Gobber
Raças e Culturas — NQ 52
A TRIBAL HISTORY
According to their own mythology, gobbers — and their larger, more brutal cousins, the bogrin — were the first race birthed by Dhunia and the Wurm. Small, dexterous, and clever, their ancient ancestors spread across western Immoren, finding homes in forests and marshlands. These tribes were highly successful due to their natural cunning and remarkable adeptness at the construction of shelters. Due to their small size, gobbers were relatively easy prey for natural predators that gave other tribal races a wide berth.
Accordingly, gobbers developed a robust society based on the common good: where one gobber would make easy prey for a duskwolf, a whole tribe could band together for mutual support and drive off even such formidable creatures.
This led to a communal social life where gobbers developed few concepts of personal goods and freely borrowed tools, clothing, and other materials from their kin without considering this theft. Even amid this permissive social structure, gobbers recognized a distinction between borrowing for necessity and bringing harm to another member of the tribe by taking vital goods. A gobber found to have harmed his kin through greed or maliciousness faced exile or even death. Leadership of these villages was often loosely derived, although larger tribes would look to a chieftain for direction and to determine punishments. The chieftain was usually a gobber thought to be both intelligent and wise, often one of the eldest among those still deemed virile and physically fit. A village might also look to its eldest shamans for advice and leadership, those who dedicated their lives to paying reverence first to Dhunia while also appeasing the Wurm so that it would not prey upon them.
Gobbers were a tangential part of the ancient Molgur alliance that formed in the southern wilderness and mountain regions before the rise of Menite civilization. The gobber tribes were not expected to contribute warriors in the same way as savage humans, trollkin, ogrun, or even bogrin; instead, they served the alliance in other ways, bartering goods and services in exchange for safety. Gobbers also took part in stealth-raids on Menite towns, sneaking past walls and defenses to steal food and other supplies under the cover of attacks led by the mightier races.
It was from this time that the Gobberish language first evolved, a distinct dialect of the Molgur language, other dialects of which are still spoken by the other Dhunian races, the Tharn, and some barbaric human tribes living in the wilderness. This language has evolved and changed over the centuries, picking up many terms from modern human languages like Cygnaran. Overall, gobberish is an acquisitive language, borrowing freely from any communities to which gobbers have spent time in proximity. Similarly, gobber names are tremendously long — essentially lists of lineage and notable ancestors or allies of those ancestors. These names serve to remind each gobber of his or her place as a member of a vast web of familial connections.
Like their Dhunian cousins — the trollkin, ogrun, and, later, farrow — gobbers existed as tribal societies for untold millennia. This traditional way of life is still practiced by some gobber tribes to this day, little changed since ancient times, although large tribes are now rare. With the rise of civilization, most gobber families and tribes left the wilderness to gravitate toward town and city life. Part of the success gobbers have enjoyed as a species is in part due to their willingness to communicate and collaborate with other races.
During the Thousand Cities era, some gobber tribes began to form close associations with the human city-states, in many cases becoming parts of those communities. Initially this cooperation was like that of any between communities, and unlike the sometimes-intimidating trollkin, gobbers were viewed as harmless by human society. Their skill with tools and willingness to work made them valuable neighbors, especially in the southern regions where human cultures were less insular and aggressive. Many gobber families chose to preserve their culture by maintaining a nomadic lifestyle instead of settling permanently in a single city. These gobbers would retain their possessions by maintaining overloaded wagons and traveling from one city to the next, doing odd jobs and scavenging to survive. Others settled permanently in cities and towns, most often being delegated to a slum or outskirt they could call their own and develop as they saw fit.
By the time the Orgoth invaded western Immoren, substantial numbers of gobbers lived in or near human cities and made their livelihoods by trading with other races. The Orgoth paid little attention to the gobbers, though they did suffer alongside other citizens. Gobbers made poor slaves for the hard labor the Orgoth required, and though many gobbers died in acts of senseless cruelty or in citywide massacres, by and large they scraped by during the Occupation.
During the Rebellion and the reconstruction that followed, many gobber communities found themselves increasingly integrated into the broader societies in which they lived. This remained especially true in the more progressively minded cities within Cygnar, Ord, and the southern regions of Llael.
After humankind, gobbers are perhaps the most ubiquitous and widespread race in the industrialized nations of western Immoren. This diminutive species has adapted readily to urban life in the Iron Kingdoms, filling vital niches in both society and industry. From the shipyards of Mercir to the slums of Korsk, gobbers have carved out their place in the world.
GOBBERS IN THE IRON KINGDOMS
Gobbers are present in every nation of the Iron Kingdoms, as well as in Rhul and even in Cryx. The only nation in which they have essentially no presence is that of Ios, which expelled all non-Iosans from its borders two decades ago. While gobbers can be found almost anywhere in western Immoren, their relations with other inhabitants vary widely from city to city and region to region. Given their natural proclivities for engineering, alchemy, and mechanika they generally find themselves as valued members of society, if often having a lower ceiling for personal advancement. In regions where the dominant powers are less welcoming of other races they readily adapt to criminal pursuits, where they excel at smuggling and other more intellectual underworld activities. It is often the case that a life of crime offers a gobber far greater chances to exceed ordinary social limits than would legitimate industry.
While small tribes of gobbers still live in the wilds, where they pursue their traditional ways of life, these are increasingly becoming a minority. Those who have joined the modern world view their rustic kin as bumpkins, while the tribes consider urban gobbers to have forsaken their heritage. Even so, there is little true animosity between these groups, and on the whole gobbers will attempt to aid one another, regardless of their disparate lifestyles.
Bridging these two settled groups are the nomadic families who travel from city to city, stopping periodically at villages in the wild for trade. Gobbers are some of the most common travelers in western Immoren. Many make their living as tinkers or in scrap and repair caravans, sometimes joining with or including in their bands humans who refer to themselves as junkers. These roaming communities travel in circuits over the course of years, stopping in villages and cities to ply their wares and trades and to exchange news and rumors before moving on. In this way, gobbers stay in contact with communities across western Immoren, and while they must contend with the many borders closed to war in the modern era, they remain largely free to go where they will.
CYGNAR
No other nation is as tolerant of other races as Cygnar. While the attitudes of locals can vary, on the whole gobbers are treated as fairly and equitably as other members of the lower class in this nation.
Most Cygnaran cities are home to significant gobber communities, usually centered around industrial quarters or docks where gobbers most often find work. Their homes are often communally shared by one or more families retaining some of their tribal traditions, including shared rearing of their young and food preparation. Often gobber communities will collectively maintain shrines to Dhunia, tended to by elder shamans who are supported by their fellows with food and shelter. Many gobbers in Cygnar also celebrate civic and religious holidays popular with their human neighbors. It’s not uncommon for gobbers to take part in feasts dedicated to Morrow and be as welcome as any other neighbor. Some gobbers see no problem in worshipping both Morrow and Dhunia, generally having little interest in the detailed aspects of theology for either. This proclivity for social adaptation and accommodation has served the gobbers well, leading them to be welcomed as full members of the broader community.
engineering, or alchemy, depending on the skills of their relatives. Morrowan-run schools often open their doors to non-humans. In especially integrated communities, typically among the poor, gobbers are sometimes informally schooled alongside human and trollkin young, leading to lifelong relationships and acceptance between these groups.
Accordingly, gobbers make up a significant percentage of the membership in the Steam & Iron Workers Union. In some parts of Cygnar and Ord, gobbers have even become union bosses, leading prestigious workshops including subsidiaries of Engines East. More often they are relegated to subordinate roles but can still serve as valued members of mechanik teams. Gobbers are not allowed to enlist as infantry or officers in the Cygnaran Army but do comprise a noteworthy number among the field mechaniks of the Cygnaran Armory. Gobbers have proven to be fearless combat mechaniks, willing to risk life and limb on the battlefield in defense of their nation. While the population at large does not consider them war heroes in the same sense as other soldiers, crew chiefs in the field and at the Cygnaran Armory recognize them as patriots worthy of respect.
The capital of Caspia is home to one of the most thriving and successful communities of gobbers in the kingdom. Almost eight thousand gobbers live there, over five thousand in the district colloquially known as “The Slurries.” Here gobbers ply their trades in one of the greatest hotbeds of alchemical trade and fabrication. While the district is one of the poorest in Caspia, gobbers face little discrimination within it and are widely considered valuable to the city for their alchemical trade.
In the neighboring Smoke District, countless gobbers labor in mechanika and mundane engineering workshops. They are valued employees and are generally recognized as being integral to the war efforts that help protect the beleaguered nation.
KHADOR
While gobbers can be found in abundance in Khador, particularly in its southern cities and ports, they do not enjoy quite the same liberties or societal respect as their fellows in Cygnar and Ord. Khadorans universally consider gobbers to be part of the underclass, unfit for military service or commercial respect.
Gobber communities in Khador are relegated to the worst slums and industrial sections of cities and are often forced into close quarters with trollkin, ogrun, and impoverished humans. While gobbers are technically permitted to run whatever sorts of businesses they want provided they pay taxes, the reality is that the Khadoran Mechaniks Assembly takes a dim view of any unaffiliated mechanika or engineering workshops, and its members are not above coercion or even arson when dealing with unwanted shops. The KMA explicitly denies membership to any but Khadoran humans, and no other labor organizations exist in Khador for gobbers to take advantage of.
Cygnaran gobbers almost universally teach their young Cygnaran along with gobberish, and many Cygnaran terms have become a part of the gobberish language. Most gobbers receive informal education from their extended families, but in many cases this includes instruction in mechanika, Many KMA-run or affiliated workshops, however, do employ gobbers as non-member assistants and consider them vital workers, though they never receive the same pay as their human counterparts. Further, many Khadoran gobbers find employ in the fishing fleets of Khador’s ports. Their mechanical aptitude makes them invaluable in fixing boilers and maintaining engines.
Criminal pursuits are not uncommon for Khadoran gobbers; though generally they must pay protection money to the vicious bratyas of the Khadoran underworld. Even so, they often do well smuggling goods between Khador, Ord, and Cygnar. Gobbers elicit much less nationalist suspicion at border crossings than do humans with heavy accents. Gobber caravans have actually become an important part of Khador’s international trade. Since relations have degraded between the empire and the nation of Rhul, gobbers have taken up some of the slack and a significant portion of the trade between those nations is conducted by gobber merchants acting as neutral third parties.
BOGRIN
Larger, less civilized, and more prone to violence, bogrin have not made the same easy transition to civilization as have their gobber cousins. Most bogrin are encountered in the wild, where they live in tribes more similar to those of barbarous humans than to the communal cultures of tribal gobbers. Bogrin tribes are dangerous and predatory and are generally only willing to compromise with other races and tribes that are obviously more powerful than themselves.
Bogrin are not unknown in the cities of the Iron Kingdoms, but typically exist in far fewer numbers than gobbers. The only urban centers where bogrin have made significant inroads are those considered lawless by most, including places like Blackwater in Cryx, Five Fingers in Ord, Clockers Cove in Cygnar, and the Bloodstone Marches frontier town of Ternon Crag. The towns of Cryx have been particularly welcoming to bogrin, where they fulfill a role analogous to that of gobbers in unblighted areas. The bogrin of Blackwater run in several gangs and compete with groups of feral children for what little work is available in the cleaning of ducts and narrow sewer pipes.
ORD
While Ord is the poorest nation in the Iron Kingdoms, it is also the place where gobbers have the most opportunity. The common people of Ord, particularly the southern Thurians, are welcoming of outsiders, and gobbers face significantly less prejudice in Ord than anywhere else in western Immoren.
Engineering, mechanikal, and alchemical pursuits are still the most common trades for Ordic gobbers. Several prestigious alchemy workshops in Merin and Berck are gobber owned and operated, their owners being accredited members of the Order of the Golden Crucible. The OGC’s recent reformation in Midfast has spurred alchemical innovation and trade in Ord, and numerous gobbers have benefited from membership in the order. While some bias exists at the upper echelons, gobbers are considered valuable initiates and rarely face barriers to entry in the order based on their race. No gobber has yet been elevated above the rank of aurum ominus alchemist, but some administrators believe it may not be long before one of the more successful workshop overseers of the Midfast headquarters is promoted to aurum lucanum.
Ordic gobbers have also found a unique niche in the hooaga trade. Hooaga, a fibrous herb that is dried and smoked in pipes and cigars, has been a part of Ordic gobber culture since ancient times. When humans, trollkin, and Rhulfolk developed a taste for this habit, Ordic gobbers were successful in cultivating it for trade. Hearthstone, the hooaga manufacturing company located just outside of Tarna, is one of the premiere producers of cigars and cigarillos in western Immoren, and its success comes in no small part from the co-ownership of several gobbers whose families have been farming hooaga for generations. Even human-owned cigar manufacturers generally rely heavily on gobber laborers.
DIVIDED LLAEL
In the aftermath of the Khadoran occupation the gobbers of Llael have found opportunity in disruption. Where previously gobbers had existed as a tolerated underclass with few opportunities for advancement, the shuffling of borders and general chaos of the region have been lucrative for many gobbers. Much of the contraband, imported wines, and military surplus smuggled into and out of Llael passes through gobber hands at one point or another.
In the Khadoran-occupied west, gobber smugglers and transporters capitalize on the Winter Guard’s negligible interest in them. The Llaelese Resistance depends on several gobber-run operations to supply cells in Merywyn and Laedry. Gobber tinkers and caravans can make a tidy sum if they are willing to risk carrying forged papers or supplies between Rhydden and Llael. A few gobbers actually serve in the Llaelese Resistance as genuine patriots, although the fallen nation’s low appreciation of non-humans makes these individuals rare.
Few gobbers remain in Leryn, however. After the fall of that city to the Menite Northern Crusade there was little reason for the city’s gobbers to stay. The Sul-Menites are not openly hostile to gobbers and trollkin, but they take a dim view of the worship of Dhunia, and the crusaders are even more zealous to see their god’s works carried out than are their fellows in the Protectorate. This has led to more than a few gobbers dying on the blades of an overreacting Exemplar or Flameguard. Most of Leryn’s gobbers have taken up nomadic lives or relocated entirely.
THE PROTECTORATE OF MENOTH
The xenophobic atmosphere of the Protectorate makes it unwelcoming to non-believers, but it remains home to a few small gobber populations. Gobbers in the Protectorate have found two useful roles to which they are uniquely suited to fill.
Gobbers in Sul have found lucrative opportunities in smuggling luxury goods and contraband across the Black River. Their connections to gobber communities in Caspia afford them valuable intelligence about Cygnaran patrols and shipments. A notable amount of stolen military supplies pass through gobber hands, and Protectorate officials utilize gobber agents as couriers between the divided cities.
Perhaps the most important niche filled by gobbers in the Protectorate is derived from their innate mechanikal skill. Menites have an uneasy attitude about the mechanikal weapons and devices made necessary by the Great Crusade. Even though the Synod has long interpreted the True Law in such a way that allows them to employ such devices provided they are properly consecrated, most Menites are still leery of their use. Gobbers, having no such qualms and being viewed by the Protectorate’s leaders as relatively harmless, can do quite well for themselves by helping with the maintenance of the nation’s laborjacks, assisting Sul-Menite Artificers in subordinate roles. While the Protectorate’s currency is essentially worthless beyond its borders, gobbers who live in that nation and contribute to the upkeep of the Protectorate’s laborjacks sometimes enjoy a better standard of living than humans who toil at backbreaking labor.
This is not to say that life in the Protectorate is particularly warm or welcoming for gobbers. The regimented nature of its society and the way its citizens are constantly scrutinized makes many gobbers uncomfortable. Gobbers, like anyone else inside the Protectorate’s borders, must be extremely conscientious of local laws and respectful of Menite religious practices or risk drawing unwanted attention by temple enforcers.
