Two hexes northwest of Alakran.
Around these parts live a strange kind of folk; bright red, broad and stocky, no hair, with pointed ears and pointed teeth and eyes that shine back firelight like a jackal's. They're not too bright on their own, but will surprise you with what they can come up with when a lot of them are jawing together. A few of them talk in the Trade Tongue -- and when you ask them why they're red, they'll either ask you why you're brown, or say some word they've learned as if it explained everything -- "Cinnabar".
Did I mention the horns? There's some that have them front of the ears like a bull, but most that have them on their nose like a rhino. They run around naked except for belts and whatever else they use to strap their shields and spears and slingstones and whatever else on.
They're all male, as you can plainly see. The womenfolk stay in a cave and have kids eight at a time and there can never be more than one of those queens at a time. The eight-brothers stay together and even if some die the remnants stay home and others join them. That is why they are always found outside their cave in groups of eight.
If you kill four they run, if you leave only one or two they surrender and follow you -- if your party numbers exactly eight with them in it. That's how we picked up old Trunk and Magenta, a bluish-red one who speaks our language.
They told me their rule is to attack at odds of four to one or greater, else they hide, stalk and they just might lure you back to where they can make four to one. We must have driven them mad banging on the old bronze tree, because they forgot that old war advice of theirs and just came at us. Explained that the ghosts would be angry, but I told them we'd gone inside before they came and killed all the ghosts. So they followed us for a while before they got homesick for their cave. Never did see them again. Never did feel like coming after that cave either. They don't bother the road, and for goblins, you know, they're the right kind of people.
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