Little green men

Gobli

Origin: Goblins and Gremlins originated in the Small Magellanic Cloud, same as the dragons. 20 million years ago, gobli were spread out across a handful of systems when they were discovered by the dragons. Seeing the gobli were far more dexterous and capable, the dragons sought to conquer and domesticate the gobli. When the gobli were conquered, the dragons employed them in their industry as ‘beasts of burden’. When dragons set out to colonize a new world, they took gobli with them to build what limited infrastructure the dragons (who never lived in cities and required large tracks of territory with prey to sustain themselves) required to stay in contact with its other worlds. When the Dragon’s homeworld and other core worlds were destroyed by a Gamma Ray Burst, dragons and gobli alike found themselves scattered across two satellite galaxies along with the Main Galaxy. This is why goblins are spread out across so many worlds; they were planted there when dragons arrived.

Size: Goblins stand not much more than one meter in height, usually to stomach level on a typical sapien. They are not much more massive than the average sapien child.

Head: Their heads are triangular in shape with flappy triangular ears (like long dog ears) a large nose, reddish eyes and a mouth full of sharp teeth. These teeth are deceiving as both species of gobli are strictly herbivores. These teeth are used to slice plant matter, perhaps tough leaves from their ancient, and lost, homeworld. Their second types of teeth, in the back of their jaws, are used to grind their food.

Limbs: Gobli hands and feet end with five digits. On each tip is a claw-like nail.

Color: Goblins in general are a light green in color, with a smooth skin.

Internal Structure: Gobli are endothermic, but their thin skin makes it easier for them to lose heat. As they did not evolve on a world in an ice age, nor tend to live in cold climates, this is of little consequence. The only effect this would induce would be the gobli wearing thicker clothing and more of it. They have a pair of lungs flanking a four-chamber heart. Their stomachs are rather large in proportion to their body size, and give them a slightly pudgy look. They require large stomachs as vats to digest the plant matter they eat.

Diet: Gobli are strictly vegetarian. In fact, their digestive system cannot even handle meat. To both species of gobli, chili peppers prove to be a strong stimulant, and potentially toxic.

Lifecycle: Gobli life cycles are quite different from sapiens. Both species live for forty years and give birth (are reproductive by the age of nine) in a far different way than humans, or mammal. Gobli are a genus of mammal-like reptiles that in which the female will contain her baby in an internally held egg sack. The egg is never laid, and the young will only be born when the egg is ready to ‘hatch’. The unborn feed upon a sack of yoke before birth, and can eat solids upon birth. Their reproduction is similar to vipers and some species of shark. This lack of direct connection between mother and child leaves gobli families not nearly as tightly knitted as any mammal. Though they are not instinctually as family-bound as true mammals, gobli still form mating pairs as a means to increase the odds of the offspring’s survival.

General Society: The most common, or at least most widely seen, species of the genus Gobli are goblins. They are diurnal and cautious beings. At first, a goblin will act timid to a new situation, but as any threat of danger passes, the gobli will relax and become more social. Despite their sharp teeth and nails (more like claws), goblins are rather peaceful. They rarely start conflict, but will fight fiercely when need arises. Goblins seeing an opportunity to improve their lives at the expense of others will take it, as long as they are certain they will prevail. The only article of clothing worn by any member of either species is trousers. They will also bundle up much tighter in colder environments than any human, for gobli (no matter which species) are not as efficient at retaining their body heat.

Gobli live in various state of technological advance. Since the dragon’s ‘empire’ collapsed some 13 million years ago, gobli civilization have risen and fallen. Many turned upwards towards space, where dragons would not bother them. Gobli city-ships are in constant movement, and often trade both genetic and cultural information with other worlds. Sometimes, gobli from one world will simply leave it and colonize another. This constant flow of data keeps the gobli language relatively constant, though it tends to drift the further one travels from their starting point. Gobli favor worlds where the dragons have already gone extinct.

One might think after millions of years in space, gobli might have evolved to nearly god-like state, at least technologically speaking. They have not physically evolved, because their ‘humanoid’ configuration suits them for their life style (i.e. there is no reason for their body to change itself). The only evolutionary change came when the gremlins shot off from the gobli branch. Advance technology, that does much of the work for goblins, also prohibits evolution. Technologically speaking, the gobli are not an overly imaginative genus. Since technology fits their life-style, and their life-styles seldom change (unless acted on by an outside force) then technology does not change often. They might improve efficiency, but innovation is rare.

Communication: Gobli language consists of guttural grunt, growls and barks. It is similar enough to human speech in terms of physiology that goblins have little trouble speaking human languages and vice-versa. Though humans never bother to learn the language, and eventually goblin populations are linguistically assimilated.

Gremlins: Gremlins are a dark forest green and have slightly larger eyes than their goblin cousins. Gremlins are this way because they favor living in the darkest of forests, as their eyes are extremely photosensitive. Gremlins are a nocturnal species, a habit given from their ancient past when a population of goblins was isolated from their species over 20 million years ago. At the time, the gobli were a two planet species within their own system. However, a disaster, followed by large-scale warfare on their homeworld left its infrastructure in tatters and isolated many gobli colonists on the outermost of the two planets. It was not for thousands of years until the gobli on the homeworld were able to return to space. By that time, the gobli adapted to life on the outer planet and became the gremlins.