Dreams of Empire: Hobgoblins in the Green Coast

We’ve danced around them up to this point, but now we’re biting the crossbow bolt and talking about the hobgoblins and boy is it a big one.

Hobgoblins have resided in the northern plains and north-eastern mountains for longer than any can remember. Raiding, pillaging, and worse in their nomadic warbands, every so often a leader would arise that had the potential to unify the disparate tribes. In the past, these leaders suffered the fate of all hobgoblin leaders: assassination.

     The traditional means of promotion amongst hobgoblin warbands was to kill and replace their superior. As a result, most attempts to unify into a group larger than a warband have collapsed upon themselves due to infighting. This changed with the rise of Imbatur Thraz.

     A charismatic youth, Imbatur Thraz left his warband seeking out answers to questions of faith that plagued his mind. Where he went no one knows, what is known is that upon his return he was covered in ritual scars and carrying a spear with a charred, blackened haft and a head made from a black stone that glowed with an inner crimson light.

    His and other warbands listened as he told them of the trials he endured, weeks without food and water, slaying beasts with nothing but a sharp stone as a knife, before he found a cave. Within this cave was a boulder, upon which his spear was imbedded. Silver light from Zrukal, the elder and larger of the twin moons, shined through a hole in the ceiling, illuminating the spear. As he approached the spear, a voice whispered to him.

     Take the spear, unite all the land under my light. Be my Herald, and none shall stand against your will.

     The voice could be none other than Zrukal himself, guiding the young hobgoblin. How could any refuse the orders of a god? Thus, he pulled the spear from the stone and returned, to forge the bickering warbands into an empire that would cover the world. Beginning with the Green Coast.

The Free Counties

North of the Black Ash River, lie the remnants of the Aetherion Kingdom. The largest kingdom in the history of the Green Coast before the rise of the hobgoblins collapsed more than one hundred fifty years ago, and the twelve southernmost counts managed to maintain control over their lands. The twelve noble families continually scheme and plot against one another, only to join forces the second an outside force threatens one of them.

Race: Koup'ira

Here’s the first of our setting’s custom races, in addition to everything you’d expect to find in a Core Rulebook write up there will also be a sample PC at the very end. Art for this post was done by the talented Russell Tuller; check out his other material on DeviantArt.

Koup’ira

A Brief Preliminary Treatise on the Koup'ira

A Brief Preliminary Treatise on the Koup’ira

Written by Tiberius Clodius Faustinianus

While I was in Argoport preparing to travel to Sylvanor to study the otherworldly creatures that call it home, I witnessed a most curious sight. A group of four creatures that looked like nothing less than human-sized, upright shellfish dragging nets of fish up onto the docks. One of the dockhands was kind enough to inform me that these giant crustaceans are a race called koup’ira. They trade fish and pearls for red meat and copper-rich alloys, and will swiftly correct anyone that confuses them for beasts.

My transport wasn’t due to leave for several days, so I decided to take the opportunity to learn about these strange entities. As the sun began to set, I drank a potion to ensure that I could understand them and set about questioning the koup’ira.