Leo
Leo is a goblin
Biography
Goblins are small; weedy in fact, a trait they get reminded of whenever they meet anyone else - whether it’s the bully Orcs, the bossy Abyssal Dwarfs or the snooty Twilight Kin. Almost every race of Mantica towers over the average Goblin, meaning that to survive they generally have to rely on one of two tactics: go around in large numbers or do exactly what everyone else says.
The Goblin called Leo has other ideas.
Leo was spawned not on the wide open Steppe of the north, but in the slave pens of the Abyssal Dwarfs. Like so many countless thousands of his kin, Leo was expected to toil his way through a short and unpleasant life of servitude before dying, whereupon he would serve as both an example to his fellow slaves and perhaps, if they were lucky, an extra meal. Leo harboured a deep resentment of this seemingly pre-ordained fate, a resentment that he nurtured as he toiled away in the forges of his Abyssal Dwarf masters. Ordinarily, even the most determined Goblin is unlikely to survive long in such surroundings, for the insane machineries of the forges offer countless ways of dying. But Leo was more than determined to live; he was, for a Goblin at least, really quite clever. His fellow slaves had often looked on in stunned amazement as Leo tied his own shoelaces. They cooed with incredulity as he demonstrated the ability to count more than the usual three Goblin numbers (one, some and lots) using not just his fingers, but his toes as well. He could remember the names of almost ten members of his own family and could even read some of the fell Abyssal runes etched into the machineries of the forge.
Perhaps it was Leo’s peculiar intellectual capacity that allowed him to escape his fate, or maybe he was touched by one of the Abyssal runes he had read. Whatever the truth, Leo contrived to escape from the forge, hatching a plan to free himself and as many of his fellow slaves as he could. He pondered exactly how this might be possible for many days and nights until finally inspiration struck. It was when Gub, a cousin of Leo’s, fell into a vital mechanism of the forge and blocked an important valve, causing the whole machine to come dangerously close to overheating that Leo knew what he must do.
All through the next day, Leo could barely contain himself as he considered how he might block the valve. Instead of the soft, and ultimately flushable body of a diminutive Goblin, Leo knew that he would need something more substantial if he was to block the valve to such an extent that the whole forge would be compromised. Once more, inspiration struck, and Leo convinced another of his cousins (Zub) to attract the attention of the forge’s Abyssal Dwarf slave master. This Zub did with commendable aplomb, pretending to have his head stuck in the very same vent that his relative had fallen into the day before. Zub’s distraction was so effective that the slave master came straight over, face contorted with rage and whip raised. At that moment, Zub dove, or possibly tripped over a well-deployed stick and fell, into the vent. The slave master was moving so fast he couldn’t stop himself pitching in too (or perhaps it was the solid shove from Leo and his mates that helped), and the Abyssal Dwarf’s body was well and truly wedged inside the valve, the temperature quickly rising as the slave master’s curses filled the air.
The machinery that fed molten metal into the forge overheated with dramatic results. The entire chamber was consumed in flames as a mighty explosion ripped an enormous hole in the floor. Knowing that he had just this one chance at survival and freedom, Leo fled into the chasm and followed the subterranean tunnels he discovered until he found freedom. Though none of his fellow Goblin slaves had been quick-witted enough to follow him, Leo was free. He was also all alone, and the wastes of Tragar were no place for an escaped slave.
Leo fled south, directly away from the Abyss and his erstwhile masters. Untold weeks later he reached the shores of the Low Sea of Suan, his sanity stretched to breaking point by the need to flee from the countless beasts that hunted the land. Turning for the southwest, he continued his flight, his mind becoming ever more fractured with each passing mile. Leo probably never noted the point at which the hard, barren ground gave way to softer going. In time this in turn gave way to a watery mire, and soon the lonely, raving Goblin was well and truly lost in the depths of an endless swamp.
What happened next is the stuff of legend, amongst the Goblins at least. Few Men, and no Elves, care for such things, but those who make them their business record that Leo claims to have come upon a mighty city that reared from the coiling mists. Amazingly, the city was circled by walls of weathered bronze and populated entirely by Goblins. The rulers were, if Leo is to be believed, a class of engineer Goblins every bit as clever as Leo himself. These took Leo in and he joined their ranks, learning the numerous secrets of their mechanical cult and in turn teaching them what he had learned in the forges of the Abyss. The result was a mechanical contraption of epic (for a Goblin) proportions – the answer to every Goblin’s dreams of getting his own back on every Orc, Man, Dwarf and Elf ever to have bossed him around or simply tried to squash him. Leo had constructed the Iron Goblin – a humungous walking figure of metal inside which he himself sat, working the many levers and wheels that made it do his every bidding.
Taking his leave of the mysterious city in the swamps, Leo stomped back into the world. The first Goblin tribe he encountered he offered his services too, in return for spare parts and whatever substance fuels the metal monstrosity. At first the Goblins were terrified, but the wiz-shamans that led them, albeit not as clever as Leo, recognised the machine as a potent means of making war on the Tall Races. Now, Leo joins whatever Goblin tribe will take him, fighting at their side in memory of Gub and Zub, and every other Goblin ever to have suffered at the hands of the Tall Ones.
Already word is spreading of Leo’s victories, and the Abyssal Dwarfs of a certain temple-bastion, one whose forge has only recently been rebuilt, are taking an interest
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