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[Dog Moon]

The Vine
The Vine is a great mass of vines twisted and interlocked so tightly that for all intents and purposes, is a single vine. The Vine is an ugly thing, a dark greenish-black plant constantly pulsing with life, a terror in the minds of those who see it. Within this Vine - while it is made of a mass of vines and while there are in fact more than one massive 'Vine', the Vine is simply the general name for it referred to by the Goblins - is numerous lightly colored [sky blue, which is the closest view of the sky most of the Goblins will ever see - orbs with vague forms within them.

The forms are the Goblins as they are growing into adulthood. The Vine is their home for a very short time - days - before the Goblins leave the protection of the orb and must face life with the rest of their comrades for their short lifespan.

Contained within the Vine if the life essence of thousands of Goblins simultaneously. Some have theorized that the Vine itself is at least lightly intelligent and is able to take steps to protect itself from outsiders, but few enough people have ever seen the great Vine in a Goblin city to determine the truth of this. Most suspect that it is easy to destroy, though it is protected from simple weapons and only some magics.

While maturing within the orbs of the vine, the Goblins and the Vine live in a somewhat symbiotic relationship. The Vine protects the Goblins within the tough orbs and it gives the energy needed to grow, the same sort of energy needed by a babe within the mother's wound, but on a greater level because these Goblins leave the Vine as full adults. The grown Goblins, on the other hand, give a part of their own life energy in return to keep the Vine alive. When necessary, the Vine will also absorb a growing Goblin into itself, though it only does this if too many Goblins are growing within and it isn't receiving enough energy to sustain itself.

Within a Goblin the city, the Vine is a single long vine near the center of the city, though in a few cases, it has been heard that the Goblins sacrifice additional lives - rarely their own - to strengthen the Vine considerably so and create the outer wall with it, saving the rest of the Vine on the inside for growing more Goblins.

The Vine can be severed and the Goblins have occasionally done this in the past to move part of their population outward because of their short lifespan. They will part this part of the Vine on a cart or similar movable device, and hurry to their destination. When there, they will plant this piece of the Vine and create a small village. It is these small, and unfortunately numerous, villages which are most often encountered and destroyed.

Special: The magician caste has complete control over which Goblins are created - aka, which Caste they will go into. They decide if more of something is needed. For example, during a war, they will create more members of the Warrior Caste than of the Worker Caste. However, they can also be much more specific. During this war, it is highly likely they will need war machines and weapons. They can choose to grow weapon smiths and builders of catapults, ballistas, or whatever. While the idea is incomprehensible to most, for the members of the Magician Caste, it is almost like having a list of all Goblins and all possible skills available to them and then picking and choosing which ones they want.

Even more special, and something most do not have knowledge of, is that the Magicians can expend more energy to modify more than just the memories of the Goblins to be grown. They can actually modify the physical body with unbelievable effects. They can effectively add templates to the Goblins which could not normally be done without an active parent, such as Half-Dragon. This is rarely down, however, because it requires more resources, but the Magicians will modify special Goblins - such as the protectors of their leaders, for example - or in cases which are needed for survival - if they are being attacked and slaughtered by creatures dealing fire damage, the Magicians will start growing Goblins with a template giving them resistance to fire or even immunity.

[The Goblins can add any template, even some which may normally not be available to the Goblins, except for the following exceptions - templates which turn the Goblins into Undead, Constructs, or Plants or which modify Undead and Constructs. Other templates may be added onto the Goblins but their type doesn't change. Instead, they gain that new type as a Subtype and are considered as that type for effects which affect that type as well as the Goblin's original type. For example, a Half-Demon Goblin stays as a Plant, but gains the [Outsider] subtype and can be affected by spells and abilities which target Outsiders as if they were Outsiders as well as Plants].