The forgotten realms are not static, they are vibrant and alive with new events and
the course of history taking place all the time, I often get the sense that there are
many who want the world to stay the same, unchanging, until such time as they can get
there, I feel often enough that what I am reading about in the lastest books of legends
and wonders from distant lands will be over and done, gone and replaced by the time I
get there, so, I understand the sentiment, but, that's obviously not how a world works,
time marches inexorably onward, old things fade away and new things come into existence.
On that note, let me tell you of the first Verdan I ever met, named Sium, I was down
in the grounds of Candlekeep, mid-morning, having burned my lantern out of oil as I copied
last season's notes from my journal into a proper tome all during the night, as I do,
and I was fetching a meal of honey cakes and mixed berry jam, kind of half-awake to be
honest, muttering to myself as I picked up a pot of jam and noticed a dead moth sitting
right on top of the jam in a brown splodge, I must have muttered something out loud to
myself, when a short person popped their head up, suddenly, from behind a stack of fresh
honey glazed cracklebuns and said something to me.. for the life of me I can't recall
what they said, because I was staring at them, my eyes and mouth wide open, but my ears seems
to be closed.
All I managed was a feeble "Huh?", resisting the urge to say the obvious question, which
is "What are you?"
What I was looking at was Sium, the Verdan, the youngest race of beings on all of Toril!
I didn't know this at the time, I thought I was being spoken to, quietly and politely,
by some sort of well dressed Goblin.
Look, I don't mean to generalise, but up to that point, every goblin I had met was not
obsessed with personal hygiene, and Sium was the most attractive and poised, friendly-looking
goblin I had ever seen, after that split second of gawping, my ears were working again and
Sium was asking me if I were, in fact, the author of a book they had read while staying
at a tavern in the town of Redlarch, north of Waterdeep, holding up the cover for me
to see.
It was a copy of one of my books, about my journey across the sea of fallen stars to
the land of Thay, titled "Where red wizards rest".
I nodded, confirmed I was the writer and with a beaming smile, Sium made their introduction
and explained, smoothly and with much practice, that they were not a goblin, they were a Verdan,
just as I looked human, but was not, however, there were many more Verdan than there are
Direhin.
It turned out Sium had been waiting for me all morning at the bakery, knowing that the
easiest way to cross my path, was to be where the best food was.
I can't argue that logic.
I would learn a great deal about Sium and the Verdan that year, I will attempt to share
some of that with you now, so, grab yourself a tasty beverage, we are about to get deeply
nerdy.
Verdan were once an entire clan of goblins and hobgoblins that dwelled in a vast and
little known network of caverns bordering a sea in the deep Underdark.
Sium described what sounds to me like ruins of truly ancient races from a long, long time
ago, and fortified villages carved into massive, fallen statues of amphibian gods, some tossed
and tilted as if the endless rock all around them had heaved mightily at some point in
the distant past and knocked the massive monuments this way and that, there were vast chasms
where seawater plunged in an endless roar down into the darkness and hot steam rose
up, feeding abundant fungus and vermin, many unique creatures that had never seen the light
of day.
Spanning these huge chasms the goblinoids had built a roadwork of rope bridges, some
of massive size and age, the living fungus that was cultivated along many of them had
fused the structures into almost rock hard fungus wood and there were way villages and
forts where important trade bridges converged, but the great statues were all like cities,
named and storied, the clans who lived among them had special status and they fought, schemed,
the priests to the goblin gods made sacrifices and forbidden powers of the sunless ocean
granted powers to twisted warlocks.
All goblins knew the prophecy that they would one day rise to the world above and take their
place in the sun, but, it was just words, until one day, one very long, strange, horrible
day, after what must have been eons of clan history, something dramatically changed.
Every single goblinoid in the monument cities and the bridgeway clans woke from a deep sleep
as something new, with no memory of what had happened.
Their entire civilisation, its history, its conflicts, all trade, all status and plans
were just gone, the minds of the goblins were a jumble, their thoughts confused with changes
that seemed to be taking place inside them, and looking at each other with new eyes, they
saw that their skin was different, their bones were moving gradually each day, most of the
largest and oldest hobgoblins and bugbears were afflicted with terrible pain, the bugbears
hair fell out, the hobgoblin's armor no longer fit them those in chains were set free, those
who had plenty shared their abundance with those who had none, they tried to understand
the symbols and carvings, their scars and tattoos faded away and they greatly feared
the horrible feelings they got in their minds whenever they went anywhere near the black
waters of the ocean.. terrible things lived there, and now they could all hear them inside
their heads.
They had to get out of there, this was a bad place and the only way out was up, up and
up, for months and months they travelled the Underdark, stumbling across so many terrible
things with so few beings willing or able to help them, they struggled to survive and
feed themselves, but eventually, thanks to their intelligence, newfound abilities and
their tenacity, they made it all the way to the surface world.
Along the way, many explored their new mental powers quite deeply, and they discovered a
fundamental connection to a primal being called That-Which-Endures or Atta-Gath'Kal Dor in
the Ghukliak language, which, as far as anyone knows is the embodiment of destruction and
entropy that specifically breaks combined things back down into their component parts,
so they can be made into something new, some say this is an evil primordial, others say
it is a neutral overgod, from what I have seen of the Verdan, I'm more inclined to think
That-Which-Endures is not a malignant thing, it just is.
The link to the Verdan manifests in a few notable ways, their ongoing state of mutation
as a species is not yet entirely stable and perhaps it never will be, they have black
blood that enhances their natural healing and resilience, they are intelligent, curious
and have a knack for telepathy.
While they are derived from Goblinoids, they are no longer goblins, it was just like all
of a sudden, their entire cultural identity was wiped away and some sort of fundamental
chaos seeped into them that gives them a disconcerting, for us observers at least, state of flux.
They just accept that their body will change, day by day, year by year, nothing about them
remains entirely the same for long and often the transformations are quite dramatic, they
may grow long canine teeth, which fall out to be replaced with brand new teeth after
a year or so, they seem to shift hair color as often as a socialite of waterdeep, but
their eyes and skin also shift color gradually, their skin is always shades of green, but
a full range from almost black all the way to bright apple green, quite different to
the jaundiced looking yellows, tans and browns of the Goblinoids.
They start life around the height of a goblin, but at some point they all undergo a sudden
growth spurt that sees them gain at least another two feet of height, which is a painful
process for them.
Their ears also change, some grow so long and swept back that they commonly secure the
tips together with ties, cord or metal rings right behind their head.
Their hair typically grows is thick patches on their head, not an even covering, facial
hair is very rare at first, but some grow much more hair after their growth spurt, a
bit of bugbear, a bit of goblin, a bit of hobgoblin and something much more graceful
and new, the Verdan may change their diet, their voice will alter, and they may transform
from one biological gender over the course of months or years, quite a few are not the
gender they were at birth, its so common among them that identity within their culture is
also very fluid, they will change their name as they travel and become part of new societies,
they will identify strongly with their skills and passions, and pay very little attention
to how another individual appears.
I'm not just talking about their size and gender, they put more stock in a verdan being
worldly, confident, attractively and practically dressed, daring, charming and well regarded.
As a race, their biological heritage provides them with a +1 bonus to their Constitution
score and a +2 bonus to their Charisma score, their black blood enhances their healing,
When they roll a 1 or 2 on any Hit Die they spend from their pool at the end of a short
rest, they can reroll the die and must use the new roll.
In practice, this seems like the Verdan can just sort of bounce back from fatigue and
injuries reliably and swiftly, also, nobody is quite sure how long Verdan live, they grow
quickly as infants, but they are 24 before they reach adulthood and it can be months
or even years before they have their unusual growth surge, it seems more to do with their
status and mental maturity than it has to do with their physical years.
The gift of telepathy allows them to speak to any creature that can understand a language
within 30 feet, they need not share a language but the Verdan can both send and receive simple
ideas and straightforward concepts with the creature.
This mental transformation robbed them of all memory of the race they once were, some
verdan have a naive goodness to them, others don't put much stock in other races fixed
dogma of ethics and morality.
Their telepathic insight and greater mental sensitivity does provide them with advantage
on all Wisdom and Charisma saving throws, and their innate empathy, along with a lack
of preconceived bias about others gives them automatic proficiency with the Persuasion
skill.
As swift-footed youngsters, they tend to be size category small at first level and by
the time they reach 5th level of experience, they grow to medium size, either way, their
base speed is 30 feet per round, oh yes, Verdan do not have darkvision, another reason why
seeking out the world above and the bright sunshine was such a no brainer for their species
in the beginning.
These days the Verdan, people with a deep desire to experience a little bit of everything,
have spread far and wide on the surface of Toril, I can't speak for all of their reasons
for travel and discovery, but there is some deep connection that I have seen between the
Verdan and individuals of mixed heritage, also with the Hin, the halflings can be quite
accepting and gregarious, they also tend to make a lovely home wherever they happen to
find themselves, the Verdan hugely appreciate this and gravitate to the hin settlements,
perhaps its the small stature, the good nature and the joy that they both share at just being
in the sun, among the growing things, I'm not sure, there is also something deeper,
the one and only time I ever saw a hobgoblin anywhere near a verdan, there was something
about the way the Hobgoblin just stared at the Verdan but wouldn't go anywhere near them,
it was not anger, I don't think I have ever seen a hobgoblin display fear, it was something
else.
If you ever really talk to a hobgoblin, they believe that its their destiny to one day
come out of the darkness and rule the world of the sun, from the look in that hobgoblins
eyes, I guess it never occured to them that its perhaps easier to change themselves than
it is to change the whole world through violence and conquest, but I also think that sort of
concept is anethema to them really, the verdan just confuse them, and thats what I think
draws the verdan to half orcs, half elves and also to humans a fair bit.. they are free
of the directives of the goblinoid gods, they have no problem just co-existing, and that,
really, is so weird to hobgoblins.. they see the Verdan, see lots of goblin traits, but
they are not goblin, they have been removed from the sight of their gods somehow, by an
extremely powerful force, for what purpose, nobody yet knows, perhaps there is no purpose
other than to add just a little more unpredictability to an already pretty turbulent reality.
To quote directly from the source material "Without a cultural identity or memory of
their own, the verdan quickly adopted the cultural practices of the areas into which
they migrated.
Still, a sense of not truly belonging is felt even by verdan who have been welcomed into
other cultures.
They are often stricken with wanderlust, keeping their possessions limited and easily portable.
It is not unusual to see individual verdan or whole families trooping along the roads
of the world with their tents and belongings strapped to their backs.
When they meet other verdan who have travelled to different parts of the world, they drop
everything to spend as long as possible sharing stories and observations from their respective
travels.
However, their inexperience in the world and their racial amnesia sometimes lends the verdan
a kind of innocence that works against them.
Some are credulous and easily fooled by hucksters, but most verdan have an intuition bred by
empathy that helps them eventually sort out those who are sincere from those who are not."
The Verdan knack for catching out those who are being deceptive is something that I think
they can really develop a lot more, its certainly a very useful talent to be born with.
Watching it in action can be an eye-opener.
The Verdan will be willing to give the benefit of the doubt, I mean, a lot of people tell
lies and try to trick others with good intentions, but when a Verdan becomes aware that someone
is being deceptive, manipulative and unfair, when they are trying to steal, control or
hurt others, particularly because they are bigoted and full of hate, the Verdan can be
relied on to call them on their true intentions.
Again, I quote the source material "verdan remain on the lookout for oppression and curtailment
of freedoms.
They understand the need for laws that protect, but they rail against laws that restrict and
oppress — especially those designed to protect the power and wealth of the elite."
so often that power is maintained and grown by the oppression of others and done so through
the invention and perpetuation of falsehoods based on bigotry targeting race, gender or
appearance.
This is fundamentally intolerable to the Verdan as such thoughts among each other would be
catastrophic, given their extremely diverse nature.
The Verdan rightfully think of such bigotry as a kind of sickness... they call it evil,
and they are not wrong.
Whatever future lies in store for the Verdan, they seem to be detached from fate, for good
or for ill, I guess we shall have to see.
I look forward to meeting more of them in my travels, they certainly seem to appreciate
my work.
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