The Goblin
The goblin are a widely misunderstood species of diminutive humanoid tangentially related to humanity. While goblin tribes are widespread througout the land and, in their profusion, appear to have their own cultures and goals, this is an illusion borne of the obscurity of the goblin's true nature. In truth, those who are aware of the goblin's actual nature typically speak of members of the species with the definite article - for, in truth, every member of the species is simply an iteration of the same transcendant individual.
Basic Information
Anatomy
An individual instance of the goblin appears to be broadly human in shape and proportion, but stands only at most four feet tall. The facial features of the goblin are sharp, with pointed ears and a prominent nose. Skin colors include shades of light green, blue, pinkish-tan, or black, and the individual's eyes are typically bright turquoise. Hair may be of any color within the usual human range, and male instances may develop beards.
Genetics and Reproduction
The goblin was created by the higher powers to serve as a force for the testing and evolution of other sapient species - it is, in all truth, designed to be 'cannon fodder' and 'trash mobs' thrown against the arrayed forces of mankind. This divine task was saddled upon the goblin's new-formed spirit with the understanding that, if not faced with competition and struggle, the other sentients would quickly domesticate themselves into evolutionary inviability.
Despite being instantiations of the goblin as a whole, individual instances of the goblin may be of either sex. Conversations with the goblin reveal that it has a vague recollection of being non-plussed with its nature and purpose upon creation. Enraged at the injustice of the task thrust upon it, the goblin cursed the higher powers for their cruelty. In response, the higher powers made an intentionally offensive remark to the effect that the goblin should leave and commence to copulating with itself. In an unexpected twist, because the words of higher powers have the supernatural ability to speak truth to the very structure of reality itself, this utterance caused the instances of the goblin to be thenceforth stripped of their previous ability to reproduce by mitosis and to gain sexual dimorphism so that they could effectuate the literal meaning of this divine insult.
An artificially-constructed species, the goblin was created from human genetic stock but is not a natural branch of the hominid family. The goblin will not speak to the matter of whether humans and instances of the goblin could interbreed - apparently out of embarrasment - but believes that the products of such couplings would simply be humans of somewhat reduced stature with no part in the goblin's eternal spiritual corpus.
Growth Rate & Stages
Instances of the goblin mature at an accelerated rate in comparison to their humanoid peers owing to their shared 'ancestral' memories (see Behavior & Psychology). The goblin as a whole is thousands of years old and has experienced countless generations, but the brain structures that handle physical coordination and the ability to systematically search these experiences for relevant responses to stimuli can take up to 20 years to develop. Importantly, long before it reaches physical maturity, an instance of the goblin is able to fight and take care of itself in the wild; even goblin children, as long as they are coordinated enough to walk, can present a threat to adventurers.
Behaviour
Every instance of the goblin is actually a physical vessel for the goblin as a whole . The mind, or spirit, of the goblin was created in the first instance and has the uncanny ability to project itself randomly forward or backward in time at the point at which its current instance dies. Whenever a new instance is born - even if coexistent in time with numerous other instances - the spirit of the goblin travels through time to fill it. Because of this, every instance of the goblin represents an individual segment of the life of the goblin as a whole.
As a result of this unique nature, every instance of the goblin shares a well of 'ancestral' experience that spans the whole lenght of the species' existence, from the very first instantiation at the hands of the higher powers to the moment when the last active instant succumbs to extinction in the indeterminite future. This eons-long perspective grants every instance of the goblin limited precognition and supernatural cunning. This blessing of knowledge and foresight is counteracted by the fact that searching the entire span of the goblin's existence takes a commensurately long period of time; the span of time between even coexistent instances, from the perspective of the goblin's time-travelling spirit - may cross millenia of other remembrances. In general, the older an instance becomes, the more proficient it becomes at plumbing the depths of its own memories - and, thus, the more magical, resourceful, and dangerous it becomes.
The goblin, though possessed of the ability to reason and empathize with other hominids, has a divine purpose that forces it to live in competition with other humanoid species (see Genetics & Reproduction). The form this competition takes varies from era to era and may take many forms, from military conflict, struggles over limited resources, or even market and trade competition in more cosmopolitan settings. Though forced to compete by a combination of religious belief and biosupernatural compulsion, a group of the goblin applies pressure without the intent to completely wipe out its coevals and is willing to sacrifice many of its own instances to ensure that neither its own vessels nor the human groups it was sent to test are wiped out completely. This creates a strange state of affairs where a previously belligerent 'tribe' of 'goblins' simply disappears from the landscape or, in times of great upheaval, even comes to the aid of its previous human enemies at a fortuitous moment.
Additional Information
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
Instances of the goblin are not substantially more or less sensitive to their environments than humans, but their reactions to novel stimuli are much quicker. This is because, to the goblin as a whole, almost no stimuli are actually novel in nature; in previous or coexistant iterations, the goblin has seen nearly everything.
Scientific Name
Homo Diracus Fractalis
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