MUD Description
This little…creature…is clearly living on the crumbs dropped from scraps scavenged from trash stolen from vermin. Pathetic. Savage. Skulking. Nasty. Dusty. Grimy. Cracked
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There’s no knowing how tall it is. It’s always sort of…folded up - even when it runs. What color is it? Eyes? Hair? Does it have hair, even? There’s no skin showing under the mask and robes. Where skin might show there’s only a layer of crusty, grey-brown medical tape, blending in with the crusty, grey-brown of all it’s garments and possessions. The tiniest peek inside the eye-holes of it’s mask reveal dark eyes, shot through with blood and rimmed with foulness.
Two other things are readily apparent: 1. It likes tools. It’s cunning, long fingers twitch lovingly along the diameter of the simplest rivet or most unsalvageable circuit board. The terrible state of it’s kit is limited only to sanitation, the actual quality of the repairs and construction are both whimsical and masterful. Cute little bone fasteners. Adorable buttons made from gears. Quaint jewelry fashioned from teeth and shell casings. Delightful straight-razor handles made from children’s toys.
2. It doesn’t move like a human. It scuttles. Scampers. Dodges from peripheral vision like a raccoon. Cocks it’s head like a bird. Flies up rocky outcroppings like a lizard. It sure as shit doesn’t seem to make human noises. It…clicks. Coughs. Hums. Barks. Whistles. Rattles. All with reasonable bandwidth and creativity to communicate it’s point.
Yet More
Goblin is the get of Lula, one of Tuba City’s least effective hookers. She didn’t mean to be a hooker. She had no family that could tolerate her, and was too lazy to take care of herself in any effective way. In fact, she didn’t even like being a hooker. Being a mother was, perhaps, even less fulfilling. Being lazy and not to bright, and having never witnessed effective parenting, she (over time) settled into a pattern of annoyance and avoidance with her young son. She called him “you little goblin”, and nothing else. Anything he ever learned, he learned in two ways: keeping his mother’s God-forsaken dwelling in working order. She didn’t explain anything. She didn’t have anyone show him. She didn’t have books, and couldn’t read them if she did. She just demanded light. And water. And food. And all the other technological luxuries a hooker in post-civilization Arizona deserved and was used to. So Goblin just figured it out. Slowly. Painfully. With much dangerous and destructive trial and error. He had a knack, which is good because he was otherwise an illiterate, hooting primate. The other available teachers were animals. His friends were animals. His toys were animals. His food was animals. He learned to hunt them, and from them. Dig? Sure. Sex? Sure. Climb? Sure. Communicate? Sort of. Fight? You bet.
Adolescence brought a new round of challenges. The other residents of Tuba City went from viewing him as a terrible, comedic critter to viewing him as an unsafe, pilferous, crafty monster. This probably stems from his teenaged habits of stealing, breaking, spying, mad-scientisting, poaching, tricking and menacing.
Despite all this, the invasion by the Arizona Legion caused a good deal of heartache for Goblin. There is a theory that for everyone, there is that one certain someone. Against all odds, a higher up in the Trashbike Armada found his certain someone. That certain someone was Lula. It was a whirlwind romance, and she left with the officer corps. Such as it was. No note. No goodbye. She was his mom, no matter that she was a subhuman who left him sleep under the house like a three-legged, blind dog. His mom, man. That’s tough. Well, that and the fact that the gangers took all the the good salvage and fucked up his house.
Goblin followed the Armada as far as Santa Fe, hoping to either find his mom, punish his mom, or accrue tons of nice stuff from the invasion battlefields. He was somewhat successful on the latter two counts. What he primarily accomplished was making a nuisance of himself to people who were much more bellicose than he was used to. Also, he heard they were all from a place back west. A place with factories. A place with robots. A place with less regional warfare and more faction warfare. A paradise!