Overview
The Trap-Goblin is the small, patient beast the warren keeps for the trap. It stands 34 cm at the shoulder, it moves through the soft ground with a slow, deliberate way, and it considers the spring-loaded jaw a form of art rather than a mouth. Where the trap-goblin sets the line, the ground knows it is watched, and the watching is the whole of the beast's own, because the beast that keeps the trap keeps the warren, and the warren is the trap-goblin's own.
Habitat
The Trap-Goblin keeps the honeycombed hills of Goblin Warrens — the loose ground and the deep pit and the lattice of trip-lines. It is the warren's own, and the warren is the beast's, and the beast keeps the warren the way the warren keeps its snare. It needs three things: ground that will hold the spring, a pit deep enough to be honest, and a road of small warm prey that does not fail. It is settled in the burrow with the goblins who built it — the patient ones — and it moves with the season the way the goblins do, deeper in the cold months, to the upper lines in the green, because the trap that has not moved with the ground has moved without the ground, and the moving without the ground is the whole of the hunger.
Appearance
The trap-goblin is the low, springy shape — short in the leg, long in the jaw, with the head set forward and the whole of it reading as one coiled line from nose to tail. The male stands 34 cm at the shoulder and carries 9 kg, broad through the jaw and heavy with the trap-teeth; the female stands 30 cm, 7 kg, leaner and quieter, with a nose that finds the line a step before the line knows it is found. The coat is matted olive-brown, dense and rough, darkening to a mud-brown along the spine where the ground rubs it flat; the jaw is tipped in a clean bone-white, and the belly fur is a faded, honest straw that reads as dust at a distance. The eye is small, pale, almost colourless — a washed-out yellow that glints in the firelight and does not glow, built for seeing the line in the dark. The teeth are the whole of the face: upper and lower rows that meet in a spring before the throat opens, set in a jaw that locks and will not open again until the beast itself opens it. Males carry the line in the jaw and the spring; females in the neck and the quiet. Elders are marked by a jaw gone grey-olive and teeth worn to honest nubs — an old trap-goblin sets no new line, and the warren knows it by the silence of the pit.
Behaviour
The trap-goblin does not hunt the way the warm prey hunts — it builds. It digs the spring the way the goblin digs the pit, patient and slow, and it sets the line with a care the warren reserves for art. It will watch a line for two days without eating, and the watching is not waiting, because the beast that waits has already lost the prey. When the line takes, it does not rush the pit; it eats the scrap the prey carried first, because the scrap is the art and the meat is only the meat. It is patient with the goblins, quieter than the goblins, and it will not leave the upper lines in the cold months because the line that leaves the cold line has left the warren. The young are kept in the burrow with the patient ones, and the young that set a line before the first frost are called the spring-kept.
Natural Weapons & Defenses
The weapon is the jaw — the spring-loaded teeth that meet before the throat opens, strong enough to take the small warm prey and hold it against the pit-wall. The defense is the ground: the trap-goblin is never where the line is, it is where the line was, and the pit is deep and honest. It has no other weapon and does not need one, because the beast that owns the trap owns the kill, and the kill is the whole of the warren's own.
Magic Alignment
The trap-goblin carries the warren's own quiet magic — the trap-sense that reads the ground a step before the foot lands, the pit-lore that knows which pit will hold and which will give, and the quiet-step that moves the beast through the firelight without the light knowing it moved. It is not spell-work and it is not the gods' work; it is the warren's own, and it is kept the way the warren keeps its art.
Society
The trap-goblin keeps pairs — the patient one builds and the hungry one keeps the spring, and the pairing is the whole of the beast's own. The pair that has not kept the same pit for a season is called the loose line, and the warren does not count it. The young are raised in the burrow with the goblin's own patient ones, and the beast that has raised a spring-kept is honoured the way the warren honours its best trap: the pit is left open for a day, and the open pit is the honour.
Culture & Lore
The goblins of Goblin Warrens keep the trap-goblin the way they keep the trap — as art, not as beast. The old goblins say the first trap-goblin set its own line and the warren found it springing, and the finding was the whole of the first art. The beast is never killed for the meat, because the meat is the meat and the art is the art, and the goblin that kills the art kills the warren's own. The pit that a pair has kept for three seasons is left open for a day when the pair dies, and the open pit is the whole of the honour the warren gives.
Home
The trap-goblin is the own of Goblin Warrens — the honeycombed hills, the deep pit, the lattice of line. It is settled in the burrow with the patient goblins, and the warren that loses its trap-goblins loses the art before it loses the meat, because the meat will come back when the ground warms and the art will not.
Relations
The Goblins keep the beast as art and eat by its line. The Ogres of The Mire Barracks know the warren's pit and do not enter it, because the pit that is honest will take the ogre as well as the goblin, and the ogre that has been taken does not come back to the barracks. The Orcs of The Fanghold respect the line the way they respect the hold — they do not cross it, and the holding of the line is the whole of the respect. The warm prey of the upper ground does not know the beast at all, and the not-knowing is the whole of the trap's own.
In the Story
The trap-goblin has not yet come to the six, but the warren it keeps will — the goblin line is the first line the Legacy of Steel ever crossed, and the crossing was the whole of the first war. The pit that the trap-goblin keeps under the warren's best art is the pit the six will stand over when they stand over it, and the standing is the whole of the story's own, because the story that stands over the pit stands over the warren, and the warren is the trap-goblin's own.