Stop playing with your goblin like that Hazel, it will think you're friends and try to come downstairs and sleep on our bed at night.



Here two wargs are being brushed by their goblin valets. Taking care of personal hygiene is difficult without fingers. The many duties of being a Goblin "handman" for a Warg noble is a demanding task. However the strict hierarchy that once governed these relationships is becoming much more congenital and informal as moder sensibility creates a more egalitarian cultural climate.



Now, the Wargs are an odd folk who need to be explained. Most other races of people don’t understand what Wargs really are. They aren’t a mount, or just a lupine warhorse. Wargs are werewolves that are locked into their monstrous form. That means they are technically human, another infernally corrupted line of Adam. They are the most derived type of werewolves as such, they are all but unkillable. Silver and to a lesser extent platinum only harms them as much as steel would wound a mortal man. All the mundane metals barely harm them at all, and they regenerate almost instantly. The goblins and orcs that rode on them were the slaves and valets of the Warg warriors.



The Wargs would charge into battle with ranks and riders and return as the only survivors to restock their troops. A Warg is a terrible thing on the battlefield. Nearly impossible to keep dead they can repair themselves, regroup, and resume fighting. They breach defenses by leaping over, digging under, or knocking through walls. The largest of them would be heavily armored and have goblin lancers, bowmen, or riflemen strapped to their backs. Wargs as a war machine were devastating to the antique forms of warfare. Infantry phalanx and cavalry were just meat in the open. Trenches and forts were food troughs to a hoard of Wargs. They were natural masters of guerrilla tactics as well. A few dozen Wargs could slip into hills or woodland and pose greater denial to supply lines that a minefield. Their howls were a psychological torture to troops and compelled the besieged forces to waste their ammunition and artillery. Wargs delighted in wearing down a group until they could end them with a final bloody massacre. Exterminating the enemy when they are most defenseless was an ecstatic pleasure for them.



Yet for all this monstrous strength they are without the basic utility of having hands. They are reliant on orcs, goblins, or humans to perform all menial tasks for them. They can’t craft tools, smith metal, write with a pen, cook, or clean for themselves. That is part of what was so terrible about the corruption the demon lords inflicted on their thralls, what a thing to have done to a race of people. A nearly unstoppable war machine that can’t wipe their own nose with a handkerchief. Of course, a six-hundred-pound wolf hardly has any trouble bullying some one into doing these things for them. Combine that with a human’s ego and you can see where the aristocratic snobbery becomes a defining characteristic. The things they can’t do become things servants should do. As such they all took up nobility titles to validate their place in the hierarchy. Warg knights and lords practically farmed goblins and orcs like livestock. Using them as servants and disposable troops. These Warg lords answered to some overseeing warlock, demon, or vampire that was the true royalty. Wargs were the overseers who trained, directed, and controlled the peons. A Warg is the perfect middle manager, able to control the masses but unable to truly conduct and independent revolt because of the difficulty of living in a world made for men.



These days you mainly run into two types. There are the ones who took their inherited positions of privilege and are still established as wealthy elites. They own companies, run government, or administrate huge land estates. The less successful are usually sheriffs, mayors, or lesser bureaucrats. Positions that can potentially spring them into higher society or shuffle the less adept into reasonably comfortable obscurity. They are frequently affiliated with organized crime cartels, but the line between these criminal dealings and politics is as muddy here as in any societal system. There are also the feral sort of Wargs who live what they would tell you is an “ascetic lifestyle” which means they dwell in wild places in much the same way as beast. They just dig a hole and hunt the creatures of the woods. Even this usually gets played up with romantic overtones of being ‘noble savages’ or ‘true disciples of nature’ I suppose pride is a hard thing to turn loose of. Though I’ve met a few of these that were good enough folks. Sometimes these Wargs will be appointed as game wardens, law enforcement deputies, or private security. Which are the lowest type jobs suited to a giant wolf monster.



Hierarchy is difficult to dissolve once established. The Wargs have long cultivated their image as great honorable, noble, lords and knights. Legendary stories of their supernatural strength and tactical brilliance are deeply founded into the culture of orcs, lycanthropes, and ghouls. After the defeat of the Dark Lords and Demon Kings many of the Warg families were the only remaining leadership left for the ruined folk. Wargs still hold a position of deep respect among many the descendants of those people. They integrated into civilization by shifting from military authority to employment security. Goblins followed their boss from foot soldier to factory worker, still enchanted by the same spell of hero worship the Wargs had ensorcelled them with previously.



Their future is less certain. They are created by a condition associated with a rare recessive gene and the bloodline is getting thin. They sometimes get fresh blood from pairing with werewolves and very rarely a pair of folks with lycanthrope lineage will have a Warg child spontaneously. That is extremely rare though, and as werewolves are becoming absorbed into the orc and human race it is becoming even more unusual. Getting economics and genetics to line up is difficult for folk that need a level of economic station to compensate for the common tasks they are physically unable to preform as well as many other races. Diet is another problem they face. They are obligate carnivores that require about fifty pounds of flesh a day and have an inborn craving for long pig. That makes a steep grocery bill even if you stick to pork, mutton, and monkey meat. It will be hard for them to last as the woods turn to towns. Who knows though? Few things can survive as well as old money can.