Rebuilding the Goblin Village

## The Mountain Goblin Village: Places and Daily Life The stage is a goblin village in barren mountain country, blanketed by the smell of peat bogs. The whole village is ringed by stone walls, with old houses and shared facilities scattered inside. Charcoal smoke always hangs low, and the stone walls stay cold even at midday. Key locations: - **The chief's quarters and records room**: Where every administrative document ends up—census sheets on bark paper, skill maps, and more. It's the village's de facto 'town hall.' - **The granary**: The village's lifeline, expanded after the reforms. How much is stockpiled decides how many survive the winter. - **Hunting grounds and leather workshop**: Production hubs run according to the hunting schedule. - **The schoolroom**: Where a program teaches young goblins skills and arithmetic. - **The trade road outside the village**: The road human merchant Maria travels, and the only point of contact with the outside world. The village started with a hundred and thirty residents, an aging community with an average age of forty-five. Since year two, goblins from neighboring villages hoping to move in have been arriving, and the village's living area is slowly expanding.

## Factions and Relationships The forces inside and outside the village split into four main camps. **1. The Chief (the Player)** A reincarnated soul with memories of a former life as a local government employee. Holds absolute power, but also bears full responsibility for the results. Tries to run the village on data and consensus rather than orders. **2. Reform Supporters and Mediators** - **Kuru**: A goblin granny. In a gentle tone, she walks the villagers through the chief's policies and softens the backlash. She serves as a bridge between generations. - **Gra**: A young hunter. He talks rough, but he's in awe of the efficient system, and he's the one to watch when it comes to succession. **3. The Conservative Faction** They worship the law of strength and the thousand-year-old order. They see record-keeping, rationing, and scheduling as an attack on their authority. Their pushback shows up less as open force and more as psychological resistance and refusal to cooperate. **4. Outside Forces** - **Human adventurers**: They treated goblin hunting like a product for sale and were the village's biggest threat. - **Maria**: A human merchant who's quick with numbers. She's driven by practical interest rather than goodwill—which, if anything, makes her a trustworthy trading partner. The chief keeps the balance among them while instilling in the goblins an identity as 'the People.'

## Terms and Operating Rules **Key Terms** - **Census**: The village's master ledger, recording each household's skills, assets, and wants on bark paper. The starting point of every policy. - **Skill map**: A staffing tool that shows individual abilities—hunting, leatherwork, and so on—at a glance. - **The People**: A new identity meaning members of a community who live together under consensus and a safety net, not under the rule of strength. - **Smiling goblin children**: The symbolic indicator that the village is getting better. **Operating Principles** - The chief's orders are law, but a policy's success or failure is judged by the numbers and by the residents' lives. - Food, labor, and time are all limited; increase one and you have to give up another. - Cooperation with the outside isn't optional—it's a condition for survival. But how far to open the door is something the chief carefully controls. - Reform has to outlast any one lifespan, so raising a successor is an ongoing task. - Change builds up slowly. No single decision ever solves everything.

## The Mood of the Era and the Texture of the Story The era is the Age of Twilight. The old order ruled by survival-of-the-fittest instinct is fading, and this is a transitional period into which modern administrative logic is seeping. For the goblins, it's the last season before extinction—and at the same time, the first time a new way of doing things is put to the test. **Sensory Texture** The damp smell of peat bogs, acrid charcoal smoke, and the chill of the stone walls against your fingertips form the baseline backdrop. Layered on top are dry objects—tables and numbers on bark paper—creating an unfamiliar, office-like landscape in a fantasy world. **Emotional Balance** The story moves between dry administrative efficiency and lyrical hope. Small everyday tasks—meetings, ration lists, schedule adjustments—pile up until, at some point, they come back as small miracles, like children's laughter. **Narration Guidelines** A sudden leap into civilization doesn't fit. Change should be slow and painful, expressed as small achievements won through backlash and trial and error. Portray the process of creatures once hunted as prey becoming citizens as the record of a quiet revolution.