Rippnugget, former Chief of the Thistletop Clan

The Thistletop tribe of the south spent most of their days laying around and doing nothing. Occationally, they would fight the neighboring gnoll tribe (though this was more for show than anything else, seeing how in the last 5 years there hadn't been a single death in these battles) and do menial work for the hobgoblin clans that would wander through their territory every few months. Overall though, their life was pretty relaxed. Which was a good change from the past century, give or take a decade, of scratching and clawing for their existence in the war between the major clans of orcs, bugbears, and hobgoblins. The fairly peaceful times were welcomed, in particular by their leader warchief Ripnugget.

Ripnugget had become chieftain after killing Rotfoot, who had killed Maggoteye, who had killed Brokentooth, who had killed...Well, it's not really important who he killed. What is really important is that before Ripnugget, the longest a chief had ever held his title was a month. Maybe two if they were lucky or too busy running away from troll hounds at the time. However, because this time of peace had settled in, the Thistletop tribe had become lazy and nobody really bothered challenging Ripnugget for his position. And he was smart enough that he never brought this up. In fact, he rarely even mentioned that he had taken the title in the first place. Thus, for the last few years he had sat in a position of power that most of the tribe had even forgotten existed.

That is until one day, at the beginning of the spring, when a group of orcs, ogres, and hobgoblins came marching through the grasslands. They stormed into the village and began bagging up any goblins that they were able to catch, throwing them onto the back of a large cart pulled by a team of dire hyenas. They fought back the best they could, but the shear numbers of the invaders was too much. Plus, most of the goblins bad become rather fat and out of shape and weren't much of a challenge for the soldiers. After the entire village had been wrangled up, along with a few of the other smaller goblins that had taken to living in the long abandoned structures in the area, they were all given a choice: Fight for this man-person called Master or get fed to the trollhounds. Needless to say, the goblins officially became soldiers of the Dark Army under the command of the bugbear, Captain Kanunk.

While in the army, Kanunk took a liking to Ripnugget, if only because he was one of the only other soldiers that could speak common. While both spoke the goblin language, the dyalics within the army were so varied that almost nobody could understand each other completely. In fact, many deaths had come about because a goblin would say "Excuse me" to a hobgoblin who would hear a complaint about his mother's talents in bed. So Ripnugget was able to translate for Kanunk for much of the time within the army, thus securing himself a more safe place within the camp.