Flinch, a cursed goblin abandoned by his tribe

"Goblins are generally small in stature, green skin stretches over their ropey muscles. Their large, cat-like yellow eyes see well in the dark and their needle like teeth can cause horrendously bleeding and infected wounds. Individually, they are pathetic. Even a novice adventurer could easily take one down, but in numbers they can be trouble.

They are sneaky, they use traps and poison and are comfortable in drawn out guerrilla warfare. If you wander too deep into their territory, you might find yourself worn down and captured or killed. That being said, they are no match for even a B-Tier adventurer. Their talent for magic is massively lacking so they cannot pose a realistic threat to anyone truly strong.

They are... well endowed for their size and there were cases of strong adventurers being momentarily overwhelmed and... taken. Don't show them mercy, for they will show you none.”

-Excerpt from Lady Revana’s “Catalogue of Monsters”.

_______________________________________________

Flinch was born a goblin of the Tanglevine Tribe. They lived in the swamp, worshipping what they called the “Swamp Lord”, a huge creature made up of mud, roots and writhing vines. They fed it some of the food they hunted ad it left them alone. It was an unstable truce that held for the time being, which was a great situation for a goblin tribe to be in.

Flinch grew up to be only three feet tall and was weak, even for a goblin. Even though he tried his hardest to make up for it with hard work and cunning, he was never recognised as a great hunter by his tribe. He was plagued by feelings of inadequacy and felt with an iron certainty that this was not fair, it was not right. Every snide remark, every show of disrespect, they all piled up and his desire for power only grew. It was all he could thing about, he was obsessed with finding a way to gain power.

Then something happened that changed his life forever.

Flinch was checking the traps along the edge of the swamp and was thrilled to see a human caught in one. It was a young man wearing blue robes Flinch hadn’t seen before. Two arrows were lodged in his back and apparently his foot had gotten caught in a noose and he was ripped up into the tree where he had bled out. Flinch was proud of his trap for holding a human and wanted to cut him down to inspect him, when he saw that a leather pouch had fallen to the ground below the man.

He picked it up carefully and opened it to find a wooden box inside with runes carved all over it. It was clearly important and magical in some way, he thought and briefly considered bringing it to the tribe elders, but there was another thought lingering in the back of his mind. ’This could give me power’.