can't have nice things.

Cruelties of Man (Normative magic maketh monsters).
Ogres, who set traps and trick people into their stew pots.
Hollows, who like to let it all out, and by it, we mean swarms of crawly things.
Werewolves, are you a werewolf?
Hellbrands, who put a more literal spin on the term "rotter."
Satyrs, and I may have to change them to something else, but for now, we'll keep them as a placeholder.
Harpies, flyers who are the reason we can't have nice things.

And that should hold well into next year.  Wow.

The Beast Fears Fire - Grims

Grimgoblins [Malevolence 3]

Impulse – Wreck all the things.  Grimgoblins, or grims (usually “grims” or “what does that goblin think he’s doi- AAAH MY BODY!”) don’t come out of the Underworld without a good reason.  Good reasons in the Underworld are bad news on the surface, just so we’re clear, and grims give a good impression that there is more going on down there with goblins than meets the eye.  Other goblins are definitely afraid of them, definitely do what the grims tell them, and emphatically do not talk about them or what agency they might represent.  It doesn’t help investigators that, whatever this agency may be, grims are no better at serving it than any goblin; it does, however, certainly help the rest of the world quite a bit.

Some people think that grims are a link between goblins and the next most populous class of underworldly denizen, the ghouls.  Grims resemble ghouls a fair amount; pug noses, pointed ears, coloration that manages to be both ashen and lurid at the same time.  Grims also have a weaker version of the earth necromancy that necroleptes possess, though, where necroleptes magic is pervasive and a fact of their being, grims actually have to put effort into their witchcraft, which they do with all the sadistic glee and heed for larger consequences you’ve come to expect from goblins.

Harm – Injury 4 or Injury 2 and Peril (Held, Shaken, Buried, In the Air).  Grimgoblins aren’t the most imaginative combatants, given their capabilities.  Giant headstones rear out of the ground and terrible speed, launching victims, or toppling onto them.  Fissures open full of reaching skeletal hands to drag you down.  The earth spews forth its bones which animate to poke and bite and club you.  Grims especially like to knock their victims down so they can stomp on them.  They wear iron-shod, hobnailed goblin boots and are naturals at the stomping.  Grimgoblins are a supernatural force, so facing off against them, usually, requires dealing with their earthbending first.

It’s waving its arms…
When you face a creature that is also a supernatural force and is trying to supernatural the hell out of you, face Malevolence.

On a Hit, you manage to hold off its magical assault well enough to face it any other way you choose.

On a Hard Hit, you turn the power back on its source and it suffers Harm as stated.

On a Miss, you suffer Harm as stated or a Moderator Hard Move.

 

I feel the earth move under my feet.

Grims, if anything, have less respect for the plans and works of their own kind than the do for surface dwellers.  They are terrible to other goblins, and, even for goblins, lack any sort of patience or self-discipline.  Once they choose a path, they are bound attempt it again and again unless they get distracted.  They are prone to violent temper tantrums, and if the other sorts of goblins weren’t utterly terrified of them, they would probably hate them.  Other kinds of goblins are utterly terrified of them, to the point that a goblin ordered by a grim to immolate themselves while singing a happy song will do so.  Goblins are incapable, or, at least, they seem incapable of resisting grims.  Whether this is some personal power grims possess or if this is a function of what they may represent is a piece of information no one has.  On the occasion that grims leave any goblins alive when they return to the earth, they order them to never speak of what happened.

Grims are capable of finding just about anything in the earth with their necromancy, specific bodies, locations, buried treasure, but they generally cannot be induced to give a fuck.

The Beast Fears Fire - Bugbears

Bugbear [Ignorance 3]

Impulse – Bring forth fear. Neither bug nor bear, these goblins have the dubious distinction of having more names than any other kind of goblin. Cricks refer to them, variously, as bugaboos, boogoblins, buglins and grablins, depending on region. Bugbears get their collection of names and their notoriety from their habit of stalking, tormenting and kidnapping people. Foremost representatives of the competent/evil quadrant of goblinhood, bugbears run lanky and tall, usually bigger than most goblins and generally stronger than almost all of them. This forces even the more sociable bands of goblins to abide by their eccentricities and the negative attention it invariably draws. Bugbears, for their part, are content to browbeat, bully and intimidate everything that falls within the reach of their long, long arms. “Cruelty personified” seems a little dramatic, and I don't want to just say that, but with bugbears, I am coming up short on a better description.

Harm – Injury 2, Peril. Bugbears aren't always deliberately murderous, but their chosen forms of entertainment tend to end in death, regardless of whether or not they set out to murder their intended victims. Bugbears skulk around places unseen until they find a likely target to begin stalking. Motherfuckers are masters of stealth, and generally choose victims who, at first, don't have a lot of reason to suspect they're being watched. Once they've chosen a victim, the bugbear begins to stalk and gaslight them.

I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me
When you are being actively stalked and gaslit by some villain, face Ignorance.
On a Hit, you become aware of the villain's intentions, beyond a doubt. You can ask one question about your tormentor and receive and honest answer.
On a Hard Hit you can turn the tables on your tormentor and confront them or ask three questions and get honest answers.
On a Miss, you aren't sure, you can't be sure. Maybe it's all in your head... Take Peril as stated (Paranoid, Frightened, Terrified; something like that).

Once the Bugbear has gotten bored with the hunt, they will usually subdue and abduct their target for further torment. Bugbears dragoon hobgoblins into designing chambers of fun for the purpose (and hobgoblins justify it on the basis that a bugbear with a victim is a busy bugbear not throwing its weight around and causing problems with hobgoblin projects).

Would You Like to Play a Game?
When you are placed in a deathtrap or torture chamber and left to your own devices, face Ignorance.
On a Hit, you can make progress toward getting out or avoid Harm in doing so.
On a Hard Hit you can make progress toward getting out and avoid Harm or take the Harm and escape in a single go.
On a Miss, Moderator makes a Hard Move.

Despite these moves, bugbears don't usually go for prey that could stand up to them in a Fight or turn the tables on them – they prefer targets that aren't quite so capable or dangerous. Bugbears aren't interested in the challenge of worthy prey, they just like to terrorize and hurt things. They are one of the few monsters that being an adventurer makes you less likely to meet. That said, you probably know a lot of people who aren't adventurers, and a bugbear is bound to find one of them an interesting choice in prey.

A Particular Set of Skills.
When someone you know has been kidnapped and you want to find them, face Ignorance.
On a Hit, you can ask a question about the situation or kidnapper and get an honest answer.
On a Hard Hit, you can track the kidnapper or the victim to their lair/the place where they are being held, respectively.
On a Miss, the victim takes Harm as stated.


Intruder's happy in the dark.

There's no clear consensus on what drives bugbears to behave the way they do. Goblins aren't much for psychology or philosophy, and aren't much help with the insight into their cousins' behavior. There certainly is no lack of run-of-the-mill evil goblins who gleefully carry out terrible designs, but bugbears are unique in the very narrow and consistent focus of their particular brand of terribleness. Likewise, they are, quite possibly, the most competent and focused kind of goblin. That said, they seem to contribute the least to goblin culture.

The Beast Fears Fire - Goblin Fruit

Goblin Fruit [Hardship]

Impulse – Tempt. No one is really sure if goblin fruit came with the goblins to the underworld or if it was already there when the goblins arrived, and I'm not sure it really matters. What matters is that goblins can eat it and you cannot. That's not going to stop your from trying, or, if you can stop you from trying, it's not going to stop you from wanting to. Honestly, it's equally plausible that goblin fruit is the food of the underworld, meant for the dead and that human attraction to it is based on a morbid longing for death, or that it's something related to the goblins and its fascination is just another one of those goblin things. The act of study, where goblin fruit is concerned, requires an iron will and regular doses of emetics, and even that isn't always sufficient.

Goblin fruit takes the form of just about any fruit you can think of, including ones that could never grow in or last a voyage to Crickton. And that's just the beginning; there are roast chicken fruits, grilled fish fruits, bread fruits (as opposed to breadfruits), cake fruits, just about anything you can think of. Goblins eat this stuff without a problem (though they tend to prefer even decidedly unappetizing things on the surface to goblin fruit), but humans who do either break a taboo that invokes a curse down on them or takes in a huge dose of incidental magic and it fucks them right up.

Harm – Moderator Happy Time. You won't ever mistake goblin fruit. It's not something you can hide in a dish or pass off as something it's not, unless you are a hobgoblin and you canned or pickled it (no one knows how they manage). Eating it brings a strong magical effect down on you, one that is unpredictable and can range from merely inconvenient to extremely dangerous. Goblin fruit is supernaturally attractive to humans, the Threshold on how attractive being set by the amount of goblin fruit and the presentation. An apple might not require a move at all, while a massive banquet set for you in the great halls of the underworld when you are already starving could manage a threshold of 5.

Yummy yummy yummy, I have... uh oh.
When goblin fruit is presented to you in sufficient quantities, face Hardship.
On a Hit, you don't have to eat, but I'll give you an Insight if you do.
On a Hard Hit, you don't have to eat, and I'll give you an Insight.
On a Miss, you chow down, unless someone else takes violent action to stop you, and I get to make a goblin fruit Move.

Goblin fruit causes all sorts of unpredictable effects on the people who eat them. Some common ones (enchanted slumber, death), are weak sauce to use on players, so both of those two are out. That aside this is a free pass to be as Gygaxian as you want in applying weirdness to the lives of the eaters (some old school chestnuts, like changing the character's biological sex [or gender, or sexual orientation] are things you ought to discuss and make sure that everyone is comfortable with it at the table. Don't be an asshole.]. Some common and/or fun ones are as follows.You gain the Addict trait (for goblin fruit) and cannot refresh Strength from your other Traits until you resolve your curse.You turn into a goblin. You remain you psychologically and in terms of capabilities, but you resemble a goblin. If you don't manage to get out of your goblinhood in a fortnight, you become one psychologically as well.All table chatter and out of character talking is something your character hears, as well as any background noise. Some of the catchiest songs in Crickton are the result of someone eating goblin fruit.I get to ask you three questions, as if you Missed facing Ignorance and you get to answer them honestly. I get to use that knowledge against you any time I want.I get to ask you one question, as if you Missed facing Ignorance, and you get to choose someone else to answer it for you. That answer becomes canon, even if it was not before.You attract the attention of a cruelty of man, traditionally a harpy, but doesn't have to be.Perils that can only be resolved by curing the goblin fruit curse are possible as well, but less fun.

You are what you eat.

Goblins brew a beer that washes the taste of goblin fruit out of your mouth, so to speak. It's not hard to come by in the goblin market, but goblins know when someone is hurting because of goblin fruit and therefore you can expect some truly extortionate prices. Witches and priests usually know a ritual or two which can help with the effects (usually requiring facing Malevolence for the ritualist and/or Hardship for the victim), but the beer is probably your best bet, as it doesn't require a Move.

Victims of goblin fruit can eat all the goblin fruit they want without further ill effect, but they will find it is minimally nutritious at best. Though I have been saying “human” all this time, all natural born sapients (humans, rukh, great wolves, shape changers, etc.) are susceptible to the lure and the sting of goblin fruit.

The Beast Fears Fire - Hobgoblins

(This is a little early for tomorrow)

Hobgoblins [Disaster 2]

Impulse – Build and Direct. Hobgoblins tend to be a little bigger than the goblins in their community and significantly smarter and steadier. Unlike normal goblins, hobgoblins seem capable of developing skills and making plans. Sadly, these plans usually require the labor of a whole lot of gleefully unskilled goblins that the hobs usually have to constantly monitor in order to make sure that they are doing something similar to what they're meant to do. In practice, the best laid plans of the hobgoblins never come quite to fruition, as most of their labor is spent on managing their labor force, and it leads to forgotten aspects of the plan, cut corners, and some group of goblins set to a task and then forgotten, and who knows what they've been doing all this time.

Hobgoblins aren't terribly patient, either. They can get entire cities built overnight, but they are cities, built overnight. They also aren't very high on the goblin social ladder, able to boss around the run-of-the-mill goblins to an extent, but definitely not able to enforce their plans on most of the other goblins with prefixes on their names.

Harm – variable [usually Injury 2, Gang]. An individual hobgoblin is probably a threat to a human who hasn't been in many fights, probably not so much to a hardened adventurer, even one who is not especially martial. Hobgoblins usually try to gang up with other goblins when they need to defend themselves, or they feel like hurting something.

Hobgoblins' most formidable recourse against humanity is the buildings they design and make their cousins build. Deathtrap is sort of slander against deathtraps, but it's not inaccurate. Hobgoblins do like sprinkling their towering, rickety constructions with actual deathtraps as well.

It's Only a Goblin City.
When you go into a goblin-made building, face Disaster.
On a Hit, you manage to navigate the place without part of it blowing up, blowing down, collapsing or catching on fire.
On a Hard Hit, you figure the ins and outs of the place and gain +1 Hit Forward on any moves you make inside the structure.
On a Miss, a likely memorable Hard Move.


We built this city, we built this city on...

Hobgoblins supply their cousins with most of their tools, clothes, housing, weapons, prepared food. Goblins are never careful with their possessions, they come up just about anywhere and move around a lot. If you are out in the field and you are looking for an item, any item, there's a good chance it was made by hobgoblins.

Hobgoblin made items are not great quality. Most of their work is rushed, most of their materials are shady and most of their attention is on other things. If you face want and get a Hit, you can choose that the thing you found was goblin-made. Goblin-made items will give you a D4 as gear, and the Moderator can take them any old time as a Soft Move.

Unless you were looking for food. Then things get interesting. Hobgoblins love preserves. They love brining and pickling and canning and experimenting with different recipes and methods. This is every bit as potentially terrifying as it sounds. Add to the usual dangers of canning and preserving as done by someone who is not good at it and probably didn't sterilize (or wash their hands), the possibility that the preserves contain something poisonous, inedible, or goblin fruit.

Still, I can almost guarantee that sometime, somewhere, you are going to get hungry. You will be out in the field, the food will be gone from your pouch, and there will be this jar of peaches, you think.

Smells alright to me.
When you eat goblin pickles or preserves, face Hardship
On a Hit, you ate something that might make your belly a little uncomfortable, but nothing worse.
On a Hard Hit, there was some goblin fruit in the batch that denatured in the process granting one of the following: refresh Strength to full, resolve a Peril, heal all Harm, get +1 Hit Forward on your next move.
On a Miss, take 3 Harm and a Moderator Hard Move.

The Beast Fears Fire - Goblins, Introduction

Goblins [Impulse – Cause Trouble]

According to the Savels, the Earth took second place in a competition between the elements to see which one would be entrusted with the care of the spirits of the dead as they awaited their rebirth. There are some stories that attribute Shadow's win to shenanigans, but in the end, the dead chose to rest in the dark. Wood grew over whatever it made to entice spirits, Water and Sky simply stopped having those places, but Earth was kind of stuck. Excepting that one time, Earth is not so good at changing, not quickly anyway, and the deep places were now full of galleries and halls for the dead.

The stories differ on how those passages came to be the richly appointed and terrifying Black Mansions Below; some folks hold that the Earth invited denizens in to fill its empty places and others say that the inhabitants came about based on Earth's slow imaginings of what it would have been like to house the afterworld. Whatever the case, the Mansions are no longer empty, they teem. Mostly, they teem with goblins.

Goblins are made along the human plan, mostly. They usually range a little smaller than people to kind of a lot smaller, except when they don't. Their features can be ugly, funny, striking, alluring, terrifying, bestial... Groups of goblins tend to resemble one another, and the more attractive ones tend to be a little more likely to be benign, except when they aren't.

It's usually wise to think of Goblins existing in four quadrants; one axis runs from harmless to wicked, the other ranges from competent to walking disaster. Goblins are equally distributed along the former axis, and trend disastrous on the other. Goblins are quite social, usually rather exuberant about, well, any damned thing. They group naturally, act based on consensus and generally cock up whatever they set out to do. In the west, they speak of the republican leanings of Murren and its former possessions as being run by goblins, and locally, you can usually find people who'd agree, without facing Want to do it.

There is nowhere you can be that is not close to an entrance to the Black Mansions, by design, it was meant to be a place you could get to quickly, no matter where you died. Some entrances are caves and caverns, fissures, the bottoms of wells. Some are behind doors that otherwise lead to spare bedrooms unless you knock three times, then two times, then three times again with the other hand. Goblins can show up anywhere. Crick society has some relationship with the more stable and less evil goblins, supporting a Goblin market or two in the larger communities, but the dangerous ones, whether deliberately or accidentally so, aren't that rare either. The law doesn't offer protection to goblins, but the ones who run the markets can usually count on witches for protection, since goblin markets are the primary source for most of your witchy needs.