Hobgoblin Woebringer (Basic Lore)

Hobgoblin Woebringer (CR 32)
Lawful Evil - Medium - Fey
Hobgoblins are the cruelest and most common of the Low Fey. Although technically Outsiders, they live on the Prime material in large numbers, their enclaves generally isolated. By the measures of more 'normal' races, the Hobgoblins, like all fey, are quite insane. Their motives and reasoning are just-so-subtly...off. For example. Hobgoblins are quite formidable beings. If they formed armies and marched on their neighbors, they could establish nations and empires easily enough. But they do not. They don't care about such things, being content to live in small towns and thorps, a few dozen here, a few hundred there.... That is all that they are interested in. Hobgoblins are far more interested in their byzantine social lives and the torment of their slaves than they are about worrying over living space, to be honest. Hobgoblin Woebringers are the royalty of Hob Society. Woebringers can be born, or they can earn their way into these exalted ranks. As a result, Woebringers can have a wide variety of slightly mad and solidly eccentric tastes and behaviors. Woetakers, whether serious or frivolous, are Royalty, and expect to be treated with deference by their lessers. They are also lethally competent members of hobgoblin society. They are the order givers and the shot callers, the ones who make and break treaties and send dark armies on the march. Woebringers are also not rare, as Hobgoblins have no trouble with nearly a sixth of their populace being some variety of royalty. Woebringers have a sense of utter superiority. This may be tempered with a lash of pragmatism, or it may be exacerbated by fanciful whimsies. Even if encountered by low-level adventurers, Woebringers are much too snobbish to dirty their hands on them, and unwilling to waste the time needed to catch and bind them because they aren't worth the trouble. Woebringers occasionally go on slave raids, but they tend to target creatures powerful, useful, and plentiful enough to re-sell quickly, or, they are on the hunt for some astonishing rarity, like an albino Atropal, to display as a trophy battle-slave. Woebringers, as befits their stature, tend to hold many, many slaves for themselves, their enormous holdings of flesh headed by an elite cadre of servants, battle-slaves, and of course, torture-bait. Aside from the unfortunates designated to suffer to amuse the hobgoblins, Woebringers usually have fairly low turnover in their slave stocks, and are usually only interested in acquiring for themselves the truly interesting, powerful, or exotic slaves. Unfortunately for adventurers powerful enough to handle Woebringers, they usually qualify on all three counts. Woebringers can be found on slave raids, military campaigns, and at slave auctions almost anywhere. Aside from those 'passing encounters', these mighty Hob Royals are deeply embroiled in monstrous 'politics', and are likely to be found as allies and muscle for lesser foes, or as backers for foreign nations and empires, or as the 'common face' of really exotic sorts. In any case, an encounter with Woebringers is likely to be a cagey, measured affair.