Overview
The Scent-Judge Venom Goblin is the bitter, judging hand of the Bittermire Warrens, a fanged, gill-rimmed marsh goblin who judges everything, including you, by scent and marks the warrens with its bitter, judging word. It is small, watchful, and absolutely certain of the scent, a being for whom the green air is a word you judge and keep, and for whom the soft dark ground is a room it knows by heart. Where the Bitter-Distill goblins mark and distill, the Scent-Judge goblins judge, and they have been judging the first stranger in the first warren for a very long time.
Habitat
The Scent-Judge Venom Goblin keeps to the judging hollows of the Bittermire Warrens, a poison marsh the color of rust, its ground a soft dark that gives underfoot and its air thick green with bitter, its silence broken only by the judgment and the green. Its dwellings are dug into the faces of the soft dark ground, hollows of rusted peat and woven fen-cable coaxed into a home that catches the green light on its upper face and the shelter of the marsh on its lower. It favors the stiller hollows where the green air is oldest and the ground is softest, the places where a judgment can be kept without the fen's own motion breaking it.
Appearance
A Scent-Judge Venom Goblin stands about 0.74 m tall, small and watchful, with rust-brown skin that reads as bitter in the warrens' own light. Its hair runs bile-green, worn short and slick so it does not catch the green air, and its eyes are pale yellow, bright and watchful beneath the brow, the color of the fen's own dim light at the surface. Its mouth is fanged and dusty amber, the color of the bitter it has carried for years, and the fangs are the map of every scent it has judged.
Behaviour
The Scent-Judge Venom Goblin is watchful, bitter, and profoundly certain, a creature of long judgments and long attention who rarely surprises and rarely is surprised. It observes before it judges, often for hours, watching a hollow or a person or a bargain until it understands the shape of the scent, and only then does it judge, and then with a watchfulness that feels rehearsed over years. It is not unkind, but it is not easily moved, and a promise made to a Scent-Judge goblin is a promise the warrens will keep long after the maker has gone.
Natural Weapons & Defenses
The Scent-Judge goblin is no open-fen fighter and carries no blade, for its power is the judgment and the green air itself, not force. Its primary defense is the hollow, for it knows every turn of the soft dark ground and can lead a pursuer through the rusted marsh for days until the pursuit loses its nerve and its footing. Should it be forced to act, a Scent-Judge goblin is watchful and precise, 9 m/s across the soft dark ground and steady in the green air, and it fights to unmake a threat rather than to wound it, cutting a cable, dimming a light, or marking a vial until the threat is spent.
Magic Alignment
The Scent-Judge 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 vial and a judgment and a green air 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 judging, which is not a magic but is a thing that the goblins of the fen have judged for a very long time, and the judging is the keeping, and the keeping is the whole of its power.
Society
The Scent-Judge Venom Goblins live in the Bittermire Warrens in small, watchful, and vial-bound packs of perhaps four or five, bound by the judgments they keep together rather than by blood or by place. There is no elder and no ruler, for a goblin that has judged the most and kept 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 hollow, by a company of yellow-eyed judges that has already decided and is only agreeing, and once made they are kept, for a goblin that breaks a judgment is a goblin that has broken the whole of what it is.
Culture & Lore
The culture of the Scent-Judge Venom Goblin is a culture of the kept judgment, a whole way of life organized around the idea that a word that is watchful and vial-bound is the only honest word in the fen. They keep no records, for a goblin that has kept a judgment does not need a record, the keeping is the record, and the keeping is watchful and vial-bound and does not fade. Their stories are slow and watchful, told in the hollow at the dusk, and they are stories of judgments kept and vials broken and the watchful, vial-bound difference between them, told in a voice that is bitter and means every judgment.
Home
The Bittermire Warrens are the Scent-Judge goblin's home and its keeping, a poison marsh the color of rust, its ground a soft dark that gives underfoot and its air thick green with bitter, where the goblins keep their judgments and their watchful, bitter words. It is a strange and watchful place, one that stands as if it were a very old animal holding its breath, and the Scent-Judge goblin has learned to live inside that green rather than against it. The thick green air that hangs over the marsh is the warrens' own, a soft bile-green glow that the goblins have come to read as the color of a kept judgment.
Relations
The Scent-Judge Venom Goblin keeps a long, careful truce with the other creatures of the Bittermire Warrens, a truce of kept judgments that has held for a long time and is the oldest and most fragile thing in the warrens. To the Marsh-Toad of the fen the Scent-Judge goblin is a watchful, vial-bound, and absolutely certain presence, a yellow-eyed judge that is at home in the hollows and in the green air, and the toad has learned to sit still and let the judgments pass, for a goblin that has judged you has decided you are a keeping and not a lesson.
In the Story
In the story of the warrens, the Scent-Judge Venom Goblin is the watchful, bitter edge of the tale, the place where the hollows judge and a vial is marked and a judgment is kept. It is the figure that judges a new word in the dusk and marks the green very watchful and very certain, and the figure that, when the truce with the surface goblins grows thin, is the one that remembers what the truce cost and keeps the old judgment watchful and vial-bound and absolutely certain.