The Kobaloi: ‘Goblin’ folk of Rega
The Kobaloi “rogues”
It should be noted that these 'goblinoids' are intended as a commentary on how any creature can become corrupted, sometimes through no fault of their own. Each of these is genetically part of a very different ancestry or species, but they have been twisted into things other than they once were. Goblins are halflings, hobgoblins are dwarves, bugbears are spartoi. Elves and humans become serpent people and plagueborn respectively. All the sapient folk are vulnerable. While there is, to an extent, fantasy racism against these creatures because of long standing conflict caused by the evil gods and their minion and schemes, and they are culturally inclined toward evil, they are not inherently so. Biology is not the root of their differences or their inclination to evil, but rather the power of evil gods and carefully enforced religious fanaticism...which can lead anyone to evil.
Perthoi “Destroyers”(Goblins): Skinnier and lankier than their halfling forebears, with longer limbs. The small noses of the halflings have nearly melted away, leaving little more than a pair of slits, in a vaguely reptilian face. Lipless mouths fulls of what look like bare, toothless gums are actually full of hidden, backward facing, sharp conical teeth like those of a snake. Some even have fangs, though few if any are venomous. Most have lost the majority of their hair, leaving only narrow strips atop their heads, like crests, often tied back. Their eyes are large and often seem to glow from behind when under light, because of their catlike tapitum lucidum.
Swamp: Like their forebears, they have deep brown skin, but it is mostly hairless and has taken on a vaguely slick or scalelike quality. Their skull crests of hair are very often a sickly sort of eldritch green, like phosphorescent fungi, although they don't actually glow. Eyes are dark green or brown.
Hill: A lighter brown than their swamp cousins, often with gray or black wiry hair atop their heads. Their skin has distinctive scaly patches. Eyes are often black, sometimes dark blue.
Plains: Second palest of the breeds, these are mostly covered with dusty tan scale-like skin, and have hair like the tops of ripe grain, kind of golden brown. Often light blue eyes, sometimes light brown.
Forest: Their skin is a mottled color, like a light silverish tan resembling the bark of a birch tree, and similar knots irregularly dot their flesh. Their hair is often a brilliant red, and they dye it or hide it under a hood or hat in order to blend in better, except in the Red Forests of the Arkian peninsula where they are most numerous. Eyes are red or black,
Deep: Palest gray of skin, charcoal of hair and eye, they blend in with the stone well, their bodies covered in mottled pattern of darker gray like shifting shadows. Some trick of their skin hides them from things that can see heat, or use no light to see in the dark. Stealthiest of the goblin folk. Eyes appear pure white with no iris or pupil due to mutations allowing exceptional vision in darkness.
Behavior: Goblins, as a culture, have inverted values from their halfling forebears. As such, they have no love of comfort, no love of beauty, no interest in things for their own sake. They value the ability to live with a minimum of possessions, to take only what they need from the world around them to avoid drawing attention until they strike against their hated foes. Goblins neither loot nor pillage, leaving treasures behind untouched (or besmirched, destroyed, and befouled) when they kill and raid, making off with livestock and prisoners instead, if anything. They no longer love the world, or believe in luck and laughter except at the pain of others. Mostly. There are always exceptions, but this is the way they are raised, and the way the blood of Invidia twists them.
If there is a nearby nikoi war-band, they are often conscripted as irregular skirmishers and light cavalry.
Fantasy Age 2nd Ed stats here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/goblins-of-rega-95741730
Nikoi “conquerors” (Hobgoblins)-
Like stretched versions of their dwarven ancestors, perhaps 5 feet tall, they are still squat and strong, but like the goblins, more wiry and long of limb. And again, like the goblins, they are almost noseless. They are never bearded or hairy, though they do have more hair on their heads than goblins, often. Just as often, they might shave it. It depends upon the customs of the war-band they are in, as such things vary greatly from locale to locale. Their teeth resemble those of goblins, but are always exposed, and thicker than goblin teeth...more like something halfway between the teeth of a crocodile and those of a komodo dragon, but all fully enclosed within the mouth...until they grin, which they like to do as an intimidation tactic. Their eyes are large and lambent like their goblin kin.
Hill: Deep brown skin like their hill dwarf forebears, with red or brown hair atop their heads, but rough, almost plated skin, though it isn't usually thick enough to provide any armor. Eyes are often brown or grey.
Mountain: Skin is often the same dark grey, with more pronounced, stony skin plates than their hill dwelling cousins. Hair is often black or grey. Eyes are black.
Deep: Skin is white like marble. Most often shaved of all the kinds, but when they are not they have long silver or white hair. Eyes are the same featureless white of their smaller cousins.
Behavior: Unlike their wilder, feral kin, they tend to be heavily armed and armored, and will keep treasures with clear martial application, though little else. Nikoi gather in war-bands ruled by the most tactically cunning, who very often are the strongest, as well, but not always. They tend to incorporate any other nearby kobaloi as part of their war machine, in specialized roles, while they themselves act as heavy infantry or heavy cavalry, though some are more uncivilized.
Trichotoi 'hairy ones'. (Bugbears): Largest of the twisted kobaloi, warped by draconic and Invidian blood into mockeries of what they once were, the trichotoi, also called, colloquially, 'bugbears', are terrifying ambush predators. Each type is descended from a specific set of spartoi, the metallic humanoids made by the gods to defends mortals from dragons and their spawn.
All trichotoi have bodies covered in hair, elongated arms, and a powerful but lanky build. They also have a spiteful and cruel attitude toward weaker creatures, inculcated in them carefully by the servants of the dark gods who made them what they are. Like their lesser cousins, they have very large, wide eyes, lambent and more catlike than the others. They share the same noseless face, but the nasal slits are wider and more rounded.
Aquatic : warped from the noble Bronzetooth people. Their hair is slimy and often dark green, like strands of seaweed. Beneath that hair, showing through in patches, is metallic flesh, mottled with the colors of verdigris on bronze. Like their forebears, they are amphibious, and resistant to lightning, a very rare ability amongst the servitor species of the Dark Three. They often lurk beneath dark waters, at the edges, waiting for a chance to pounce on an unsuspecting victim and drag them into the depths to drown. They are most often found in the ocean, in rivers, and in swamps and lakes as well.
Desert: They bury themselves in sand, and burrow through it undetected, to emerge from below much as the aquatic ones do, and drag their victims down. Highly resistant to flame and heat, their dulled brass flesh is covered in fine hair that usually mimics the color of their surroundings, most often an equally dull tan with patches of other browns as camouflage. They need very little water.
Hill: also found in forests, their skin is covered with as much moss as hair, greens and browns to blend with the local foliage or even lichen, over flesh colored like corroded copper. Acid resistant, they are also exceptionally surefooted, and hard to move or knock down against their will.
Mountain: Where their forebears flesh was shining silver, their own flesh is most often covered by charcoal fur and hair, to blend in well with the mountainside, and stony growths protrude like hillocks out of the hair. Like their forebears, they are highly resistant to cold, and are the most terrifying of the trichotoi, with personalities that are both strong and cruel.
Behavior: More likely to be solitary than the others, or group in small packs, except when part of a nikoi war-band.
