Rodent Cattle

Placeholder Giblin by Katy Smith

“THE OPPORTUNISTIC SHITS ARE AT IT AGAIN PIKPUK” Grizik shouted as one of the rats lashed out to try and take a finger but Pikpuk wasn’t paying any attention. He was too busy inspecting the pots containing yesterday's sacrifice to ensure that they were fit for his most prized rats.
Grizik was sick of these animals. It felt like an eternity since his shift of shovelling dung had begun but it always felt like that to him. The dead slop in the trough was noxious at the best of times and today was no different. He watched as the rats fought over the bigger chunks amongst themselves.
“Why do we eat these disgusting things? They barely have any meat on ‘em anyways” Grizik thought to himself.
The rats stood reasonably tall next to the goblin, reaching up to waist height of their shit shoveller. They could easily overpower him if they tried but the last one to do so was quickly put down by Pikpuk’s crude hatchet before it could finish Grizik off.
“One of these days, I’ll be outta here and enjoying the good stuff” Hope filled words sputtered with spittle from Grizik’s mouth as he reluctantly turned to work once more.

Anatomy & Locale

Most of the rodent cattle were treated purely as fodder to the goblin tribes. In all the tribes they hold a very low status but some tribes make more use of them. For the scrap tribes that encompassed the lower reaches of the planets inhabitable underground, they had made use of them to help deal with their unfortunate abundance of diseased flesh. Being unable to contract the fueling disease, they served the purpose of clearing the waste and slowing down the spread. Although, to the scrap tribes, this was just a fortunate side effect of just feeding their cattle to fatten them up..
The shamanic tribes frequently used the rodents for a similar purpose. Their natural magicks often resulted in large benign tumours to grow on the magick users. When these became too cumbersome to the individual shaman, they were removed and used as a supplement to the rat feed.
A versatile animal was that of the goblins rodent cattle. One that the goblins couldn’t live without.

This is a submission for my first ever Summer Camp in 2024 - I hope you enjoy my writings and I'm looking forward to hearing your feedback!