The Hills of the Moon Goblins occupy a saddle within the southern Foggy Mountains, a territory claimed by one of Alaria's most reclusive and hostile goblin subraces. The hills mark the only relatively accessible terrain within the Foggy Mountains—which makes them the only place the Moon Goblins regularly encounter outsiders, always violently.
Geography
The hills form a distinct subrange within the larger Foggy Mountains, covering roughly thirty square miles between the main peaks and the approaches to the Elder Mountains. Elevations range from 3,000 to 5,000 feet—lower than the surrounding mountains but still firmly within the fog line that blankets the range.
The terrain is broken and irregular, with numerous narrow valleys, box canyons, and dead-end ravines. Rocky outcrops and cave systems riddle the hills, providing natural shelter and concealment. Visibility is poor even by Foggy Mountains standards; the hills seem to trap fog in pockets that never fully clear.
Deception Creek rises from springs in the eastern hills, gathering water before beginning its unreliable journey toward the coast.
The Moon Goblins
The inhabitants of these hills are a goblin subrace found nowhere else in Alaria. They're smaller than most goblins, rarely exceeding three feet in height, with pale skin that appears almost translucent in certain light. Their eyes are enormous, black pools that take up much of their faces, adapted to the perpetual dimness of their fog-shrouded home.
Moon Goblins hunt primarily by sound and scent. They move through fog that would blind a human as easily as clear terrain, and they can track prey by the sound of breathing from dozens of yards away. Their hearing is acute enough to detect a heartbeat in a quiet space.
Behavior
Moon Goblins do not trade, negotiate, or communicate meaningfully with outsiders. Whether they possess language at all remains unknown—they make sounds, clicks and whistles and keening calls, but no pattern has been decoded. Attempts to establish contact have resulted in dead emissaries.
They raid downhill into the Marrow Valley and surrounding lowlands during what the Dalizi call the "goblin seasons"—periods of several weeks, roughly twice per year, when Moon Goblin activity surges. They take livestock, pack animals, supplies, and occasionally people. Captives are not seen again.
The raids appear organized, suggesting some form of social structure, but no one has observed Moon Goblin society directly. Survivors of encounters describe groups of a dozen or fewer acting in apparent coordination, using the fog for concealment and striking from multiple directions simultaneously.
Defenses
The Moon Goblins have made their hills effectively impassable. The cave systems throughout the terrain are trapped and guarded. The approaches are studded with alarm devices—bones and shells strung on cord, triggers that release rockfalls, hollows that amplify footsteps. Moving through Moon Goblin territory undetected appears to be impossible.
Whether the goblins are defending territory, protecting something specific, or simply hostile by nature remains unclear. The few expeditions that pushed into the hills despite resistance found nothing but death.
The Deeper Questions
The Moon Goblins' origins have long been debated. They share some physical characteristics with other goblin subraces but differ in significant ways—their coloration, their apparent lack of speech, their extreme hostility.
GM Information: The Moon Goblins are the descendants of a goblin tribe that was enslaved by the Vetharak civilization to work in the fog-shrouded mountains. The Vetharak used them as laborers in areas too dangerous or uncomfortable for their own people—specifically, in the high-altitude facilities where dream-energy was harvested and processed.
Generations of exposure to concentrated dream-energy transformed the goblins. Their eyes enlarged to navigate the perpetual twilight; their skin paled as they spent decades underground; their language atrophied as they communicated increasingly through the shared dream-space rather than speech. By the time the Vetharak civilization collapsed, the Moon Goblins were no longer capable of living in normal conditions.
When their masters vanished, the Moon Goblins claimed the hills as their own. They still maintain some of the old facilities—the trapped cave systems and alarm devices aren't goblin innovation; they're maintained Vetharak security systems the goblins inherited. The goblins may not understand the systems fully, but they know how to use them.
What are they guarding? The Moon Goblins' extreme hostility isn't random—they're protecting a dream-harvest station in the deepest part of their territory. The station still functions, drawing power from the titan's dreams and concentrating it in crystallized form. The goblins consume small amounts of these dream-crystals, which is what allows them to share consciousness and coordinate without speech. They attack intruders to prevent anyone from discovering (and potentially disrupting) their supply.
Plot hook: Dream-crystals would be immensely valuable to certain magical practitioners. The Moon Goblins can potentially be negotiated with if someone figures out their communication method (shared dreaming), but they'll defend the harvest station to the death.
Related Locations
- Foggy Mountains — The larger range surrounding the hills
- Deception Creek — Waterway rising in the eastern hills
- Elder Mountains — South, separated by the Marrow Valley
- Marrow Valley — Southwest, route to the western highlands