The Rise of King Snik, a D&D Story
Jan. 15th, 2026 07:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aggienautScene I: Cragmaw Hideout
A number of goblins are gathered around a small fire in their lair. On a raised ledge above them the largest the largest goblin, Yeemik, sits next to a barely concious human prisoner and rants about how he would be a much better boss than their leader, Klarg, not present. Suddenly another goblin comes running in helter skelter exclaiming "intruders, intruders!!"
The goblins grab for their scimitars as the one who just ran in babbles about some party of intruders who have come in and killed everyone in all the other rooms.
"Don't despair, there are many of us here, and we have this hostage!" Yeemik reminds the goblins, holding a knife to the prisoner's neck. Just at that moment a hulking bugbear strides into the room enters and tosses Klarg's head no the floor, which rolls towards the the assembled goblins. Yeemik can't help but feel a sense of optimism. From behind the bugbear a ferengi steps out [yes in my canon they are also a fantasy race] and announces confidently "Klarg is dead, is dead, we have killed him and all goblins who didn't surrender! He declared Rag-nok Sharp Ear to be his successor!"
Yeemik and many of the goblins quickly glance at the cook. What! Rag-Nok himself, holding a ladle mid air, looks as surprised as anyone. Next a human enters wielding Klarg's morningstar and using it to herd two tied up goblin prisoners, Snik and Brek, blinking and wide eyed.
Yeemik swallows. Then he raises his free hand. “Wait! Wait! Truce! Truce!” He points down at Klarg’s head as if it disgusts him. “Yeemik… Yeemik always wanted Klarg gone. Klarg bully! Klarg bad boss! Yeemik is… friend of new boss. Friend of Rag-nok.”
Rag-nok slowly straightens, ladle still in hand, eyes shining with the first real power he’s ever tasted. One of the goblins near the fire mutters, “Rag-nok boss now?” and another immediately shushes him.
Yeemik quickly tries to control the narrative: “We can talk. We can make deal. Human still alive. We give human. You go. No more kill goblins. Othwise, human dies” he holds a knife up to the captive's throat.
The Ferengi seems to ignore this and addresses Rag-nok: "Okay we need help moving the supplies from Klarg's room to a cart outside, Rag-nok please appoint three of your esteemed senior associates to begin moving the materials outside."
Rag-nok’s eyes flick to the other goblins near the cookfire. For a half-second he looks like he might refuse on principle—then he remembers the head on the floor, and the bugbear's huge shape.
He straightens his greasy apron like it’s a cape.
“Uh—yes. Yes. Rag-nok says… you three! You work!” He points at three goblins on the lower level—quick, arbitrary picks, the kind a new boss makes to look decisive. Two of them start moving immediately. One hesitates until he sees the bugbear glowering at him very specifically.
They grab sacks and crates, hoisting them with grunts and mutters, and begin shuffling toward the passage, careful, submissive, eyes down.
After a moment, as kind of an afterthought, the ferengi adds “Yeemik, are you just going to stand over there? Shall I write 'lacks initiative' in your quarterly evaluation??”
Yeemik’s knife hand tightens… then loosens. What use is a hostage these people don't seem to care about. Maybe it would have worked on humans and elves, notoriously sentimental beings, but a bugbear, a ferengi, there seems to be a tiefling --red skinned, yellow eyed, horned-- behind them, this doesn't seem like a group that would be overly precious about collateral damage. As the three goblins tasked with helping out warily troop past them the tiefling gives them an exagerated thumbs up.
The Ferengi begins walking around seemingly evaluating the goblins in the room. "Now I need someone very responsible and trustworthy." he announces. Settling on Yeemik he announces "ah yes, you look like senior executive vice middle manager potential. I need you to take this the Miraculous Sword of Chimbo -- he draws an ornate sword and holds it up, it seems to glow and sparkle, and guard these two prisoners." He then hands the sword to the prisoner Snik, who awkwardly holds it with his hand that are tied near his belly. The ferengi gestures to the prisoners and they shuffle towards Yeemik.
Honored, confused, greedy to wield this sword, Yeemik steps forward and accepts it from the prisoner. While he is thus occupied the ferengi, whose name, they learn, is Margin, pulls out a ledger and writing implements and begins taking reports from the goblins present. He asks their names, duties, what they consider their greatest accomplishment in their current role is, where they see themselves in five years, any inefficiencies they can identify in the organization. While this is going on the tiefling in an unhurried manner releases the human prisoner and leaves the room with him.
Presently the party seems to have finished its business. "Thank you everyone for your good work," Margin tells the goblins, "upper management will be sure to hear about this and I'm sure there will be promotions all around. Yeemik if you could please untie the prisoners and hand them the sword to bring it back to me, thank you for your good work."
Yeemik retains some dignity by directing another goblin to untie the prisoners while he retains the sword. He thinks for a moment of making a wild attack on someone while he still has this sword, the party of intruders? Rag-nok? But ultimately he suspects it would just be suicide. He hands it back to the prisoner who carries it reverently back to the ferengi, who is standing by the door to the cavern with his party.
"You know, actually, you have all done such a good job, if any of you would like to join us, our party boasts some of the highest quarterly loot earnings in the industry." The goblins all look at eachother, and then to everyone's surprise Snik the erstwhile prisoner tentatively raises his hand, followed shortly after by fellow erstwhile prisoner, Brek.
Scene II: Redbrand Hideout
Mosk the bugbear groans as he slowly regains conciousness. He's in a world of pain with several sharp sword cuts. He hears the sound of... dice? He blearily blinks his eyes open. He's in the Redbrand's common room. These ruffians, who work under him, while away enough time playing dice games at the table here but when he first opens his eyes he thinks he must be hallucinating from his injuries -- he sees one of the redbrands, Fletcher, at the table, and one of his bugbear lieutenants Clodd, sure enough, but also at the table with them is an unfamiliar ferengi and... that unnatural aberration that lived in the crevasse of the big cavern, eith its one stairs eye on a short stalk, the Nothic. Clodd and Fletcher look miserable. The Nothic is unreadable but appears to have all the winnings in front of it. A growl catches Mosk's attention, and he turns his head to see a big bugbear sitting in a chair stairing at him, with a big sword across his chest, and Mosk remembers the last thing he saw before blacking out was actually this bugbear and this sword...
Scene III: Cragmaw Castle
Sildar, the human knight last seen as a hostage in the Cragmaw Hideout, grimly runs his sword through King Grol, and the bugbear falls behind the overturned table. The crown made of mandible bones with jagged teeth facing upright topples from his head. The party surveys the various bodies lying around. Their colleague Connor the Commoner is unconcious but Vexira the tiefling holds a healing potion to his lips and for the second time in a day he comes back from a near death experience.
The rest of the castle is still full of goblins, how will they deal with them? Margin gets an idea. He lifts the bone crown and places it on Snik's head. "I crown thee, King Snik!"
...
Shortly later, after they've room by room made the castle occupants swear loyalty to King Snik, it's announced a raiding party is just returning. They assemble in front of the castle, Snik in front wearing the crown and wielding Grol's morningstar, Nard (the bugbear with the party) beside him, behind them Lhupo the goblin priest has Grol's head on a platter and a rather small cowardly goblin named Droop swings a ceremonial censer.
"King Grol has fallen! Killed in honorable combat! Behold King Snik, who wears the Cragmaw crown!" Lhupo the priest announces as Targor Bloodsword, leader of the raiding party, mounts the steps. A slow dangerous smile spreads across his face. ""King Grol is dead," he says loudly. "And a goblin claims the crown?" He laughs—harsh, mocking. "The Cragmaws are led by the strong, not the lucky." He drops the bloody sacks and draws his longsword.
"If there's a new king to be crowned, let it be through strength! I, Targor Bloodsword, challenge this 'King Snik' to single combat! If he dies—which he will—I claim the Cragmaw Crown!"
His three hobgoblin followers spread out slightly, hands on weapons. The two wolves growl.
The assembled goblins murmur nervously. This is a legitimate challenge under goblinoid tradition—might makes right.
Nard, Snik's right-hand bugbear growls back: "No. Strength isn't just in the sword arm. Strength is in loyalty. In allies. King Grol thought like you—fought alone, trusted no one. That's why his head is on a platter."
"Then I'll kill you all" Targor growls and draws his sword. He takes a step forward, but seems to suddenly hesitate in fear. One of his raiding party strides ahead of him, meeting Connor the human, and knocking the latter out. Snik himself then drops his morningstar and draws instead a curved blade, rushes forward and slashes the still hesitating Targor with an impressively well executred strike, and just as quickly darts back to the doorway. Then there's gasps among the goblins inside as a hulking beast with one eye emerges from an inner door, they part before it as it makes its way to the doorway and fixes Targor with a look, and Targot turns a sickly green, falls to his knees, and then falls flat no his face dead. His remaining followers immediately swear loyalty to Snik.
[I really didn't know how this battle would go as Snik is NOT a powerful character and if Targor and his allies got first initiative they could kill him and throw everything topsy turvy. Fortunately Vexira my tiefling wizard got top of the initiative and cast "fear" on him causing him to look scared and then Snik really did roll a nat 20 on an attack on him right before the Nothic dropped him. It was a picture perfect ending to this coup and entirely the result of letting things roll as they may. In clearing the castle, since Snik and Brek were from the same general clan, for each goblin they met I rolled a d20 for goblin relationships, for both Brek and Snik -- above 13 they didn't know eachother but 1-12 were things like "sibling's friend's cousin, owes him money, almost bought something from on cragslist, ex-girlfriend's brother, and... 1 itself was "ex-girlfriend." Very amusingly ex-girlfriend's brother came up exactly once and then one of the last group of goblins rolled the 1 for "ex-girlfriend."
But the funniest coincidence of all was that since Snik and Brek will be departing the party I wanted to recruit a replacement. We recruited a gruff hobgoblin who had been initially skeptical of Snik's rule and when I asked Claude to name him what name should Claude randomly choose from the depths of the internet's ideas on goblinoid names? "Krusk." KRUSK. The name of my half-orc paladin from a prior campaign. I couldn't believe it. I'm taking this as Krusk's origin story.
When I had first had Snik join the party I asked my then-DMbot ChatGPT to generate hobbies, aspirations and fears for him and this is what it had created:
Snik
Role so far: First volunteer, pragmatist, survivor
General vibe: Nervous but observant; wants to live long enough to profit from it
Hobbies
Whittling bone and scrap wood into tiny, sharp figurines (mostly animals, occasionally exaggerated bugbears)
Listening at doors and then confidently reporting half of what he heard
Collecting buttons (he insists some are “lucky”)
Aspirations
To one day run a small, quiet ambush spot with clear escape routes
Dreams of being promoted to something like “Logistics Goblin” instead of frontline muscle
Fear (d100 roll result: 37)
➡ Fear: Being buried or trapped underground
This makes sense for a cave goblin who has seen collapses and floods.
Bees and wasps
So leaving him as king of the whole clan seemed the perfectly fitting ending of a plot arc.
