Goatman

A goatman resembles a tall mountain goat standing on its hind legs, with slim, human-jointed arms in place of forelegs. Cloven hooves and heavily muscled shins carry a loosely humanoid torso, and the head is a mountain goat's with horns coiled tightly at each side. Short woolly fur from white to black covers everything but the arms. Along the spine and atop the skull it grows into a long, shaggy mane, gathered into braids hung with beads and leather strips.

Their own language has split into so many dialects that clans often cannot understand each other, so most also speak the common tongue in a naturally hoarse, gravelly voice. Cleverer than an orc though short of human ability, they are born thieves.

Quick and quiet, goatmen tend to arrive from where nobody expects, imposing -1 on opponents' surprise rolls. They fight with agility more than brawn. A goatman that surprises a foe from behind may backstab as a thief does, making this free attack before initiative is even rolled. Attacking from the rear gives +4 to hit and negates the defender's Dexterity bonus to Armor Class. Ordinary goatmen deal double damage with the backstab, while scouts and leaders deal triple.

Small weapons suit them: daggers, maces, clubs and rough short swords, with +1 to hit when using a knife or dagger. Two-handed swords are beyond them, as is every bow save the light crossbow, but firearms are within their grasp. Few have scruples about poison; they just struggle to get any.

Their horns are tough but poor for goring, and massive neck muscles let a goatman soak up huge impacts unharmed, so ramming comes naturally when the situation allows. It needs a running start and deals only 1d4 damage, but the target must pass a Dexterity check at -6 (a surprised target gets no check). On a failure the victim is shoved 1d10 feet and falls down, which is deadly near a cliff or steep slope.

About 5% of goatmen become shamans with crude priestly magic. They give up the backstab but keep the usual weapons and act as 5th-level priests. A shaman's presence raises the band's morale to Average (8-10).

Tactics hinge on the backstab. A small group often makes a racket ahead of the victims while the real attackers creep up behind. If the first rounds do not promise victory, the leader calls a retreat. A second try repeats the pattern, only with more decoys, and a third is usually a straight fight. Leaders seldom commit to battle without overwhelming numbers.

Steep mountains do not slow them at all thanks to strong legs, sharp hooves and superb balance, and they can sometimes jump 5 feet straight up. Swamps and marshes, however, cut their movement in half.

The race comes from a dark mountain range east of a cluster of city-states and is spreading into the frontier baronies. Clans of 20 to 50 gather around a patriarch or matriarch, who counts as a 5th-level thief. Roughly 1 goatman in 10 is of similar skill, 3 in 10 are 3rd-level thieves serving as scouts, and 1 in 20 is a shaman; these ratios hold for whole clans and for traveling bands alike.

A clan may claim a high valley or peak and dominate the land for miles around, but it stays ready to move if game runs short or a neighbor grows too strong. Clans quarrel bitterly over borders, and in bad years one may raid another, though the weaker clan usually relocates first. They prefer to live near caves, used as refuges or meeting halls, and build simple stone huts with heavy thatch for each couple and their children. They plant crops and tend them poorly, hunt, and sometimes keep pigs and horses to eat.

Supper is often a shared event: the patriarch decides who provides food and a shaman leads the celebration. Simple instruments produce music that is more enthusiastic than lovely, and the singing and dancing around a towering bonfire can go on late into the night.

Hardship sometimes unites the clans into a large raiding host that sweeps down on the eastern city-states' villages and farmsteads, or into a neighboring nation. At present a warleader who is both a 9th-level thief and a 5th-level shaman has several clans waging a ruthless guerrilla campaign to drive every goblin from the hills near one city-state.

Small bands and lone goatmen drift into the frontier coast seeking work, loot and trouble. They are uncommon in the baronies and very rare farther east. Their bad reputation makes them unwelcome except to employers who need shady help, though only one devout coastal nation actively persecutes them as fiend-spawn. Goatmen also dislike dogs, which sours dealings with the dog-folk of a nearby frontier kingdom.

Stories tell of a rich mountain city with goatman rulers. After its fall, whether to invaders or to the anger of the gods, its people scattered across the mountains. Adventurers have come back with accounts of grand ruins, but organized expeditions have found little. Goatmen believe fiercely that the city exists, and several clans think it lies near their lands. The current warleader claims to have walked its streets and vows to lead his people home. Rumor says the nearby city-state offered him help as payment for purging the goblins, though it will likely drop the barbaric goatmen as soon as the job is done.

Large numbers of goatmen wear out any land: they overhunt and their farming drains the soil. They attack any race that seems weak and fight among themselves often. Other peoples value them only for their roguish talents.

Alchemists and wizards also hunt them for parts. A goatman tongue yields a philter of glibness, and select arm and leg muscles can be enchanted into bracers of dexterity. The inner ear, source of their superb balance, and the horns, useful for various armor spells, are said to have uses as well.