Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 17:58:58 EDT
From: ">Rip Van Wormer>"
Reply-To: The GREYtalk Discussion List
In a message dated 6/15/99 12:20:28 AM Eastern Daylight Time, scvolstagg@FOXVALLEY.NET writes:
> Yes, at last, a new addition to my demi-humans of the Flanaess posts of old (anyone remember them?). Skimming through the Scarlet Brotherhood accessory was inspirational, as you shall shortly see...
>
Why are they Blu-Jebli instead of Ho-Jebli?
This is interesting (the DMD as a whole) and perfectly reasonable, but I would look to a different place for the origin of hobgoblins. If we look at their illustration in the Monster Manual we see them dressed in armor that looks very Japanese. They're also (along with the ogre) on the encounter charts of Oriental Adventures. Thus, I propose that the hobgoblin, like the ogre mage, comes from deep central Oerik.
The question of their role in western society arises.
They are, imo, servants of the oni; the calvary and non-commisioned officers in their armies. Their primary purpose was to control the wild and insolent bakemono troops. They are red-skinned, like many of their oni masters, and the dominant males have noses as blue as any ogre mage's. The oni themselves were loosely ruled by various feuding and scheming devil lords.
Late in their great wars with the Suloise, the Baklunish realized that the orcish troops their enemies had recruited and, in their words, "bred from darkness" were proving too great an advantage and in desperation they turned to the oni kingdoms that existed on the borders between Baklunish and Celestial lands. In exchange for weapons and magic of Baklunish make, the oni provided legions of bakemono, goblin spiders, hob-goblins, ogres and ogre magi to fill out the ranks of the golden armies of Baklun. Cut off from their primal origins in the spirit-haunted lands of the west and under the stern guidance of the Baklunish defiler-mages, much of the wildness was bred from the bakemono, stabilizing their assortment of inheritated traits into definite strains. The goblins became shrunken mirrors of their masters, as deferrent to authority as any oni minion. The "norkers" were those bakemono
who had retained the rebellious nature of their ancestors; many of these escaped and were recruited into the orcish armies of the Suloise (thus their name). How the goblins ended up as purely nocturnal creatures is a mystery, but is possibly a means of control instituted by the Baklunish (we hesitatingly identify helmets uncovered on the eastern coast of the Drawmidj as being designed to shelter loyal goblins from the sun), or possibly due to their later experiences with the dark magic of the North.
With the new troops ready, the Baklunish armies could sweep through the passes and into the Suel basin with much greater impunity, creating waves of refugees fleeing to the east. The Suel continued their own strikes, driving Baklunish and Oeridian refugees into the Flanaess as well, where along with the other invaders the native Flan encountered orcs and goblin-kind for the first time. At first still under control of their masters, the orcs rebelled as soon as the Suel ran out of their sorcerous goads and narcotics (something that didn't happen for decades in Urnst, and that never happened in the Tilvanot peninsula). The kin of the oni, for their part, considered their pact with the Baklunish severed when they stopped using their troops for purposes of war, concentrating on survival in the strange land. The Baklunish advance was broken by the clever humanoids, limiting their expansion to the northern reaches. The Suel managed to drive their former slaves into the hills and wildlands, though this weakened them enough to be conquered or absorbed by other peoples in some areas.
The orcs immediately made for the underground lands with their soothing eternal night, competing with the native dwarves who would otherwise have noted the changes in the human lands with complete disinterest. The dwarves, forced by necessity, made alliances with the Oeridians and in some cases retreated to the northern coast of the Azure Sea. The insatiable orcs, bred for quick energy, also terrorized the lands of the olvenfolk and Flan. The elves remembered the orcish ancestors from the days when they dwelled with them in the Suel lands before their civil war, and responded with quick violence, slow retreat, and their own alliances with the Oeridfolk. The Flannae fought as best they could, naming the invaders _Euroz_, or Eyeless (after their affinity to night combat and their one-eyed god).
The ogres and goblins mostly congregated in the Yatils, where they increased their numbers and fraternized with the twisted giants who have been absorbing the dark energies of those mountains for millenia. The fierce northern Flannae tribes named them Jebli and Eiger; the first word an adaptation of their Baklunish name and the second word simply a curse. The clever gnomes managed to survive by playing the Jebli against their historical enemies the kobolds; they are probably the only species that ended up better off after the goblin incursions. The goblin and ogre peoples inevitably spread throughout the Flanaess, occasionally controlling and being controlled by the orcs, humans, and others of varying levels of power.
In a message dated 6/8/99 12:20:18 AM Eastern Daylight Time, guarhoth@VEI.NET
writes:
> >He was captured by the orcs and used as breeding stock.
>
> Bleah. I prefer to have him not being held by the orcs. It can easily lead
> to a campaign to help restore the Marquis to his rightful fief.
No, no. He's enjoying it.
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