Wydlings, also known as icelings, are the frost-touched cousins of the goblin family tree. Born in the frozen wastes and glacial caverns of the far north, these pale blue goblins were fixed cold the moment their brood-resonance set in the ice. Unlike their more communal relatives, Wydling broods are smaller and more nomadic, following the seasonal migrations of their prey across the tundra. Their razor-sharp icicle teeth strip frozen meat from bones and crack through ice to reach the fish below.
Wydling society values patience and cunning over the impulsiveness of their southern kin. They are master hunters and trackers, capable of waiting motionless in snowdrifts for hours before striking. Their long noses serve a practical purpose: warming frigid air before it reaches their lungs and detecting the faintest scents carried on arctic winds. While other goblins might gather in hundreds, Wydlings move in small hunting packs of extended family, each member knowing their role in the hunt. Packs that range south toward the Nysanna buy hunt-timing tables from the Velthari of Ilthenvar. The dragon Niquous patrols that country, and his circuits follow the cold-fronts the Velthari track, so a pack that reads the tables can set its hunt in the gap when the dragon is somewhere else.
Those Wydlings who venture south often find work as guides through mountain passes, ice sculptors, or surprisingly effective fishmongers, since their natural affinity for cold keeps goods fresh far longer than normal.
The making
The Wydling brood-resonance caught in ice, and ice slows everything it touches. Where the first brood pooled in warm rot and copied itself fast enough to fill a hall with thousands, the resonance that set in a glacial cavern of the far north copied cold and slow. That single difference made the Wydlings what they are. A brood that copies slowly cannot spend hundreds of mothers against a hard winter, so it stays small, a few families moving together, the loop ticking over once where a southern lineage turns it a dozen times. The pale blue of their skin and the ice in their teeth are the substrate showing through the body, not something they grew into across hard seasons. They were cold the moment the resonance set. The patience the Wydlings are known for is the patience the working keeps. A brood in no hurry to copy itself is a brood that learns to wait, and a people that waits learns to hunt.
Aspects
- Patient predator
- Cold pragmatism over warm emotions