The Countess Pelly

Pelly grew up as an ordinary goblin maiden in one of the major Goblin warrens in Vallermoore, which were mountain cave systems that had become so infested in human eyes with Goblins and their pets that it was not worth the great expense in time, money and lives to clean them out of there. Occasionally the Goblins raided their neighbours, occasionally the soldiers of Vallermoore battered their way in and in effect raided the Goblins back, but mostly they tolerated each other. Human/ Goblin coupledoms were unheard of in the region.

Her family ran a fishmonger shop and she helped her father in the shop from the age of five. When she was eighteen and of legal courting age, she was captured in one of the Vallermoore military raids, and  wept many bitter tears at the thought of what was likely to happen to her. Her family was too poor to afford a ransom for her safe return, so enslavement was a likely possibility. To her surprise, after being taken to Grand City she was taken to meet the Queen Yocasta herself,who had her own plans for the green goblin damsel.

“The latest military raid was made to capture a goblin woman like you, Countess. One of my courtiers, Count Mark Ullmanis, of the Great Nobility, dared to try and marry a noble lady who was below him in rank and title and thought that I would not find out about it until it was too late. But the Eyes of Yocasta, my spies, are everywhere at my court and he was intercepted. I pardoned his would be consort as she loved him, but I will have no such mercy on him. His punishment is to be made to marry you publicly in the Cathedral of Mammon, and for you to be his lady love for the rest of his days, as a warning to others. Take her away and make her look beautiful.”

Pelly was placed in a pleasant hot bath and after she had dried herself, the young goblin woman was dressed in a luxurious dress of fine white silk and given an ornate bridal crown to wear, and her black hair was elegantly plaited. Silver bracelets encrusted with jewels were placed upon her wrists. 

Unknown to her, her groom had been forced by the Queen’s soldiers to dress in the clothes that a male noble of his high rank would wear at a wedding of his society. Soon enough the two were forced to make their public vows of love and£ faithfulness in the great Cathedral within Grand City, and when they were alone, Mark Ulmanis, her groom, told her “ Pelly, I don’t blame you for this, you were forced into this as much as I was, but I will have the last laugh on the Queen- by making it work! I want to know about you, and court you, and earn your love. You may be a goblin, but goblins can no doubt be in love like humans can.”

And so they dated and courted and got to know each other and slowly at first love blossomed between them and they shared willing kisses and then went further. She discovered she wanted to learn how to paint, and he encouraged her to, and slowly her paintings went from like those of a small child to become average and then to become works of art in their own right, and she became a Hobgoblin and Mark’s size. By that time the two were true lovers, and she hopes to go Chromatic one day.

Instead of being humiliated, Pelly and Mark each gained a true love, and Queen Yocasta wasn’t able to do anything about it as to attack either of them without reason would make all her keys to power very nervous that they might be targeted without reason and prompt them to overthrow her.

Pelly wears the finest clothing and jewellery and her fellow goblins would be very surprised to see how far she has risen, but she has not forgotten her poor roots and is much kinder and less stuck up then the average noble lady.