Goblin

Little is known about where goblins truly come from, but small tribes have long lived at the fringes of the wilds, occasionally spilling into human settlements — loud, fast, and impossible to ignore. Their fiery temperament and stranger customs make them unpopular neighbors, and the games they play among themselves are the kind outsiders learn not to ask about.

A goblin's life is a fast burn: a youngster at five, an adult by ten, an elder at twenty. Few see thirty — most goblins who reach that age simply choose to wander off into the wild to die alone, and a forty-year-old goblin is a thing of rumor more than fact. Where they're tolerated, it's usually for the dirty, dangerous, or thankless work no one else wants — and by nightfall they're gone again, quiet and elsewhere. A few stray from that pattern: treasure-hunters, household help for the wealthy, or the rare youngling raised gentler than the rest. It doesn't take much to become the exception that everyone remembers.