Overview
The Stormdrinker Lightning Goblin is the charged, reckless creature of the Stormglass Spires, a goblin who drinks the storm through the crystal spires' pale blue light and meters the sky like a well. It is small, quick, and absolutely certain of the charge, a being for whom the storm is a resource you drink and spend, and for whom the ground is a place you fall to rather than live on. Where the goblins of the warrens burrow and the goblins of the cliffs lash, the Stormdrinker goblin drinks, and it has been drinking the storm on the Stormglass Spires for a very long time.
Habitat
The Stormdrinker Lightning Goblin keeps to the row of tuned conductive crystal spires of the Stormglass Spires, a wind-scoured ridge that drinks the storm and glows pale blue, its silence broken only by the crack and the light. Its dwellings are lashed to the spires themselves, hollows of crystal and woven ridge-cable coaxed into a home that catches the storm on its eastern face and the shelter of the rock on its western. It favors the higher spires where the charge is oldest and the air is clearest, the places where a bolt can be drawn without the noise of the lower ridge breaking it.
Appearance
A Stormdrinker Lightning Goblin stands about 0.86 m tall, small and quick, with charged pale-blue skin that reads as static in the spires' own light. Its hair runs static grey, worn short and wild so it does not ground out, and its eyes are pale violet, bright and reckless beneath the brow, the color of the spires' own glow at dusk. Its palms are calloused and dusty white, the color of the crystal it has held for years, and the calluses are the map of every bolt it has spent.
Behaviour
The Stormdrinker Lightning Goblin is quick, charged, and profoundly reckless, a creature of long spendings and long attention who rarely surprises and rarely is surprised. It observes before it drinks, often for hours, watching a spire or a person or a bargain until it understands the shape of it, and only then does it spend, and then with a quickness that feels rehearsed over years. It is not unkind, but it is not easily moved, and a promise made to a Stormdrinker goblin is a promise the spires will keep long after the maker has gone.
Natural Weapons & Defenses
The Stormdrinker goblin is no ground fighter and carries no blade, for its power is the charge and the spire itself, not force. Its primary defense is the ridge, for it knows every turn of the spires and can lead a pursuer across the tuned crystal for days until the pursuit loses its nerve and its balance. Should it be forced to act, a Stormdrinker goblin is quick and precise, 11 m/s along the ridge and faster when the spires drink, and it fights to unmake a threat rather than to wound it, cutting a cable, dimming a spire, or spending a stored bolt until the threat is spent.
Magic Alignment
The Stormdrinker 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 spire and a charge and a storm 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 drinking, which is not a magic but is a thing that the goblins of the ridge have drunk for a very long time, and the drinking is the keeping, and the keeping is the whole of its power.
Society
The Stormdrinker Lightning Goblins live on the Stormglass Spires in small, quick, and charge-bound packs of perhaps four or five, bound by the spendings they keep together rather than by blood or by place. There is no elder and no ruler, for a goblin that has drunk the most and spent 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 on the ridge, by a company of violet-eyed drinkers that has already decided and is only agreeing, and once made they are kept, for a goblin that breaks a charge is a goblin that has broken the whole of what it is.
Culture & Lore
The culture of the Stormdrinker Lightning Goblin is a culture of the kept spending, a whole way of life organized around the idea that a word that is quick and charge-bound is the only honest word on the ridge. They keep no records, for a goblin that has kept a spending does not need a record, the keeping is the record, and the keeping is quick and charge-bound and does not fade. Their stories are short and quick, told on the ridge at the dusk, and they are stories of spendings kept and charges broken and the quick, charge-bound difference between them, told in a voice that is charged and means every crack.
Home
The Stormglass Spires are the Stormdrinker goblin's home and its keeping, a row of tuned conductive crystal spires on a wind-scoured ridge that drinks the storm and glows pale blue, where the goblins keep their spendings and their quick, charge-bound words. It is a strange and charged place, one that stands as if it were a very old animal holding its breath, and the Stormdrinker goblin has learned to live inside that stillness rather than against it. The pale blue light that runs up the spires is the ridge's own, a soft violet-blue glow that the goblins have come to read as the color of a kept spending.
Relations
The Stormdrinker Lightning Goblin keeps a long, careful truce with the other goblins of the Stormglass Spires, a truce of kept spendings that has held for a long time and is the oldest and most fragile thing on the spires. To the Gale-Hawk of the high winds the Stormdrinker goblin is a quick, charge-bound, and absolutely certain presence, a violet-eyed drinker that is at home on the ridge and in the storm, and the hawk has learned to circle wide and let the spendings pass, for a goblin that has spent you has decided you are a keeping and not a lesson.
In the Story
In the story of the spires, the Stormdrinker Lightning Goblin is the quick, charge-bound edge of the tale, the place where the spires drink and a charge is tuned and a spending is kept. It is the figure that latches a crystal to its belt in the dusk and drinks the storm very quick and very certain, and the figure that, when the truce with the lower goblins grows thin, is the one that remembers what the truce cost and keeps the old charge quick and charge-bound and absolutely certain.