Hobgoblin

Hobgoblins, also called high goblins or (in their native tongue) gorludz, are a race of robust humanoids indigenous to southern Ovaicaea, who are renowned for their martial culture, stereotyped as being concerned with strict social tradition, stoicism, and ruthlessness. Organized tribally and ruled by a landed nobility, hobgoblins are remarked as being inordinately influential for a race with such a small population (2.5 million). While existing on the periphery of civilization for thousands of years, hobgoblins have risen to become a highly organized, militaristic, and powerful people dominating the domestic and foreign politics of the Empire of Gestrin.

While hobgoblins appear to be distantly related to other goblinoids, it is now conjectured that they are more closely related to humans and dwarves. Goblinologists in Gestrin believe the hobgoblins and humans share a common ancestor from a prehistoric time when the continent of Ovaicaea was fused with faraway lands. Early modern Hobgoblins emerged some 200,000 years ago, not long after modern dwarves and elves, roaming the tundra north of the Ucral mountains. Behaviorally modern hobgoblins appear in the archaeological record around 40,000 years ago, showing signs of stone tool use and warg domestication. They adopted a mixed nomadic pastoralist and agricultural lifestyle around 9,000 years ago, partly influenced by early dwarven nomads and partly by the human proto-Qasir civilization. The High Goblin language is thought to share a common root with Proto-Dwarven, possibly as a result of this early contact.

At one time widespread across eastern-central Ovaicaea, by the early Age of Iron the hobgoblins consolidated into a network of tribal chiefdoms in the hilly uplands of the western Aendrilad plateau. The hobgoblins successfully contested invasions from Aendriladi, Qasirite, Tethari, and Orcish armies over the next two and a half thousand years, developing a complex society based around advanced metallurgy, fortified settlements, and warfare. The tribes organized into a military confederacy, solidifying the rule of the tribal nobility or szlachta. This period, termed the Noble Commonwealth, was upheld by a principle of collegiality within the levels of the hobgoblin hierarchy. This confederacy elected a Grand Prince or Veliky Knyaz, from among them, typically the mightiest or most successful warlord. By the 2nd century IA, this position had become hereditary within the Brekacid dynasty.

The confederacy entered into a client relationship first with Aendrilad, then with Gestrin during the Imperial Age. In 684 IA, the overlord Brekakt led a coup d'etat of the Gastrinian Empire, consolidating political and military power under the office of Mayor of the Palace. Ever since, hobgoblins have held considerable power in Gastrinian affairs.

Appearance
Hobgoblins, and goblinoids in general, are humanoids with skin tones ranging from sallow to tawny to reddish-orange, and typically are well-muscled for their size. Hobgoblins are massively built, typically standing 5'10" to 6'6" tall, and often weighing over 200 pounds. Hobgoblin males tend to be taller and bulkier than females, but hobgoblin women are still on average taller and stronger than their human counterparts, and rivalled in size only by bugbears and orcs among the cultured races. Hobgoblins are hairy all over regardless of sex, often sporting coarse brown or black hair along their limbs and torso, with bushy brows and sideburns but bare faces otherwise. Some hobgoblins have long hair on their heads of a lighter color than their body hair, and men in particular are expected to meticulously groom their hair as a matter of pride and social status. The half-human, half-hobgoblin prince Flavius Brekakt is well known for this long, reddish-blonde hair.

Hobgoblins are reckoned as the most intelligent of the goblinoid races, and are the only one to independently establish a complex civilization and society. It is widely believed that bugbears and modern goblins were bred by hobgoblins for servility. As such, hobgoblins are viewed with suspicion by humans of the north and west, and generally treated as dangerous, crafty, faithless, and violent, and hobgoblin lords are seen as tyrants. These generalizations are far from the truth, but the perception is deeply-entrenched in Ovaicaean culture, in part because of the hobgoblin institutionalization of chattel slavery.

Culture and society
Hobgoblins maintain a strongly hierarchical, militaristic honor culture in the context of a tribal society embedded in the larger Gastrinian civic society. To a hobgoblin individual, personal status and the integrity of their name is everything, and the prestige of their family or clan within the tribe is of great importance. Hobgoblins are often perceived as having violent tempers, but this mainly comes from outsiders who are unfamiliar with hobgoblin culture. Certain cultural practices, traditions, and protocols are to be observed in all public interactions, and even in many private settings, to avoid offending another of equal or higher status. If these are not followed, an offense can be met with a physical challenge or retaliatory violence. The lack of a structured court system in hobgoblin society meant that the swearing of oaths gained strong religious and legalistic importance, and violation of an oath was met with severe repercussions. While today, all hobgoblins have Gastrinian citizenship and can redress grievances through Gestrin's court system, many issues are still settled in the traditional way.

Hobgoblin hierarchical structure determines how an individual is treated in relation to others, such that deference is given to those above oneself, contempt is given to those below, and equals are treated with respect and collegiality. The hobgoblin class system has been synthesized with the Gastrinian class system, a process finalized with the grant of citizenship to the hobgoblins. At the top of the hierarchy are the magnates called voivode, who inherit governorship of a province of the confederacy, which may include several tribes and allods, who hold Senatorial rank in the Gestrin political and social system. The voivodes are members of the wider szlachta, a class of landed military aristocrats who own significant property; in Gestrin's social system, most members of this class correspond to the patriciate. Members of the szlachta hold land by allodial right, which to to say freely and under their own sovereignty rather than feudally; they are exempt from the usual Gastrinian land taxes as part of their treaty of federation with Gestrin, and are only subject to the King of Gestrin in the same sense that all citizens are under the supervision of the Gastrinian state. In addition to all rights accorded to full citizens of Gestrin, they have certain rights and privileges, including: freedom from arbitrary arrest, freedom of travel, freedom from property seizure even when found guilty of a crime other than treason, certain heraldic rights, the right of access to the Prince, the right to form tribal assemblies, and the right to oversee judicial and financial matters in their estates. Most important, however, is the right of participation in the intertribal assembly, the Sejm, which elects the Prince and legislates for the whole of the confederacy. The szlachta are governed by voivodes only insofar as the voivodes are responsible for communicating princely decrees and calls to arms, and act as an appellate judicial official in their provinces. Otherwise, all members of the aristocracy are equal to one another.

Below the aristocracy are the landed gentry, the ziemiany, equivalent to the Gastrinian landowning and city-dwelling middle classes. These hobgoblins are free citizens with property, but less than that of the hereditary nobility. However, their land is held by tenure rather than allod, and they are feudally dependent on the szlachcics for their property. They have all the attendant rights of Gestrinian citizens, but are subject to the normal taxes applied to their social class in Gestrin. In addition, they have semi-feudal obligations to their noble landlords, mainly in the form of money, goods, or military service. However, they are entitled to the incomes and rents derived from the land they hold tenure over, giving them real wealth in terms of money. It is not uncommon for the ziemiancics to have more money than the szlachcics, and tribal custom constrains the latter from engaging in widespread commerce, so the ziemiany class often also acts as a merchant caste in hobgoblin society.

The next class are the smerdy, free-born hobgoblins with minimal or no property, equivalent to the combined plebeian and proleterian classes of Gestrin. For all intents and purposes, there is no hobgoblin that may sink below this stature, as they have all the same rights as full citizens of the Gestrin Empire. Most are free tenant farmers or crofters, artisans, and cottars. The vast majority of hobgoblins fall into this social class. Many join the Gastrinian Army in search of greater social status and eventually reward. Most veterans are awarded enough land or a pension upon retirement to become a yeoman, which for hobgoblins could place them into the class of the ziemiany.

The lowest level are the kholopi, or slaves. No hobgoblin is a slave, nearly all lesser goblins are. These are owned as chattel by either individual hobgoblins, families, or clans. The goblin slaves are widely employed in agricultural work, mining, and other labor. Unlike most forms of slavery in Gestrin, goblin slavery is hereditary and the kholopi form a racial caste of slaves and serfs, and a kholop can never be freed. A kholop is subject their master's whim, and can be killed, injured, sold, or pawned at will, though a master is also responsible for their slaves' conduct and actions. Within this is a small privileged subset, the kherekholop, or "war slave", a sub-caste composed of the bugbear race; bugbears were bred as a caste of overseers and warriors bound to hobgoblin nobles, and have some limited right to complain to voivodes or administrative courts if they are harmed without cause, and can be freed at their master's discretion.