Keywords: Hobbe, Forest spirits, Maenad, Waldgeist, Dryad, Kodama
Alignment: Hobs are Light. Hobs live in tune with Nature and are more aware of it than other races – they tend to be share and quite peaceful as a whole.
Appearance: Usually short (for they live underground), Hobs have pale grey skin and large, bulging eyes, usually blue, green, brown or black. Their skin tends to crinkle at an early age, making them appear bark-like, and a fine hair is quite common all over the body, though their head-hair is traditionally worn long. Green patches often appear along the arms and legs at middle age. Hob clothing depends on their location, and there are two main Hob breeds – rural and urban. Urban Hobs live close to towns and villages and are likely to re-patch and wear cast-offs, making a form of recycling. Rural Hobs might well have flax or reed clothing, though shaping ivy into twists, as well as bark padding is also quite common. It is common that Hobs work with the materials common to the area about their Dwell, and also to take up their colouring and even have a personality similar to those materials. Swirling circle, Triskele, spiral and similar are common design themes for Hobs.
Regions: Hobs live in Infernum, though it’s not uncommon to find them in Illyria or Macedonia or Getae, where they can easily hideaway if attacked.
Society: Hobs live in Dwells, large bowls under the earth. These aren’t dark, dusty places by any strength of the imagination, however – often Hobs use their strange affinity with nature to make crystals about the Dwells glow with eerie light, or use bioluminescent mushrooms to mark eerie, swirling designs onto the cavern walls. These are often connected to other Dwells via a vast tunnel network, but often there are parts of the network which are corrupt, blocked, missing or lead so deep into darkness that even Hobs fear to go there. Hob families therefore belong to a Dwell and live by the rulings of the Elder who is resident at the Dwell at a time. Thus as one Elder arrives, the other leaves and each Dwell is therefore given to one Elder at a time. However, Dwells sometimes are without an Elder and thus no formal government exists across the Hob race.
Government: Hobs are lead by their Elders, which are older Hobs that become wise men and women that follow one of the twelve Ancestor spirits. These Elders join for council once each year but also journey from Dwell to Dwell, teaching the ways of their chosen Ancestor – its therefore not uncommon to have a whole Dwell devoted to only two or three Ancestors where not every Elder has been able to reach them. Elders do this task as a form of giving something back to the society in which they were raised, and act as both spiritual guardians of the Hobs and also interpreters of ethics and moral standards.
Religion: Hobs do not have a religion as such, though they believe that the spirits of their Ancestors are re-born into sacred trees, metals, crystals or mounds of earth, which Elders are buried into at the moment of death – though some Elders may choose to stay a while inside such a burial place when alive and use it similar to an Oracle. The Elders spirits then merge with the Ancestor spirit, making a powerful uber-spirit being, that lives in Nature itself. It is thought that the circles of carved trees found around southern Infernum and the north of the Three (and some places in Getae) were made by Hobs, as are the standing stone circles. It is supposed these might be old Hob ‘grave sites’, housing the spirits of Hob Ancestors.
Technology: Hobs do not rely on technology and it is often considered primitive by other races – though their ability to craft is often extremely high and these primitive crafts go well beyond the capabilities of the other races.
Names: Hob names sound Gaelic, often without harsh consonants: Aoife, Uilleam, Aedaen, Eoghan.
Like Sithi Houses, Hob Dwells have names based around Natural things: Deep Place, Shining Roots, Smooth Rock.
Languages: Speak Modern: Dwarrow. Many Hobs have a smattering of Common, but not enough to communicate fully with.
Ages: Hobs can be a maximum of 60 years old.
Natural Resistance: Hobs have Resist Disease Level 1.
Min Phys Rep: Grey, off-white or brown skin
Bonuses: -1 to the cost of Apothecary, Subterfuge skills and the skill Forage. They all start with Deflect and halve all timed skills through having the Hidden Skill A Focused Mind.
Racial Penalties or Restrictions: Hobs cannot learn Invocation, nor Spellcraft.
