Overview
Ice Goblins are the packs that moved into the cold instead of out of it. They live in a glacier fissure lit by hot vents, and they treat the cold as a room they have chosen.
Habitat
Ice goblins live in Frostfang Crevasse, a glacier fissure city of blue ice and hot vents. They need three things: a cold deep enough to be honest, a vent warm enough to keep the line alive, and a stranger who is warm enough to be heard. They are settled in frost-clans around the vents, with hunting-lines across the glacier; an ice goblin who has not held the line in a season is called "the one who forgot the cold."
Appearance
The ice goblin silhouette is the small, thick, slow shape — broad at the shoulder, low at the waist, with the head sitting a little too low on the body, like a word that is waiting for the blizzard. Males stand 1.04 m, thick-necked and slow, with a frost-crest along the spine that stands up when the air turns; they are the wall, the ones who hold the line when the vents go out. Females stand 91 cm, fast and lean, carrying a pair of heat-stones sewn to the chest that keep them moving in the deep cold; they are the hunters, and they lead, because a pack that stops moving dies. The base skin is a blue-white, thick and slow to heal, the color of old glacier ice left in a shaded crevasse, with a faint pattern of deeper, sea-blue frost-lines along the shoulder and a clean, deliberate bone-white at the finger-tips that is the ice goblin line's most persistent claim. The eyes are pale, almost clear, a washed-out sky-white that reads as white in the dark and glows faintly in the vent-light, built for seeing the heat from the cold. The head is the mark: a flat, broad skull with a pair of long, pointed ears in the same blue-white as the skin, a short crest of coarse pale-brown hair, and the frost-crest along the spine, which stands when the air turns — the ice goblin line's most persistent claim. Fur grows in patches along the jaw and the shoulders, a fine, soft coat in the same blue-white as the skin. Males carry the line in the neck and the frost-crest; females in the heat-stone and the leg. Elders are marked by skin gone a deep, dull glacial-slate and a crest gone full silver — an old ice goblin moves slower and holds the line longer. Everyday wear: a wrap of stitched hide over the chest, a single heat-stone at the belt, and no boots, because the ice is the ground and the ground is the room.
Behavior
Disposition: clannish, solitary, territorial, patient. In peace, ice goblins are quiet, deliberate, and absolutely certain of the cold — they have the fissure, and they let the warm know it. In war they fight as the blizzard fights: the silence first, the cold second, the patient, precise holding of the line third. Strangers on the glacier are either a meal or a mistake, and the mistake is the one the cold remembers. The social unit is the frost-clan, 30–70 strong, around the vents — no clan follows a hunter, it follows the keeper who can hold the fire of the pack alive the longest. Two signature quirks: an ice goblin who is being lied to will not call it out — they will simply grow colder and wait, because the cold is the point. And they keep the heat-stone for a lifetime: a stone the clan has warmed is a debt, and the debt is paid in cold.
Warfare & Markings
Tactics: the ambush of the silence — the ice goblin line does not fight in the open; it fights as the blizzard fights, with the silence, the cold, and the long, deliberate patience of the one who has already chosen the line. Armor: hide, by choice — a single, thick coat of stitched glacier-hide in a muted blue-white that is heavy enough to matter and light enough to forget, because an ice goblin who wears plate has already decided the cold is not enough. Weapons: the short ice-blade, the cold that is not a weapon but is used like one, and the silence that is not a weapon but is used like one. War markings: the Frost-Notch, a deliberate chip in the left claw for every hunt survived, worn as a record of the long cold; the Vent-Knot, a single knot in the tail-braid for every clan oath kept, in sea-blue; and the Line-Brand, a small, deliberate mark on the inner wrist — the first line the wearer ever held, worn as a mark of the beginning. Post-battle: the dead are carried to the vent, their names spoken over the ice, and their blades laid across the threshold — an ice goblin buried without their heat-stone is buried as a warm thing.
Magic Alignment
Primary domain: fire-storm — ice goblin magic is the vent, the raw element turned to cold, the patient, precise holding of the line across the glacier. Secondaries: shadow and stone-craft. Named inborns: Heat-Sight (an ice goblin sees the heat of a living thing the way a human sees it in the light, and the seeing is not a choice), Cold-Sense (an ice goblin can feel the vent's mood the way a sailor feels the wind), Line-Carry (an ice goblin's silence carries across the glacier, and the carrying is not a choice). Signature power: the Heat Word — an ice goblin can speak a word in the vent tongue and let it land on a heat-stone, and the stone will keep the word until the line is held. Limitation: ice goblin magic is spent on the cold; an ice goblin who has spent their heat word must sit in the warm dark for one day, and the day is the worst one of the crevasse.
Religion
Ice goblins keep Pyrra, the First Flame as their primary god — the fire, the raw element that is the vent's own law, held in the cold as a room they have chosen. The fissure is Pyrra's, and the ice goblin is the fissure's keeper. Priestly class: the Heat-Mother, who keeps the vent-temple and holds the line 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 moving with the breaker.
Society
Frost-clans of 30–70, rank decided by the vent — who can keep the fire of the pack alive the longest. The clan is the whole of the law, because the cold is the only clock and the line the only law, and an ice goblin who has not held the line in a season is called "the one who forgot the cold," and the forgetting is the only kind the ice remembers. No clan follows a hunter, it follows the keeper who can hold the fire of the pack alive the longest, and the following is the whole of the rank, because an ice goblin does not measure an ice goblin in the years, it measures it in the line, and an ice goblin who has held a line the clan forgot is the one the vent calls the oldest. Outsiders on the glacier are either a meal or a mistake, and the mistake is the one the cold keeps — the heat-stone is the whole of the warning: a warm thing that has warmed a stone is a warm thing that is owed, and the owing is the whole of the bond. Young are raised at the vent, where the first line is held, and a young ice goblin who has not held a line of their own is not given a heat-stone of their own. The one fact the warm keep wrong: the clan does not hoard the cold — it chose the room, and the choosing is the whole of the clan, and a warm thing that is counted is a warm thing that is owed, and the owing is the only kind the ice keeps.
Home
They live in Frostfang Crevasse, a glacier fissure city of blue ice and hot vents.
Relations
The "the cold is a door, and you are on the wrong side" faction — patient hunters, and the ones whose ambush is the silence before the blizzard, and the silence is the whole of the treaty — the ice goblin keeps the line and it measures everything in the cold, and the measuring is the whole of the law. The Orcs of the high ground are the warm the fissure regards as the loud kin — an orc who has held a line the clan forgot is the one the vent calls the oldest, and the regarding is the whole of the distance, because the orc keeps the fang and the ice goblin keeps the silence, and the two have learned that a fang in the cold is not a word, it is a line, and the line is the whole of the bond. The Humans of the camp regard the glacier the way the warm regards the ice: with distance, and with the understanding that the distance is the whole of the warning, because an ice goblin who has held a line the race forgot is the one the vent calls the kindred, and a warm thing that has broken a stone is the one the cold calls the meal. Below, the ground-folk of The Forgotten are the banished the clan takes in, and the taking in is the whole of the bond, because the forgotten are the ones the cold keeps the line for, and the holding is the whole of the promise.
In the Story
In the current story, the ice goblins are the silence in the fissure — the vent Uaellaen writes about when the cold is a door. The Forgotten keep their distance at the hunting-line, and the distance has held for two seasons. This season an ice goblin came up the glacier with a heat-stone that was not in the clan — a stone that is not in the line, and the not-listing is the whole of the warning, because the fissure keeps its cold, and the cold has started to move. Heat-Mother Kessa is keeping the line, and the keeping is the page the camp has not been shown.
You are warm. That is why you can hear us. When you are as cold as we are, you will finally understand what we are saying. — Heat-Mother Kessa