Norker [Hobgoblin]

Norkers are short, wiry and entirely hairless, with tough, leathery skin anywhere between dark gray and reddish brown and faces a shade brighter; males have vivid blue or red noses. Eyes and teeth are yellow, and the teeth are hard to miss, since two upper canines jut three inches past the lip. Their breath is vile and their bodies stink of stale sweat and a lifetime of avoiding soap. Their hide is as good as most armor, so they wear none, just loincloths with trophies and trinkets hung from the belt, preferring red and blue. They speak a hobgoblin dialect that even hobgoblins find hard going, and can talk with orcs, goblins and their like, in low, gravelly voices.

Norkers carry clubs or similar bludgeons and use no shields or armor. Each swings its weapon, then bites; disarmed, it has no effective claw or punch. Bands swarm a target, striking and then lunging in with fangs, clinging on and continuing to club and bite until numbers bring the prey down.

A tribe is a disorderly gang ruled by its strongest member, whose authority reaches only as far as his arm. It has 2d10x10 adult male warriors, with a leader at maximum hit points (10) bossing each 20. Tribes above 100 have a 3 Hit Dice sub-chief with AC 1, and the lair holds a 4 Hit Dice chief with AC 0, guarded by 2d4 sub-chiefs and 3d4 leaders. Females number 150% of the warriors and young three times as many.

Eight lairs in ten lie underground or deep in ruins; the remainder are surface villages, generally conquered and fortified afterward if needed, though the brutes never stay united long enough to raise anything beyond a big fence with a gate and a walkway along the top. These villages reek, since norkers have no idea of sanitation. Sunlight does them no harm, yet they hate it and do most of their business after dark. They bargain with strong groups yet always look for a way to betray them. Rival tribes rarely meet, but when they do they fight a running guerrilla war, killing one another whenever they can and keeping fangs as trophies, always stopping short of open warfare. Powerful, well-armed hobgoblin bands can command a tribe's shaky loyalty for a while, because norkers both respect and dread their larger kin.

Anything that bleeds or moves is food to a norker, and they can survive on grain and plants if desperate, but would rather steal than hunt. Bigger local predators prey on them; the hide is hard to bite through, but the meat is edible.