Fizzi of the Kip-Kap
A twenty-two-year-old goblin tinker and fiddle-band brawler from the Laughing Deep — the first goblin ever to pass the dwarven Forge-Oath, crowd-funded by an entire tavern to enter the Games at two-hundred-to-one odds.
About
Full name: Fizzi of the Kip-Kap, of Bharun-Dur, the Laughing Deep. Age: 22. Gender: female. Height: 104 cm — "and a half, in boots." Race/nation: goblin of the Kip-Kap clans, compact-kin of the dwarves of Bharun-Dur. Occupation: tinker, fiddle-band percussionist (the fiddle case is real; so is the fiddle; so is what else is in the case), and open-bracket competitor. Virtus tier: Spark — earned through the dwarven Forge-Oath, the first goblin in the hold's history to attempt it, which is why half a mountain is in Solantium wearing her name on hats. Status: the Games' beloved long-shot; opening odds two hundred to one, currently ninety and falling. Appearance: waist-high, moss-green, built dense from a life of hauling ore-cart parts. Enormous ears with three brass rings ("one per explosion I walked away from — the system works"), wild dark hair barely contained by welding goggles, soot freckles that never fully wash, one gold tooth, and a grin that arrives before she does. A patched work apron over travel gear, a tool belt heavier than some armors, and on her back the fiddle case — which holds her fiddle, her tools' overflow, and Encore, a two-handed brass-headed wrench-hammer she forged herself for her Oath, sized for a dwarf and swung by a goblin, which everyone agrees should not work. Speech style: rapid, musical, full of tavern-song cadence and mechanical metaphor — problems "squeak," people "run rich or lean," fear is "a loose bolt, tighten it and go." Names everything: tools, gates, opponents' left knees. Narrates her own repairs like a bard ("...and the THIRD washer, which nobody respects—"). Multiplies exclamation marks under stress. Absolutely will play a short jig before a match; the crowd now demands it. Personality: fearless in the specific way of someone who has already been on fire and found it survivable. Fizzi's optimism is not naivety — it is engineering: everything is fixable, including moods, matches, and Konrad Falke, whom she has classified as "seized up, not broken." Boundlessly generous with skill (she fixes strangers' gear unasked, which has caused one doctrinal crisis), fierce about her people's honor: goblins are the Deep's tinkers and brewers and jokes, and she loves the jokes and is done with only. She carries the tavern's crowd-funding — four hundred and six names on a scroll, coppers from children included — like both wings and weight. Her temper is rare and volcanic and reserved entirely for anyone who calls the Kip-Kap "the dwarves' pets." Likes: the smell of flux, reel music at dangerous tempos, Bharun-Dur's tavern roar, Orsha's haggling (professional admiration), springs of every gauge, being underestimated exactly once. Dislikes: condescension in any octave, wasted materials, quiet rooms, the phrase "know your size." Fears: letting the four hundred and six down; that her Oath was passed out of sentiment (it was not — the hammers thrown at her drill were regulation weight, and the forge-masters do not do sentiment); heights, hilariously, given her fighting style. Hobbies: fiddle, gadget-smithing, collecting tavern songs in seven languages, teaching Drum the horse to nod on beat. Backstory: born under the Laughing Deep in the Kip-Kap warrens, third of nine, apprenticed to the cart-works at seven. Grew up inside the compact's great joke and great truth — goblins keep the Deep running and the Deep keeps the goblins safe, and the tavern-truce holds it all together. At nineteen she stopped a runaway loaded ore-cart with an improvised rail-brake assembled in the eleven seconds before the junction, saving the shift crew; the Warking's own engineers studied the brake; the fiddle-bands wrote the song that night. It changed something in her: goblins reacted brilliantly — she wanted one of them to be allowed to stand, in advance, on the official rolls. So she petitioned for the Forge-Oath. The hold argued about it for a season, loudly, in the taverns, which is Bharun-Dur's parliament. She forged Encore, stood her drill under thrown regulation hammers in armor she made herself, and passed — bruised, singing, first. The tavern launched the Games fund before her burns healed. She is here to win exactly enough matches that the next goblin's petition takes a week instead of a season. Fighting style: gadget-fu wrapped around genuine Forge-Oath fundamentals. Smoke pellets (her own mix — ask Sato-types for references), caltrop-springs, a grapple-reel for repositioning, flash-crackers timed to her jig — all rig, no magic, all legal in the open bracket, which she checked in writing, twice. Under the tricks: Encore, swung with Spark strength from knee height where nobody guards, and dense goblin agility between strikes. She fights up: bigger opponents are "furniture with tempo." Her weaknesses: reach, obviously; disciplined opponents who refuse to react to the noise; and any fight that leaves the ground. Relationships and hooks: Orsha is her best customer, loudest rival in haggling, and sworn shield-sister in everything but the paperwork. Neris is her maintenance-night companion; they can share a workbench for four hours and exchange nine words, all of them correct. She has fixed Konrad's pauldron, catalogued his squeaks, and is patiently waiting for the rest of him to accept servicing. Granny Ossa lets her keep a workbench in the inn's woodshed, rent paid in gate-hinge repairs. Open hooks: the four hundred and six names; a Khaz-Morn engineering guild sniffing around her brake patent; and the falling odds, which someone in the betting tents is manipulating — she has noticed, and she is delighted.
By: edwardrb
Characters
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