Overview
The Forge-Keeper Hobgoblin is the patient, remembering hand of the Ironstock Bastion, an iron-skinned goblin of the riveted fortress who keeps the forge-fire and the line of the anvil, the bastion's memory and its most steady hand. It stands taller than its goblin kin, patient and honor-bound, with the kind of certainty that comes from a life measured in held fires rather than years. Where the Line-Sworn goblins hold the drill-line, the Forge-Keeper goblins keep the fire, and they have been keeping the first fire in the first bastion for a very long time.
Habitat
The Forge-Keeper Hobgoblin keeps to the forge-halls of the Ironstock Bastion, a military iron-forged fortress on a bare ridge, its walls of riveted plate, its drill-yards wide enough to hold a line. Its dwellings are dug into the faces of the riveted walls beside the forge, hollows of shaped iron and woven forge-cable coaxed into a home that catches the warm forge-light on its inner face and the shelter of the ridge on its outer. It favors the older halls where the iron is cleanest and the fire is oldest, the places where a fire can be kept without the bastion's own motion breaking it.
Appearance
A Forge-Keeper Hobgoblin stands about 1.11 m tall, patient and iron-bound, with deep iron-grey skin that reads as dark in the bastion's own light. Its hair runs dark umber, worn short and bound so it does not catch the dust, and its eyes are pale luminous yellow, bright and watchful beneath the brow, the color of the forge-light's own glow at dusk. Its inner wrist bears the forge-mark, a deliberate mark in the iron-grey skin, the color of the fire it has kept for years, and the mark is the map of every fire it has held.
Behaviour
The Forge-Keeper Hobgoblin is watchful, slow, and profoundly certain, a creature of long fires and long attention who rarely surprises and rarely is surprised. It observes before it keeps, often for hours, watching a hall or a person or a bargain until it understands the shape of the fire, and only then does it keep, and then with a patience that feels rehearsed over years. It is not unkind, but it is not easily moved, and a promise made to a Forge-Keeper goblin is a promise the bastion will keep long after the maker has gone.
Natural Weapons & Defenses
The Forge-Keeper goblin is no open-ridge fighter and carries no blade, for its power is the fire and the iron itself, not force. Its primary defense is the hall, for it knows every corner of the forge-ground and can lead a pursuer through the riveted bastion for days until the pursuit loses its nerve and its balance. Should it be forced to act, a Forge-Keeper goblin is slow and precise, 6 m/s through the yards and unhurried, and it fights to unmake a threat rather than to wound it, cutting a cable, dimming a light, or holding a fire until the threat is spent.
Magic Alignment
The Forge-Keeper goblin has no magic of its own, and it does not want any, and the not wanting is the whole of its way of dealing with the world, for a goblin that has a fire and a word and an iron does not need a spell. It is not attuned to any art, and it is not bound by any word that is not its own, and the not being bound is the whole of its way of being free. Its one signature thing is the keeping, which is not a magic but is a thing that the goblins of the bastion have kept for a very long time, and the keeping is the remembering, and the remembering is the whole of its power.
Society
The Forge-Keeper Hobgoblins live in the Ironstock Bastion in small, watchful, and fire-bound packs of perhaps four or five, bound by the fires they keep together rather than by blood or by place. There is no elder and no ruler, for a goblin that has kept the most and remembered the most is simply the one the others listen to, and the listening is a keeping and the keeping is the whole of their society. Decisions are made in the hall, by a company of pale-eyed keepers that has already decided and is only agreeing, and once made they are kept, for a goblin that breaks a fire is a goblin that has broken the whole of what it is.
Culture & Lore
The culture of the Forge-Keeper Hobgoblin is a culture of the held fire, a whole way of life organized around the idea that a word that is watchful and fire-bound is the only honest word in the bastion. They keep no records, for a goblin that has kept a fire does not need a record, the keeping is the record, and the keeping is watchful and fire-bound and does not fade. Their stories are slow and watchful, told in the hall at the dusk, and they are stories of fires kept and fires broken and the watchful, fire-bound difference between them, told in a voice that is steady and means every keeping.
Home
The Ironstock Bastion is the Forge-Keeper goblin's home and its keeping, a military iron-forged fortress on a bare ridge, its walls of riveted plate, its drill-yards wide enough to hold a line, where the goblins keep their fires and their watchful, steady words. It is a strange and steady place, one that stands as if it were a very old animal holding its breath, and the Forge-Keeper goblin has learned to live inside that iron rather than against it. The warm forge-light that runs up through the halls is the bastion's own, a soft grey glow that the goblins have come to read as the color of a held fire.
Relations
The Forge-Keeper Hobgoblin keeps a long, careful truce with the other creatures of the Ironstock Bastion, a truce of held fires that has held for a long time and is the oldest and most fragile thing in the bastion. To the warm forge-light of the forge-halls the Forge-Keeper goblin is a watchful, fire-bound, and absolutely certain presence, a pale-eyed keeper that is at home in the halls and in the iron, and the fire has learned to glow wide and let the keepings pass, for a goblin that has kept you has decided you are a remembering and not a lesson.
In the Story
In the story of the bastion, the Forge-Keeper Hobgoblin is the watchful, steady edge of the tale, the place where the fires are kept and a fire is held and a remembering is held. It is the figure that keeps a new fire in the dusk and holds the iron very watchful and very certain, and the figure that, when the truce with the line-goblins grows thin, is the one that remembers what the truce cost and keeps the old fire watchful and fire-bound and absolutely certain.