Overview
Earth Goblins are the packs that stopped digging for ore and started digging for rooms. They shape stone by hand and song, and their tunnels are the cleanest in the mountains.
Habitat
Earth goblins live in The Underbrow, tunnels beneath the mountain range where the geode halls glow. They need three things: a stone deep enough to sing into, a seam clean enough to open by hand, and a room that has not been named yet. They are settled in clans around the Great Geode, with tunnel-lines across the range; an earth goblin who has not sung a seam in a season is called "the one who forgot the grain."
Appearance
The earth goblin silhouette is the small, low, broad-shouldered shape — hunched at the shoulder, narrow at the waist, with the head sitting a little too low on the body, like a word that is waiting for a seam. Males stand 1.04 m, broad-shouldered and low-slung, with rock-plated forearms — outer skin thickened by a lifetime of striking; they are the shapers, and they argue about grain. Females stand 91 cm, thin and quick, with a low voice that can vibrate; they are the tunnel-singers, the ones who sing stone open along the cleavage, and no male touches a wall until a female has named its weakness. The base skin is a grey-brown, rough like sandstone, the color of old rock left in a shaded tunnel, with a faint mineral sheen in the light and a pattern of darker, rust-brown mineral veins along the forearm and the shoulder that show when an earth goblin is striking. The eyes are a hard, flat amber-brown, set deep in the skull, built for seeing the grain from the dark. The head is the mark: a flat, broad skull with a pair of long, rounded ears in the same grey-brown as the skin, a short crest of coarse dark-brown hair, and the rock-plated forearm, which is the earth goblin line's most persistent claim — the plating is always clean, and the cleaning is the point. Males carry the line in the forearm-plate and the shoulder; females in the voice and the seam. Elders are marked by skin gone a deep, dull stone-grey and a crest gone pale silver — an old earth goblin strikes slower and names the seam cleaner. Everyday wear: a loincloth of stitched hide, a thin band of hammered copper at the wrist, and no boots, because the stone is the ground and the ground is the room.
Behavior
Disposition: clannish, social, industrial, territorial. In peace, earth goblins are patient, deliberate, and absolutely certain of the stone — they have the mountain, and they let the surface know it. In war they fight as the tunnel fights: the seam first, the collapse second, the patient, precise holding of the room third. Strangers in the mountain are either a guest or a mistake, and the mistake is the one the grain remembers. The social unit is the clan, 40–100 strong, around the Great Geode — no clan follows a shaper, it follows the singer whose voice opens the cleanest seam. Two signature quirks: an earth goblin who is being lied to will not call it out — they will simply name the lie's weakness and wait, because the naming is the point. And they keep the room for a lifetime: a room the clan has opened is a debt, and the debt is paid in grain.
Warfare & Markings
Tactics: the collapse — the earth goblin line does not fight in the open; it fights as the mountain fights, with the named seam, the patient collapse, and the long, deliberate precision of the one who has already read the grain. Armor: hide, by choice — a single, thin coat of stitched cave-hide in a muted grey-brown that is light enough to forget and strong enough to matter, because an earth goblin who wears plate has already decided the stone is not enough. Weapons: the short pick, the song that is not a weapon but is used like one, and the seam that is not a weapon but is used like one. War markings: the Seam-Notch, a deliberate chip in the left claw for every seam opened, worn as a record of the long song; the Grain-Knot, a single knot in the tail-braid for every clan oath kept, in rust-brown; and the Room-Brand, a small, deliberate mark on the inner wrist — the first room the wearer ever named, worn as a mark of the beginning. Post-battle: the dead are carried to the Great Geode, their names sung over the hall, and their picks laid across the threshold — an earth goblin buried without their pick is buried as a wall.
Magic Alignment
Primary domain: stone-craft — earth goblin magic is the seam, the grain, the patient, precise opening of the stone by hand and song. Secondaries: conjuration and wild. Named inborns: Grain-Sense (an earth goblin can feel the grain's weakness the way a sailor feels the wind), Stone-Sight (an earth goblin sees the seam in the dark the way a human sees it in the light, and the seeing is not a choice), Seam-Carry (an earth goblin's song carries across the tunnel, and the carrying is not a choice). Signature power: the Singer's Word — an earth goblin can sing a word in the stone tongue and let it land on a seam, and the seam will keep the word until the room is open. Limitation: earth goblin magic is spent on the stone; an earth goblin who has spent their singer's word must sit silent in the open air for one day, and the day is the worst one of the underbrow.
Religion
Earth goblins keep Urka, the Stone Mother as their primary god — the stone, the forge, the craft that is the mountain's own law. The mountain is Urka's, and the earth goblin is the mountain's singer. Priestly class: the Seam-Singer, who keeps the geode-temple and sings the seam at every rite. Heresy is not blasphemy — it is a word broken in the clan, and there is no rite for that one; the clan simply stops singing with the breaker.
Society
Clans of 40–100 around the Great Geode, rank decided in the singing — whose voice opens the cleanest seam. The clan is the whole of the law, because the grain is the only clock and the song the only law, and an earth goblin who has not sung a seam in a season is called "the one who forgot the grain," and the forgetting is the only kind the mountain remembers. No clan follows a shaper, it follows the singer whose voice opens the cleanest seam, and the following is the whole of the rank, because a clan does not measure a singer in the years, it measures it in the seam, and a singer who has opened a room the clan forgot is the one the geode calls the oldest. Outsiders in the underbrow are either a guest or a mistake, and the mistake is the one the grain keeps; a mortal who walks the tunnel is not a guest, it is a debt, and the debt is the whole of the warning — the mountain owes a room to the one who asks nicely, and the owing is the whole of the bond. Young are raised at the seam, where the first word is sung into the stone, and a young earth goblin who has not named a seam of their own is not given a pick of their own. The one fact the surface keeps wrong: the underbrow does not mine the mountain — it asks it, and the asking is the whole of the craft, and a mortal who is counted is a mortal who is owed, and the owing is the only kind the stone keeps.
Home
They live in The Underbrow, tunnels beneath the mountain range where the geode halls glow.
Relations
The "the mountain owes you a room" faction — patient neighbors, and the ones whose map of the mountain is always one turn more accurate than yours. The earth goblin keeps the grain and it measures everything in the room, and the measuring is the whole of the treaty. The Dwarfs of Karn Dun, the Deep Delve share the stone with the earth goblin, and the two have learned that a seam in the stone is not a wound, it is a word, and the word is the whole of the courtesy — the dwarf cuts the joint and the goblin sings the seam, and a stone that has both is the one the mountain keeps. The Goblin packs of the surface regard the earth goblin the way the tunnel regards the sky: with distance, and with the understanding that the distance is the whole of the law, because the surface pack measures the underbrow in the room, not in the fang, and a pack that has borrowed a room is the one the geode calls the kindred. Below, the ground-folk of The Forgotten are the banished the underbrow takes in, and the taking in is the whole of the bond, because the forgotten are the ones the song keeps naming, and the naming is the whole of the promise.
In the Story
In the current story, the earth goblins are the grain below the camp — the underbrow Uaellaen writes about when the room is worth more than the ore. The Forgotten keep their distance at the tunnel-line, and the distance has held for two seasons. This season a clan came up the seam with a song that was not in the grain — a song that is not in the stone, and the not-listing is the whole of the warning, because the geode keeps its word, and the word has started to move. Seam-Singer Dotta is keeping the song, and the keeping is the page the camp has not been shown.
You call it a wall. I call it a door that has not been asked nicely. — Seam-Singer Dotta