Chapter 1 - A Forgotten Race

Long ago, the goblins of Galdrek were proud artisans, traders, and master metallurgists who walked openly among humans. They built great cities, struck deals with kings, and forged weapons and technology that far surpassed anything human hands could create. Their gold flowed freely through markets, and their runic crafts were sought after by rulers and scholars alike. For a time, there was mutual respect between goblins and humans.

But prosperity would not last.

As human empires expanded and their greed grew insatiable, they no longer saw the goblins as allies, but as resources—minds to exploit, hands to enslave, and secrets to steal. The goblins' unmatched skill in metallurgy and finance made them targets of relentless wars and betrayals. Goblin forges were seized, their cities ransacked, and their kind hunted to near extinction. What had once been admiration turned to jealousy and desire for control.

Realizing that survival meant disappearing, the goblins retreated deep beneath Mount Gildspire, severing all ties with the surface world. They collapsed tunnels, erased maps, and sealed their greatest knowledge behind unbreakable doors of enchanted stone. They vanished, leaving behind only whispered legends and scattered ruins.

As the centuries passed, the goblins of Galdrek faded from human memory. Without their presence to tell the true story, their history was warped by human storytellers. What were once feared and respected beings became myths twisted into cautionary tales. Humans, ashamed of their own greed, reshaped the goblins' legacy into one of tricksters and hoarders, spinning stories of goblins hoarding gold, deceiving merchants, and forging weapons of legend for their own selfish gains. Over time, these stories turned into fairy tales—no different than myths of dragons and ancient gods.

No one in the world above believed goblins had ever truly existed.

And that was exactly how the goblins wanted it.  

  The Goblin Minters of Galdrek 

Deep in the obsidian caverns beneath Mount Gildspire, the goblins of Galdrek thrived in the eerie glow of molten gold and sparking rune-forges. These goblins were visionaries—artisans, metallurgists, and technomancers whose minds crackled with invention. 

Their underground metropolis stretched far beneath the mountain, a labyrinth of interconnected tunnels carved with mathematical precision. Bridges of blackened steel arched over rivers of liquid metal, their glowing currents illuminating the vast chambers below. The air was thick with the scent of smelted ore, ozone from sparking conduits, and the faint hum of arcane machinery running deep within the rock. 

For centuries, the goblins of Galdrek had worked tirelessly, their clawed hands shaping radiant discs of gold—coins unlike any the world above had ever seen. Each one was pressed with the sigil of their ancient order, a stylized ‘G’ bisected by twin vertical slashes, the emblem of their city and the mark of their legacy. To the goblins, these coins were more than mere currency; they were a testament to their mastery over metallurgy, an art passed down through generations of meticulous crafters. 

But gold alone was not enough. 

Wealth, they knew, had always been a fragile thing. Empires rose and fell with the weight of their treasuries. Coins could be stolen, melted, or locked away in the vaults of greedy kings. The goblins had watched human civilizations crumble under the weight of their own corruption, their economies shackled by rulers and counterfeiters who manipulated wealth for power. 

The goblins sought a revolution. 

The Birth of Crypto Alchemy

The first breakthrough came from the oldest and wisest among them—Master Grixl, the Rune-Minter. Bent with age but sharp as a newly forged blade, he had spent centuries decoding the mysteries of lost magics, weaving them into the scientific advances of the goblins' underground world. 

"Gold is finite," he rasped one day to his fellow goblin scholars, his voice carrying across the Great Smeltery. "But value? Value can be immortal." 

His vision was simple yet radical: a coin that could not be counterfeited, never truly possessed, yet always held value in the grand weave of commerce. Through a fusion of forgotten sorcery and cutting-edge goblin technology, they crafted the first of these new tokens—a glowing coin of enchanted gold, humming with arcane energy. 

But the true marvel was not the coin itself. 

It was the network. 

Each golden disc was etched with a lattice of runes so intricate that it pulsed like a living thing. These runes connected to an invisible, decentralized web of energy—the GNet—a grand, immutable ledger of transactions that existed not in a vault, but in the very fabric of reality itself. Each time a coin changed hands, the transaction was burned into the runes of the network, linking every coin to an incorruptible chain of ownership. 

It was unbreakable. 

It was undeniable. 

And, most importantly, it was beyond the reach of kings and tyrants. 

The goblins had done the impossible. They had created crypto. 

The Goblin Economy Awakens 

With the creation of the GNet, Galdrek flourished. Trade among the goblins became instantaneous, secure, and free from the meddling of would-be warlords. Gold no longer had to be hoarded in vaults, for its value existed in the network itself. 

The city glowed brighter than ever before, powered by the endless hum of cryptic transactions coursing through the air like electric currents. Massive glass obelisks, carved with glowing runes, stood as the nodes of the GNet, their energy linking every goblin in a web of untouchable wealth. 

The goblins reveled in their newfound economy. No longer did they fear theft or economic collapse. The very concept of greed had changed—coins were no longer owned in the traditional sense. They were verified, existing only within the network, their worth protected by the iron laws of cryptomancy. 

Other goblin clans took notice. News of Galdrek’s cryptic wealth spread like wildfire through the underground trade routes, drawing envious eyes from those still bound by traditional coinage. Soon, emissaries from distant goblin cities came, eager to buy into the GNet. But the Minters of Galdrek did not trade in gold alone—they required something far more valuable. 

Knowledge. 

Every new goblin city that sought access to the GNet had to contribute to its expansion—offering new cryptomantic techniques, fresh applications of alchemy, and innovations in magical networking. The GNet grew, and with it, the goblin civilization evolved beyond mere metallurgy into an age of pure, decentralized power. 

Yet the greatest test of their technology—the true challenge—would come not from within their own kind. 

It would come from the world above. 

A world of humans, blinded by greed, who would soon discover the cryptic wonders buried beneath Mount Gildspire.  

And they would seek to claim it.