Word of advice, never leave me alone near your junk pile. You'd be surprised at how useful junk can be! -- Anon Guest
Happier than a Gobelliin in a midden -- Alfarell saying.
People dismiss Gobelliin as filthy menaces whose only goal is chaos and destruction. They're barely recognised as Faekindred since they lost their inherent magic eons before the current era. Nevertheless, they are still outcasts. Forbidden from most of society, they go to where society dumps everything.
There, they make do with whatever they can find.
Sometimes, they team up with Kobolds, but it never lasts long. Gobelliin and Kobolds make clever devices, but Kobolds don't really care if their devices work properly. In brief, Kobolds get testy about testing.
Neither peoples are very adept at smelting metal. Given their somewhat haphazard approach to construction, they end up setting their settlements on fire whenever they try. However, forging extant metal is something they excel at.
Stolik had found a dump that he could not believe. He had to rub his eyes and stab himself[1] to be sure he wasn't dreaming. An entire dumpsite of discarded metal. Metal devices, metal armour, metal weapons. All tossed aside as if they were rotten peelings or slops from a privy.
No bodies. No bones. Just metal. A field of metal.
He quickly set up a forge before sending a message back to his tribe. This place was a mother-lode. Imagine the things they could make.
By the time the nearest Humans noticed that the Gobelliin had taken over their junkyard and created a small town in the surrounding canyon. There was a brief welling of concern... until they saw some of the mechanisms the Gobelliin had made.
Very cunning hands had made clockwork contraptions. Devices doing the work of horses. Devices carving out bricks from stone. Devices that knit yarn into clothing. Devices that gathered anything combustible. And devices that went into the junkyard to bring metal back to the forges.
For a change, the neighbouring humans paused in their xenophobia. They attempted negotiation. Offering their smelting prowess in return for their engineering prowess.
Aside from the battle pit, where the Gobelliin fight to blow off steam, the city of Faefoundry is remarkably normal.
[1] Gobelliin do deserve their reputation for violence.
Photo by Hannah Gibbs on Unsplash]
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