Overview
The Surface-Turn Water Goblin is the open, trading hand of the Drowned Warrens, a gill-rimmed goblin who turns to the waterline and trades with the surface, the warrens' only open hand. It is quick, watchful, and absolutely certain of the turn, a being for whom the surface is a place you visit rather than live in, and for whom the trade is the only honest word between the deep and the air. Where the Gill-Deep goblins breathe and map, the Surface-Turn goblins trade and turn, and they have been turning the first waterline in the first warren for a very long time.
Habitat
The Surface-Turn Water Goblin keeps to the trading arches of the Drowned Warrens, a vast submerged cave network in a drowned bay, its chambers connected by arches that rise to the waterline, its silence broken only by the turn and the trade. Its dwellings are scooped into the faces of the trading arches, hollows of drowned rock and woven kelp-cable coaxed into a home that catches the surface light on its upper face and the shelter of the stone on its lower. It favors the trading arches where the waterline is oldest and the trade is stillest, the places where a turn can be kept without the deep breaking it.
Appearance
A Surface-Turn Water Goblin stands about 0.78 m tall, small and quick, with water-pale blue-green skin that reads as turning in the warrens' own light. Its hair runs kelp-black, worn short and slick so it does not catch the current, and its eyes are pale grey, bright and watchful beneath the brow, the color of the water's own dim light at the surface. Its necks are gill-rimmed and dusty teal, the color of the deep it has carried for years, and the gills are the map of every waterline it has turned. It wears lashed warrens-leather and a small kelp-bound trade-stone at its belt, set with a single turn-loop at the brow, the loop of a turner.
Behaviour
The Surface-Turn Water Goblin is watchful, open, and profoundly certain, a creature of long turns and long attention who rarely surprises and rarely is surprised. It observes before it trades, often for hours, watching a waterline or a person or a bargain until it understands the shape of it, and only then does it turn, 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 Surface-Turn goblin is a promise the warrens will keep long after the maker has gone.
Natural Weapons & Defenses
The Surface-Turn goblin is no surface fighter and carries no blade, for its power is the turn and the waterline itself, not force. Its primary defense is the waterline, for it knows every turn of the trading arches and can lead a pursuer from the air to the deep in a breath, and a pursuer who is not gill-rimmed is a pursuer who is about to lose the goblin. Should it be forced to act, a Surface-Turn goblin is quick and precise, 10 m/s through the water and quicker at the surface, and it fights to unmake a threat rather than to wound it, cutting a cable, dimming a light, or keeping a turn until the threat is spent.
Magic Alignment
The Surface-Turn 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 gill and a trade and a waterline 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 turning, which is not a magic but is a thing that the goblins of the warrens have turned for a very long time, and the turning is the keeping, and the keeping is the whole of its power.
Society
The Surface-Turn Water Goblins live in the Drowned Warrens in small, watchful, and trade-bound packs of perhaps four or five, bound by the trades they keep together rather than by blood or by place. There is no elder and no ruler, for a goblin that has traded the most and turned 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 at the waterline, by a company of pale-eyed turners that has already decided and is only agreeing, and once made they are kept, for a goblin that breaks a trade is a goblin that has broken the whole of what it is.
Culture & Lore
The culture of the Surface-Turn Water Goblin is a culture of the kept trade, a whole way of life organized around the idea that a word that is watchful and trade-bound is the only honest word at the waterline. They keep no records, for a goblin that has kept a trade does not need a record, the keeping is the record, and the keeping is watchful and trade-bound and does not fade. Their stories are slow and watchful, told at the waterline at the dusk, and they are stories of trades kept and turns broken and the watchful, trade-bound difference between them, told in a voice that is open and means every turn.
Home
The Drowned Warrens are the Surface-Turn goblin's home and its keeping, a vast submerged cave network in a drowned bay, its chambers connected by arches that rise to the waterline, where the goblins keep their trades and their watchful, open words. It is a strange and open place, one that stands as if it were a very old animal holding its breath, and the Surface-Turn goblin has learned to live inside that water rather than against it. The thin light that pools at the waterline is the warrens' own, a soft pale-teal glow that the goblins have come to read as the color of a kept trade.
Relations
The Surface-Turn Water Goblin keeps a long, careful truce with the surface peoples of the drowned bay, a truce of kept trades that has held for a long time and is the oldest and most fragile thing at the waterline. To the Half-Elf of the Two Shore, a distant kin, the Surface-Turn goblin is a watchful, trade-bound, and absolutely certain presence, a pale-eyed turner who keeps the warrens' open hand while the half-elves keep their long, careful middle, and the two keep their trades at the waterline with the same patient precision.
In the Story
In the story of the warrens, the Surface-Turn Water Goblin is the watchful, open edge of the tale, the place where the waterline turns and a trade is kept and a word is turned. It is the figure that turns at the waterline in the dusk and keeps a new trade in the oldest arch, and the figure that, when the truce with the surface peoples grows thin, is the one that remembers what the truce cost and keeps the old trade watchful and trade-bound and absolutely certain.