Working with Dad Gets Me into Goblin Culture

My Intro to Kech Volaar (e.g., Coolest Goblinoids on the Planet)

Barrakas – Rhaan, 990 YK

There are some cool people I got to meet going out with dad and Trees and I really did learn a lot about surviving in the jungle, fighting for my life both face-to-face and from a nice hidden position, and how to keep an eye out for danger in general. One of my favorites was the time we were hired on by a couple Dhakaani hobgoblins, Jhazaali, a duur’kala, or “dirge singer” and Tariic (the glory seeker and singer of his own praises). They had some bugbear muscle who went by Thuun (huge male small brain) and Duusha (huge female small brain), and a goblin artificer named Vanii and his sister Valii (a sneaky girl that taught me some nasty tricks with a dagger). They were seeking out the goblin village of Yellyark. I’d heard tales of Yellyark before and it’s pretty fascinating (and crazy) how these goblins live. See, Yellyark is in the heart of the jungle in Skyfall (peninsula that is). It’s very difficult to find because they’re kinda nomadic. But they live in a village. A village with huts and everything. See, that’s where the crazy part comes in. To protect themselves against giant carnivores, the goblins built the important structures of the village atop a “net” of strong, supple tree branches bound together with vines. The net is rigged to a heavy tree, bent down like a giant spring. When a predator threatens to overrun the village, goblins cut the vine and the entire village is rolled into a ball and flung a thousand yards over the jungle! The huts inside are cushioned from impact by layers of leaves and moss; damage to the flexible structures can be repaired, and most of the village’s precious totems, food, basketwork, and spare weapons are saved. (Perkins, Doyle, & Winter, 2017)

See. They be crazy. Crazy awesome that is.

So that’s what we’re hired to help find because the goblins need to get some ancient goblinoid heirloom they believe is possessed by the village’s queen, Queen Grabstab. Gods that is a great name. Uh, sorry. Continuing. So, Queen Grabstab is supposedly the long long lost ancestor of a group of goblins that left Khorvaire to find a way to defeat the humans that had started to overrun the ancient goblin kingdom on that continent (again, long ago). This is a fascinating story too but that is written about in plenty of history books, so I’ll leave that for now. Suffice it to say that this whole trip is the reason that I decide to spend more than a year of my life living with and studying goblinoids on both Xen’drik and Khorvaire (mostly Khorvaire). The Dhakaani Empire is something everyone should learn about and I KNOW House Cannith could learn something from their metalsmiths even to this day. Right. Sidetracked again. Sorry about that.

So, we head off down the River Koronoo. A rowboat full of supplies (rowed by Thuun and Duusha) and three canoes: Jhazaali and me in one, Vanii, Valii and Dad in the lead, and Tariic and Trees in the last one. You have to keep an eye (and ear and nose) on things while traveling in the jungle but that doesn’t mean we don’t talk. So, we talk and I got so lucky getting put in a canoe with Jhazaali. Like I said, she’s what the Dhakaani call a duur’kala. Kinda similar to our bards but in the Dhakaani culture they are leaders and healers with more roles in battle but also plenty off the battlefield. They’re not nearly as frivolous or light-hearted as your typical Tabaxi bard. They also know a great deal of history when it comes to the Dhakaani culture, and Jhazaali is even more knowledgeable than others of her kind since Kech Volaar (I’ll talk more about it later) is big on retention of their lore. Some duur’kala focus specifically on healing or battle augmentation, while others deal more with diplomacy and/or lore. Jhazaali is one of the latter. Another difference is that duur’kala are almost exclusively female hobgoblins. You know what. I’ll save more about duur’kala and Dhakaani culture for when I actually lived amongst them. For now, suffice to say that, despite her young age, Jhazaali was her Kech’s loremaster (Kech Volaar, “the Word Bearers” if you’re wondering) and the one who really knew what the heck we were looking for. From what I gathered, that long, long lost ancestor of Queen Grabstab’s was on a Dhakaani galley (a rarity) lost at some point during this expedition to Xen’drik. This ancestor, a goblin sorcerer (also rare in the Dhakaan culture) named Frax, was sent by the last emperor of the Dhakaani, called the “Shaking Emperor”, because he was afraid of everything. Frax, was sent in hopes of finding giantish magics that might help the Dhakaani defeat the humans that had been overrunning the continent. Hmm… okay. I lied. So, before I continue… let’s put down some ancient Khorvairen history.