Part 1: Landing on Goblin Rock

Chapter 1: Landing on Goblin Rock



Reassembling oneself was not the first trick that King Litch V has learned, but it was very useful. After all, the undead don't have many fans, especially the nigh immortal litches. And so it came to pass that Litch King died again and was reborn – well, reassembled from small pieces of skeleton – once again. Now his name would be Litch King V and that meant correcting the names on all of his belongings. A bit of a hard task to do when all of your subjects are undead. Mindless skeletons that are animated through one's will and magic make for poor artisans.

Come to think of it, they also make crappy guards – that's why Fiver had died so many times already. This just would not do! But what people would willingly bend under the will of an undead monstrosity? You can't just conquer them – that would just mean replacing your incompetent dead guards with people who actually want you dead. How to win their hearts and minds?

The humans are out of the question. They only respected nobility and King Litch wasn't a blue blood when he had actual blood. Even if he did take the throne by force, the nobles would tear each other apart using accusations of incest, long gone claims for lend, protectorships of defensive fortifications located in regions of extreme cold and so forth. It would be even harder with the all-male Arethi Elves, who had their heads busy with some Truth that they kept mentioning, but never really explained to anyone. Female elves were even worse, living in small villages until someone pressed them into service as archers or opened a gambling hall. Dwarves were content to smith and drink their days away in their howels, the little monsters.

Wait. Monsters.

Now there was an idea worth investigating. Most of the monster populations, unified into one social group after the King gave them citizenship, are made up of Goblins, an aggressively stupid, rapidly breeding folk. Kill their chief, bump a few of his followers on the noggin and now he's King Litch V of the Monsters. Eventually, with his lands growing larger and prosperous other, not as useless monster species would come.

Yes, that was a perfect plan! Now, to just fly out and find a goblin tribe!

...or not. It appears that dying isn't beneficial to spell retention. At best, he could fart out an unimpressive shadow bolt. This would kill a few peasants, but he needed more than that. Conceding defeat, King Litch searched the remains of his library for books on kingly matters. After grabbing a few tomes, he gathered some scattered coins, wrapped himself tight in whatever scraps of black cloth he could find (necropolises rarely featured cloth in other color) and marched out towards a human village he vaguely remembered from his past life.

Unfortunately, during the royal unholy reassembly, the village had grown into a bustling human port. That what life without constant undead raids does to an economy, after all! On the other hand, the city had it's own monster ghetto. This would become a perfect starting point... later on. For the time, King Litch V rented a room at a dingy inn (he claimed to be a poet, that's why nobody bothered him about the pale expression or diminished physique). Most of his time was spent in his room, reading through the books, only sneaking out at night to investigate or to shadowbolt a few people to get gold for the rent. Eventually he won over such ponderous tones like “The Early Campaigns of the King”, “Violence as A Last Resort: Resorting To Enough of It” or “Barbarian Ways of Looting, Raping and Pillaging, Recorded By Hybiscus Squarefoot Who Lived, Ate And Traveled With Them”, all of which helped him to become a master tactician, useful skill when commanding the cowardly lot that is the Goblin race. He also delved into treatises about magic, such a “Tapping that Lay Line” and “Turning Immaterial into Palpable Power, by F. F. Shinra the Seventh”, to fuel his mana reserves once he relearns a few specials.

One day, feeling ready, Fiver paid off his bills (at such an early stage, it didn't pay to have enforcers go after you) and strode into the ghetto. A rousing speech – tactically peppered with words simple enough for Goblins to understand – and a few well placed shadowbolts, he had a band of goblins ready to follow him wherever he wanted to go.

To that end, a boat was commandeered (nothing would go afterwards, since cleaning a ship after Goblins had been there just wasn't worth it), a sail was raised a course set northwards. Hopefully, those harsh margins of Ardania would be free from bigger settlements or ancient spider being civilizations.



After an uneventful and quite comfortable journey (for the King, at least – being dead, he didn't feel cold, damp or sea sickness), their ship crashed into the marshy shores of a northern tundra. By the time King Litch pried himself from the mud, the goblins had already established a city on the frozen slopes of the nearby mountains. On his way there, he was met by two warbands: one was made up of Ratmen Robbers who, after the ship crashed, were woefully underemployed and Goblin Archer, the support class of every goblin army, made possible a peculiar mix of cowardice (to go the frontline) and intelligence (enough to use a bow). With a wave of his bony hand, King Litch V sent them to explore the surrounding tundra.



All things considered, Pestyhall – gotta change that name in the future, the litch mused – was located in a fairly forgiving piece of arctic tundra. Sure, the place wasn't exactly ideal for food production, but at least there were spots of magical energy nearby – and those had a variety of exciting, potentially deadly uses!



Meanwhile, the Archers, bravely freezing their way eastward, spotted a humble human settlement of Golddale. It was a small farming community, eking out a living in a land not exactly suitable for such activities. No matter – King Litch would extend his helping hand by eventually conquering it. He just needed more forces.



To that end, a Pub and a surrounding high crime entertainment area was constructed further into the mountains. A few simple gambling halls, some stills of mushroom beer, a brothel or two filled with goblin women (or green colored pigs) was all it took. The dangerous terrain would take care of the least intellectually inclined, thus, in the dreams of the Litch, pawing way to goblin race that would one day be able to read, maybe write and not drown in the rain. A secretly state run affair (subtleties of running a pub were a bit hard for the Goblins to grasp), it would keep the goblins well fed and drunk. At the same time, this was an opportunity to grab some of the greenskins who showed aptitude in bar fights and press them into the royal service as Goblin Spearmen.

Thus reinforced, the forces of the Great Wizard King Litch V consisted of such units:



"Biographers who consider the career of Marshall Nolak the Strong often point out that his famous ante-mortem declaration about spear-armed goblins not posing any threat is in fact often misquoted. It was later discovered that he meant to say "Goblins armed with spears do not pose any threat to such stout-hearted warriors as yourselves. Onwards, my boys!" To our great distress, the good Marshall never finished his thought, because he was interrupted midway through the sentence when a goblin pierced him with his own spear."

From "The Overall Description of Everything" by Master Alfus Bumblegate.

Goblin Spearmen were the mainstay and the best cannon fodder of the monster armies. Born in number and to a population that didn't grasp such things as “war weariness”, they presented a perfect shield for better Monster units. At least they were fast, which, to King Litch, meant moving them to their inevitable deaths that much quicker.



"Most well-informed minds believe that these archers are nothing to be feared -- for who has ever heard of an accurate goblin? And just because well-informed minds are few and far between, that doesn't mean they're wrong!"

From the collected works of His Majesty's Advisor.

A Goblin is given a bow and some arrows. If he doesn't choke on said arrows, he's made a Goblin Archer. To such a cruel and cowardly lot as Goblins, the bow is the ultimate weapon: it allows them to hit enemies without any fear of reprisal.



"These land-locked ratmen are true sea wolves. That is to say, well, yes many of them have never even seen the sea in their lives, but the free-wheeling spirit of a sea wolf lives in the hearts of each of these rogues."

From the collected works of His Majesty's Advisor.

While he rarely felt the need to wear them himself, Fiver generally respected Ratmen for their pant wearing ways. Arguably the smartest troops in any budding Monster warband, they were the beady eyes and shaggy ears of military. Unfortunately, they suffered from the beastly curse of being extra susceptible to arrows, a fact that brought endless grief to Ratmen mothers and widows.



It was Squeeks the Shanker who first spotted the trouble over the horizon. Elves. And not just some elves of the female persuasion: Arethi elves. This meant that northern lands weren't that free for the taking. Not willing to risk open fighting so early on, King Litch sent ratmen envoys to deliver a proposition of piece to the elven king, the high wizard Amberon the Dark,



Being a wise and powerful ruler – and maybe just a tad afraid of giant talking rats sent by a litch – Amberon accepted the proposal for peace! This meant, that from now on, a land grab in the north would be peaceful affair, fought by recklessly risking the lives of the settlers that were to grab the beast pieces of land instead of sending troops to enforce one's claims by force.



One of the goblin advisers – selection through a rigorous process that included asking a participant to stick his hand into fire and then selecting those who asked “why?” - said that he had collected funds from concerned goblin families and craftsmen which they were willing to send to the treasury if Fiver saw to the destruction of a band of wolves.

“You see, lord, nobody wants to wake to the screams of “wolves ate my baby!”.




"In Ardania, wolves are as ubiquitous as trees. One major difference being that trees don't eat heroes."

From the collected works of His Majesty's Adviser

And true, Wolves were a common nuisance in Ardania. On the other hand, they weren't a particularly strong nuisance and were usually overshadowed by other, stronger beasts – a fact that only reinforced the notion that only the criminally insane traveled the Ardanian wilderness.



It was metal against teeth, claw against paw when the wolves attacked the scouting Ratmen. Quickly, the savage beasts fell to the organized, well armed, pant wearing military might of the Robbers and the coffers were filled with money that would undoubtedly be used in meaningful ways later on.



Unfortunately, Goblins were still a part of the budding nation under the command of King Litch V. Through his Glass Ball of Limited Viewing, he was tracking a band of archers who were exploring land to the east of Golddale. The good news were that there weren't that many lands past Golddale – which meant less enemies and the freedom to concentrate the green, smelly forces in the west, driving towards whatever mysterious lands the Elves had yet to conquer (how they multiplied without having any women was anybody's guess; a guess best left unspoken).

The bad news were that it was a mountain range archipelago that terminated in an ogre's hut at the tip.



"These monsters are famous for their size, strength, drowsiness -- and for their unfortunate habit of dragging fair maidens around by hair."

From the collected works of His Majesty's Advisor

Sure, the place was perfect for the brute. The mountains were the preferred terrain of his kind, so he always had an advantage when fighting would be invaders. There were enough goats to eat while the scenic location meant that any kidnapped maidens would be less willing to cry and shriek all the time. While ogres didn't really know why they kidnapped maidens, they liked doing that, and, once the Slighshtofenholm syndrome kicked in, the females would be of great help around the house.

And while monsters didn't have any maidens worth kidnapping, a ogre was still an unpleasant neighbor, who nearly damn wiped out the scouting archers when he ambushed them in the middle of the night! Surely this had to be dealt with sooner or later – a cozy hut like that was likely to attract more ogres.



But that was to be in the future. Humans of Golddale proved to be mute and deaf to negotiation (well, King Litch V was sure of it, so he didn't even try), which meant that Golddale had to be taken the old fashioned way: over the corpses of man and goblin. As such, both of the Goblin Spearmen regiments were tasked with taking it without possibly being wiped out to a goblin...