The Empire of Rats

The Empire of Rats

Scattered all over the world, the goblins never lost their attachment to the nauseating swamps that had provided them with their first refuge. These swamps have influenced goblin culture even more profoundly that the Ægis Mountains.

Sitting cross-legged in the shade of a cherry tree in bloom, surrounded by shards of porcelain taken from countless broken cups, Bazûka was trying as hard as he could to perform the complex gestures of the tea ceremony. He hated this ritual, yet the shogun had insisted. According to him, a warrior who doesn’t master the tea ceremony isn’t worth more that a brat. The alarm gong’s characteristic song saved Bazûka from a nervous breakdown. Finally, some action!

The tyrant of Zoukhoï jumped up and readjusted his kimono. A sweaty ashigarû came rushing into the garden.

“Bazûka-san, some bearded-ones with steam have appeared from a tunnel near the temple of the four winds!”

“Too bad for the tea…”

Dwarves and goblins have hated each other since the beginning of time.

The fiery Bazûka has convinced the emperor of No-Dan-Kar to revise his idea of military strategy and the goblins are coming out of their ghettos to harass the inhabitants of the regions of Aarklash where they are established.

Seeing in this growing enthusiasm the signs of counter-natural development, the Dwarves of Tir-Nâ-Bor have decided to attack this evil at its roots. They have hatched a crazy plan: surprise their old enemies by bursting from the ground where the goblins least expect them.

For the inhabitants of the plains of Alahan or of Akkylannie, the plateau is a huge bog. Hasn’t the expression “the swamps of No-Dan-Kar" become a part of everyday language? Rare are those who are interested enough in the goblin people and the geography of Aarklash to know that in reality the lands of the rats form a composite mosaic that fully justifies calling them the "goblin empire." The goblin territory, which is relatively small, has a more varying landscape than the baronies of Alahan or the faraway Syhar lands: it's full of plains, steep hills, woods, forests and coasts that give birth to just as many cultures and unique traditions.

The Bogs of No-Dan-Kar

The central part of the goblin homeland is occupied by bogs. These vast marshes, through which the Zokorn River and its countless tributaries wind, are constantly changing, thus causing population movements that obey needs that are incomprehensible to the other peoples of Aarklash. At the heart of these bogs, Klûne throbs with endlessly renewed life, sprawling a bit further with every season, from one run down shack made of plants to the next shantytown made from scavenged material. Yet the coasts are preserved from the goblins' unstoppable expansion: the mangroves are the domain of insects, witches and mutants, and are where the spirits roam.

The Banks of the Zokorn

The Zokorn River*, fed by the waters of Lake Zok, carries its alluvia all the way to the sea while crossing the whole plateau of No-Dan-Kar. On its way it divides into numerous branches that carry the ferrous silt in its water all over the plains of the goblin country, turning them into ponds and bogs. Its muddy banks teem with dangerous river creatures that slip into the ponds and swamps near mushroom villages to feed on the local population.

River pirates are just about the only ones who dare brave the Zokorn's countless whirlpools all along its course. Their presence along the river has caused the appearance of temporary shelters that are used as dives and brothels where the least commendable goblins offer their shady deals. More officially, the merchants' flat bottom barges transport all kind of merchandise under strong escort, hiring the services of bodyguards to bring their products to the markets of the furthest villages. Sometimes the two trades meet in cities on stilts and form questionable alliances at the water's edge.

Note: * Zo, Zou. Adj. (Goblin slang): marine, maritime. Korn n. 1: (Old Goblin) Eel. 2: (Xherus's system) Snake, plate, bell rattle.

The Mushroom Settlements

Legend has it that the goblin villages, the mushroom settlements, appear and disappear as quickly as a summer rain. Indeed, all that's needed is a very high level of humidity and a thick curtain of vegetation to see a forest of giant mushrooms sprout in the shadows. These places rarely remain abandoned for long, for goblin spotters know the swamps well and detect their appearance very quickly. They then sell their discovery at a high price and the goblins of the overcrowded cities soon colonize these places. This phenomenon of urban exodus, which mainly affects Klûne the Overflowing, takes on various shapes. The strange principle of goblin architecture, which accumulates without destroying, has caused the building of shantytowns around the big cities, whereas the inhabitants of the swamp villages usually leave the mushrooms they discover as they are.

Yet no matter their location, the mushroom villages are all built around the initial vegetation, which they always respect. The dwellings are perched on the top of wide caps, built against the stems or carved in the bulbs. More rarely, some villages make the most of the characteristics of unusual mushrooms and are used as shelter by mutants.

The villages' inhabitants make up the biggest part of the goblin population. It's from them that the empire draws its incredible amount of reinforcements, replacing every fallen soldier with thousands of new lives. Some villages vanish in one night, the victims of fungivorous insects or of mysterious phenomena that haunt the swamps. A good number of these disappearances can also be caused by the mushrooms themselves, whose hallucinogenic spores rarely spare their inhabitants. Yet new villages spring up every day in the most unexpected places, thus ensuring relieve.

The Mangroves

The mangroves, where land and sea meet, are spared by the goblins who fear entering them. Their landscape of aerial roots and perpetual fog give shelter to their ancestors, who supposedly haunt them, and to countless insects. Mushrooms don't grow there, with the exception of extremely rare brain-shaped, slimy and warty species that attract the mutants in their hopeless wanderings. In the deepest parts of the mangroves, black and white stretches of rotting vegetation testify to the influence of Darkness in these places. Opalescent worms and purple phasmids, two necrophagous species, thrive there on beds of dead insects and the remains of goblin civilization carried there by the river's treacherous currents. Rumor has it that these cesspools hide unusual concentrations of mana gems, and strange expeditions of sorcerers and thieves sometimes venture into them.

The Plateau of Burrowers

Bigger than the bogs, the grassy western steppes of the Plateau of Burrowers are a lot less inhabited. The ancient presence of trolls and other giant cousins of the goblins, as well as the dangerous proximity of the Drune and Sessairs Kelts, have given this area an unwelcoming reputation, thus keeping away most of No-Dan-Kar's population. Yet some have developed a certain original culture there, which goes against the principles of the swamp, and they regularly threaten to secede.

Macromegas

The descendants of the giants of the past or unusual goblins coming from the caves of the Ægis, the trolls occupy the Plateau of Burrowers that dominates the Wall of Giants. They are an integral part of the goblin people in which they play both a dominant and a subordinate role. Dominant because it is rare that goblin troops vanquish without their help, and subordinate because they are systematically placed under the orders of goblin leaders who use them as beasts of burden and cannon fodder.

This military organization reflects their position in goblin society, which integrates them while remaining wary of their brutality. A tacit agreement gives them the Plateau of Burrowers to live in and also gives them the duty to defend it against incursions coming from Avagddu.

Usually solitaries, the black trolls form whole tribes in the temperate steppes where some still live in a savage state and don't distinguish between goblin and invader.

The Moors of Burrowers

The few goblins that live on the Plateau of Burrowers have adapted to conditions of life close to those found in the plains of Avagddu. Their hamlets fortified by log walls are built on promontories and have a panoramic view that helps protect them. The goblins of the Plateau, being more exposed to attacks by Kelts, wild trolls and Barhans, have a strong martial culture, even though their crude nature generally forbids them from using sophisticated weapons and armor.

The moors' temperate climate gives these goblins an abundance of food and water, so they have turned to agricultural activities that are foreign to the people of Rat. Some towns, in which trolls, goblins and Kelt mercenaries mingle, have become rather important little trade centers. They are withdrawing from the emperor's authority and strengthen their local particularities through bloody uprisings. Yet their days are counted because the swamp is slowly spreading toward the plains, thus causing settlements to be established right in the middle of the temperate steppes in a new wave of goblin colonization. The poorest of the cities' poor go there to settle, constantly threatened by invasions, raids and jealous expeditions from the towns of the goblins of the plateau.

The Eastern Borderlands

Barg marks the eastern border of No-Dan-Kar, right at the edge of the Wolfen of Yllia's huge forest. For most of Rat's children this frontier remains the theater of the bloody massacres of the past. Yet thinking that they would leave this place would be forgetting the extraordinary vitality of the goblins who migrated here at the beginning of their exodus.

The Haunted Circles

Before falling back on the bods that goblins coming from the Ægis mountains entered the forest of Diisha where, after bumping into the Wolfen, they quickly turned around. Yet small groups of fanatics more determined than the others ventured deep into the undergrowth until they reached a Wolfen stone circle where they met an atrocious death.

Under the shamans' influence the Wolfen abandoned the stone circles that were tainted by the goblins' arrival and ritually removed their sacredness. After this act the forest retreated by a few leagues to give way to murky swampland. The broken stones stick out of the slimy mud in certain spots among the heaps of goblin corpses, causing chaotic magical phenomena. This place, which is said to be haunted by the ghosts of the goblins killed in action and by the shamans' spells, is full of will-o'-the-wisps and other eerie glows. It is hardly ever visited except by Wolfen lonewolves and the bravest of goblins who sometimes form forbidden alliances there...

The Forest Tribes

In the far north of Diisha a small part of the goblins fleeing the Aegis Mountains ventured into the edge of the woods without meeting any of the terrifying Wolfen. Forgotten by all, they settled the furthest reaches of the forest by cutting themselves off from the rest of the exodus, which moved on toward No-Dan-Kar. There they created a tribal life style as hunter-gatherers with the help of dreadful poisons taken from the sap of mushrooms.

Extremely xenophobic, the goblins of the forest tribes have attacked all newcomers, burning, if need be, the mushrooms that could have been used by other goblins as shelter. They live in a perpetual dream fed by the mushrooms’ vapors and the magic tattoos that they wear.

Though they can no longer ignore the world at war around them, the forest tribes are no less determined to preserve their way of life by allying themselves with other goblins resisting the empire.

Notes

The Empire of Rats excerpt is from Cry Havoc volume 7.