Gromlings are an all female diminutive race of candid humanoids. Gromlings usually stand between 3′4″‒3′8″ (1‒1.1 m) and weighed about 40‒55 lb (18‒25 kg) on average. Gromlings have always had a tendency to be selfish, unsympathetic, and blunt. They are a simple race driven by their passions. They respect strength and self-reliance and are neither surprised nor offended by treachery. Gromlings live with a generally violent and short-sighted attitude of personal gain. Uncouth and impulsive, gromlings nonetheless play, live and squabble together, at least until their clans grow so large that they collapse into multiple smaller groups.

Gromlings are generally known to live in temperate plains, though they are highly adaptable and could be found living in most regions, sometimes even underground. They are less common in arid and arctic regions.

Gromlings are known for waylaying the male travelers on the road and enslaving them, forcing them into a life of never ending breeding and drudgery. There are no male gromlings and they are dependent on the males of others races to reproduce. A gromling will always give birth to a gromling regardless of the race of the father. Although some of the qualities of the father will pass along to the offspring. Such as if the father is particularly strong or intelligent for their race, the resulting offspring will be equally strong or intelligent compared to other gromlings.

Gromlings often have short tempers, and are more easily provoked than individuals of most other races. When one is enraged it causes nearby gromlings to go into a frenzy as well. They also generally take sadistic pleasure in exacting revenge once crossed. Young gromlings are taught from an early age to rely only on themselves, and that to survive, they needed to be aggressive and ruthless. To a gromling, it didn't seem logical to treat others as well or better than you would treat yourself; rather, they believe in preemptively removing potential rivals before they could become a threat. The weak and selfless do not live long. In their culture, "looking out for number one" is simply a matter of course. Gromlings have powerful territorial instincts which serve them well in combat, but can create problems. Expatriated gromlings would sometimes try to recreate the circumstances of their culture, preying on the weaknesses of others in non-gromling communities.

While a single gromling may behave scholarly, the more there is in a group, the more feral, furious and stupider they become. Nature's way of controlling their rapid population growth. Only those of a particuarly strong will can overcome that pack mentality and maintain enough intellect to control significantly large packs of gromlings.

Despite their generally poor reputation however, not all gromlings are dim-witted or evil. Some gromlings have risen to become heroes, gaining enough renown to be accepted into the civilized world of other, more commonly good races. Those gromlings seeking this path may have found it difficult to overcome their temper, as well as the cultural influence of their sistren, but those who do often found it could be more rewarding, in the long run at least, to serve good rather than to serve evil. Those that do often made use of their ill-gained talents as rogues or fighters.

Gromlings love to hunt, and often will assault anyone and anything in their hunting grounds. The other races are therefore careful to avoid these areas, but this is often not enough to avoid conflict. The gromling's notoriously short tempers grow even shorter when their hunger pushes entire clans, including elderly and young gromlings, to ravage food sources outside of their territory, either gathering enough food or seeing enough gromlings die in the process to ensure the survivors’ continued health. A gromling's favorite food of all time are hard-boiled chicken eggs pickled in brine. They absolutely hate ogre meat, however. Gromlings practice carrion-eating. Unlike most races, gromlings have few, if any, qualms about eating the dead of other races. There are even indications that some gromlings take this practice a step further, raiding graveyards for fresh corpses on which to feed. It is common tradition that when a gromling dies, the members of her clan devour the body. To a gromling, meat is meat, and they will even go so far as to kill and cannibalize outcasts who return to their territory.

Gromlings have a curious relationship with food, for their kind harbour an endless, carnivorous hunger only staved off by regular feeding. While this might not seem remarkable, for the gromling it is a grave concern -- so much so that they measure distances in food stops called 'snacks', rather than miles or leagues. So a journey across the humans kingdoms could be considered 18 snacks for gromlings traveling at speed. Should a gromling undergo a period of intense exertion there is a great chance that they will suffer a feeding frenzy, a terrible, all-consuming urge that drives the gromling into a frenzy so intense they will fearlessly and voraciously consume anything edible within reach, gorging themselves until they are utterly bloated and unable to continue. Most commonly this takes place in the wake of a major battle, where the gromling will ravenously consume the flesh of the fallen, friend or foe. When in the grip of a feeding frenzy a gromling becomes completely fearless -- they will try to eat anything, or anyone.

Gromling society is tribal by nature, generally led by the strongest (and sometimes smartest) around, who normally had access to the best weapons. Leaders among the race often come to power through betrayal or aggression rather than by more peaceful means. Sometimes, when gromlings disagree, one of them will head-butt the other to show dominance. The roles of gromling society is to have the dominant members sustain the community through raiding and stealing, sneaking into lairs, villages, and even towns by night to take what they can (and if supplies run short they are willing to eat sentients, including each other).

Gromling place a very strong value on the family, for instance, respecting blood ties perhaps more than any other aspect of a relationship. Though gromling within a clan commonly fight with each other for dominance, these battles are quickly forgotten after their resolution, and in most situations, gromlings of the same bloodline are loyal friends and allies to one another. Gromlings are expected to birth as many children as possible to sustain a population constantly driven down by violence.

This loyalty to family is particularly obvious during combat, either with rival gromling clans or other races. Gromlings who fight side by side regularly throw away personal glory in order to help their sistren. Perhaps most surprisingly, when a gromling has been separated from clan and family their instinctive need for such blood ties has led them to form a surrogate "clan" from those whom they choose to befriend. To these unlikely allies, the gromling has been as loyal and faithful as they would their own sisters, embracing the outsiders as if they were family.

Gromlings have little concept of privacy, living and sleeping in large communal areas with only the leaders living separately in their own private chambers. As such, gromling lairs are often stinking or soiled, though easily defended when under assault and layered with simple traps for such purposes. The innermost chambers of gromling lairs are usually the most densely-populated and well-defended. Gromling settlements were often filled with young gromling children, though young gromlings do not outnumber adults since their lives were often at least as dangerous as their forebears. Their elders are typically no more than twenty years old, usually fourteen or fifteen, and few gromlings survive past their twentieth birthday.

The basic economic system of gromlings is extremely simple: the strongest take everything they want. Whenever a plunder is taken, the warlord who directs the raiding force takes what they choose first, then the other warriors will pick what they want, or leave them be. The food, however, is distributed a little more evenly. The most powerful clan warriors have the best weapons and food, plus the ability to have their own den in the clan and mate with slaves to create their own litters. The exchange of large quantities of arms and slaves between different clans is common. Though most clans are not open for trading, those that are require a show of strength and respect before trading can begin, usually through combat with the singular gromling or the leader of the gromling clan. Gromlings use their teeth as a form of currency. This is quite a natural solution to inflation and income support, as gromlings go through teeth in a similar manner to sharks, replacing them quite frequently, and gromling teeth do degrade over time, so it is impossible to hoard them. This keeps prices constant, ensures all gromlings have at least some access to money, and allows constant values to be placed on commodities. A tooth will buy a good meat pie and a tankard of beer, while a bag of teeth will buy a cheap battle wagon. This system also promotes aggression, as all a gromling needs to make more money is to knock teeth out of another gromling's head and then collect them for herself.

Without a slave work-force to do the clan's menial labors for them, the largest of the gromlings forces the smallest and most weakest of their members to do the task for them. As a result of their violent tendencies, this makes the always belligerent gromlings even angrier, resulting in many full-on fights at an almost alarming regularity, even within gromling clans. These physical struggles often help to establish a hierarchy within the clan, forcing the lowliest gromlings to do all the hard-work while their larger and more powerful sistren loll about. A gromling is a stubborn and lazy creature, and to bear both the work and humiliation of reproductive tasks such as chopping wood or building huts would only result in another fierce fighting within the imminent future. In time, these gromlings would once more fight amongst themselves, establishing a fresh new pecking order from the remaining survivors. This extremely hostile and unstable environment ensures that there are battle-hardened warriors in the clan. However, as a consequence of their frequent infighting, the camps of gromling clans are usually lack even the most crudest amenities that enforced slave laborers normally provide, such as stockades or even simple skin-huts. Because of the violent nature of gromling culture, it is not uncommon for gromlings to come under the domination of individuals from a larger, more physically powerful culture.

While all gromlings have an innate tendency for collecting souvenirs and trophies, nomadic clans, particularly the savage ones who have have little contact with other races except during wartime, have found few other ways to acquire technology, having crafted few tools of their own. The result of this is that most gromlings rely on the other races as their source of wealth and technology. This extends to arms and weaponry, giving gromling armor a unique aesthetic where each suit is typically made kitbashed together from scavenged pieces of armor found either on victims or abandoned. Gromling technology appears ramshackle and slapped-together (it often is), but is as potent as any weapons used by other races.

Gromlings have their own, simple language which they are able to speak from birth, but many also generally speak a debased and primitive form of common, with mangled pronunciation and more than a few "grom" words mixed in. Therefore, it is possible for gromlings and humans to communicate (although rarely easy). Most gromlings communicate through this bastardized form of Common, although their pronunciation and grasp of grammar is uniformly atrocious. The gromling written language is a crude glyphic script. The core of the script is composed of glyphs that indicate clan, common gromling concepts, and elements of gromling names. This is augmented by phonetic symbols which can be used to write most gromling words, along with any foreign names or words. Their worst insult is to call someone "not worth killing".

Gromlings have a shamanistic religion where they worship Grom, the Goddess of War, Hunting, Food and Fertility. Everything gromling culture is about. Gromlings believe they are descended from the Goddess Grom which is why they call themselves 'gromlings.' Gromlings believe it is their destiny to one day rule the world, and since it is their their destiny they believe it will eventually happened regardless of what they do, so they don't have any particular interest in making that happen themselves. There is some debate between shamans over whether Grom should be considered strong and cunning or cunning and strong.

Gromlings care little for the past and do not keep any recorded history. For a gromling, there are only two times worth thinking about: right now and very soon. The only history gromlings do consider worthy of thought is personal, rather than racial. One might recall such things as the glory days when she rose in power in her clan, or the despicable enemy that brought about her downfall, but rarely would she think about her origins, or any great achievements of any gromling other than herself. They have no rituals or remembrances of their dead, for the gromlings are a jealous breed and would rather undermine their fellows than praise them for their achievements. Beyond this, they have no real or consistent concept of time or dates, nor years, generations, or ages. Therefore, the history of the gromlings remains unknown and mostly unknowable to the inhabitants of the world. The gromlings themselves do not care about it, and the few Humans who make an effort to collect and catalog it find themselves facing insurmountable difficulties. The only sources available are those few Humans who witnessed the culmination of gromling plans and somehow managed to live to tell of it. Whatever the case, what little bits of the history that can be gathered about gromlings are often taken from scripts and folklore from tales and legends passed down by the generations from times long ago.