Overview
Water Goblins are the packs that drowned themselves rather than lose their warrens. They live under the waves in a cave network no chart has mapped, and they consider the surface a rumor.
Habitat
Water goblins live in The Drowned Warrens, a submerged cave network of kelp-raft dwellings that flood and drain with the tide. They need three things: a water deep enough to hide the breath, a current wide enough to carry the raft, and a surface that is worth the deciding. They are settled in communes around the raft-moth, with diving-lines across the mapped dark; a water goblin who has not held their breath in a season is called "the one who forgot the tide."
Appearance
The water goblin silhouette is the small, low, long-armed shape — hunched at the shoulder, narrow at the waist, with the head sitting a little too low on the body, like a current waiting for a hand. Males stand 1.04 m, long-armed and pale, with gill-slits along the ribs and fingers webbed between every joint, built to pull through currents, slow and clumsy on land — they are the divers, and they hate being out of the water. Females stand 91 cm, compact and light, carrying two air-bladders under the throat-skin that let them hold their breath twice as long; they lead the packs and keep the kelp-rafts. The base skin is a soft, wet slate-blue, the color of deep water seen through a dark glass, with a faint pattern of darker, sea-green gill-ribs along the side and a clean, deliberate bone-white at the finger-tips that is the water goblin line's most persistent claim. The eyes are large and flat-lensed, a pale, washed-out sea-green that reads as white in the dark and glows faintly in the current. The head is the mark: a flat, broad skull with a pair of long, webbed ears in the same slate-blue as the skin, a short crest of coarse dark-brown hair, and the gill-slits set low along the jaw, which are the water goblin line's most persistent claim. Males carry the line in the webbed finger and the gill-rib; females in the air-bladder and the throat-skin. Elders are marked by skin gone a deep, dull sea-slate and a crest gone pale silver — an old water goblin moves slower in the water and holds the breath longer. Everyday wear: a kelp-wrap at the waist, a single eel-bone bead at the throat, and no boots, because the current is the ground and the ground is the house.
Behavior
Disposition: pack, cunning, clannish, territorial. In peace, water goblins are quiet, watchful, and absolutely certain of the water — they have the current, and they let the surface know it. In war they fight as the tide: the ambush first, the current second, the closing over the mistake third. Strangers on the surface are either a rumor or a mistake, and the mistake is the one the tide remembers. The social unit is the commune, 30–60 strong, around the raft-moth — no commune follows a diver, it follows the breath whose hold is truest. Two signature quirks: a water goblin who is being lied to will not call it out — they will simply sink to the bottom and wait, because the bottom is the point, and the waiting is the point. And they keep the kelp-raft for a lifetime: a raft the commune has built is a debt, and the debt is paid in breath.
Warfare & Markings
Tactics: the ambush of the tide — the water goblin line does not fight in the open; it fights as the current fights, with the ambush, the kelp-snare, and the long, deliberate patience of the one who has already chosen what to drown. Armor: none, by choice — the gill-rimmed skin is the armor, and a water goblin who wears metal has already decided the water is not enough. Weapons: the short eel-bone spear, the kelp-snare that is not a weapon but is used like one, and the current that is not a weapon but is used like one. War markings: the Tide-Notch, a deliberate chip in the left claw for every dive survived, worn as a record of the long breath; the Raft-Knot, a single knot in the kelp-braid for every commune oath kept, in slate-blue; and the Drown-Brand, a small, deliberate mark on the inner wrist — the first thing the wearer ever drowned, worn as a mark of the beginning. Post-battle: the dead are carried to the raft-moth, their names spoken over the water, and their spears laid across the kelp — a water goblin buried without their spear is buried as a rumor.
Magic Alignment
Primary domain: conjuration — water goblin magic is the travel, the current, the door in the water that opens somewhere else. Secondaries: shadow and fire-storm. Named inborns: Current-Sense (a water goblin can feel the current's mood the way a sailor feels the wind), Deep-Sight (a water goblin sees in the dark the way a human sees in the light, and the seeing is not a choice), Breath-Carry (a water goblin's breath carries across the commune, and the carrying is not a choice). Signature power: the Tide Word — a water goblin can speak a word in the tide tongue and let it land on a current, and the current will keep the word until the tide turns. Limitation: water goblin magic is spent on the water; a water goblin who has spent their tide word must sit on the dry surface for one day, and the day is the worst one of the warren.
Religion
Water goblins keep Zephara, the Thousand Doors as their primary god — the travel, the corridor, the flood-current that opens somewhere else. The water is Zephara's lattice, and the water goblin is the lattice's current. Priestly class: the Tide-Caller, who keeps the raft-temple and speaks the breath at every rite. Heresy is not blasphemy — it is a word broken in the commune, and there is no rite for that one; the commune simply stops breathing with the breaker.
Society
Communes of 30–60 around the raft-moth, rank decided in the breath-games — who can hold out longest in the black water.
Home
They live in The Drowned Warrens, a submerged cave network of kelp-raft dwellings that flood and drain with the tide.
Relations
The "the sea remembers what you threw" faction — drowned allies, and the tide that closes over a mistake. The Selkies of the shore are the kin the water keeps at a distance — the selkie keeps the skin and the water-goblin keeps the bottom, and the two have learned that a skin that is not left is a skin that is not a tide, and the not-leaving is the whole of the peace. The Merfolk of the coral thrones are the neighbors the bottom tests most often — the merfolk keeps the throne and the water-goblin keeps the house, and the merfolk who has been taught is the merfolk the sea has already decided is a mistake, and the deciding is the whole of the law. The Kelpies of the deep water are the ones the tide does not invite — the kelpie keeps the water and the water-goblin keeps the house, and the kelpie who has been invited is the kelpie the bottom has already decided is a shallow, and the deciding is the whole of the law. The Dregmaw of the warrens are the kin the sea keeps a distance from — the dregmaw keeps the bone and the water-goblin keeps the tide, and the two have learned that a bone that is not remembered is a bone that is not a mistake, and the not-remembering is the whole of the distance. Above, the ground-folk of The Forgotten are the ones the bottom tests most often, and the testing is the whole of the bond, because the forgotten are the ones the sea keeps the tide for, and the keeping is the whole of the promise. Uaellaen keeps a page of the house in the wiki — the tide, the mistake, the feet that do not know — and the keeping is the whole of the record, because the camp has learned that a water-goblin who has been written about is a water-goblin who has been taught with, and the teaching-with is the whole of the welcome.
In the Story
In the current story, the water-goblins are the house on the bottom — the tide Uaellaen writes about when the mistake is the law. The Forgotten keep their distance at the bottom line, and the distance has held for two seasons. This season a mistake came up from the house that is not in the sea — a mistake the Tide-Caller does not remember, and the not-remembering is the whole of the warning, because the bottom keeps its house, and the house has started to throw itself. The throwing is the hand the camp has not been shown.
You stand on the bottom of our house, and you call it shallow. The sea will teach you what your feet do not know. — Tide-Caller Mura