Xenoverse origins / R-043
The Runt SwarmOrigin story
The crowd the fortress forgot to count
The fortress counted strength by height. Its supplies were stored close to the floor.
Read the origin ↓
Placeholder artworkThe Runt Swarm is a collective in this origin story, distinct from the particular crew called the Runts. Its members are small adult goblins drawn together by a shared problem: a fortress that accepted their work while treating their needs as an optional expense. No sudden hive mind creates the group. Repeated injustice and excellent practical memory accomplish enough.
Their Xenoverse beginning follows a ration line. That may sound less impressive than a battlefield. The fortress commander thought so too, which is one reason the ration line eventually proved more consequential than his carefully rehearsed military speeches.
An empire can ignore a hundred small hands until all hundred stop carrying its dinner.
From the dossier
Chapter 01
The queue that never reached the front
Small workers unloaded supplies, cleaned drainage runs, repaired low fittings, and carried messages through crowded store rooms. At meals, larger soldiers moved ahead of them. By the time the last goblins reached the serving table, the best food was gone and the remaining portions had been adjusted to fit somebody else’s opinion of their size.
Complaints travelled slowly upward and returned as reminders to be grateful. The fortress records counted meals issued, not who had eaten them. On paper, everyone was provided for. In the yard, certain goblins knew exactly which nights their companions went hungry. They began sharing portions and tracking the shortfalls with marks on scrap wood. The records were crude, portable, and understood by the people affected. Unlike the fortress ledger, they had no reason to look reassuring to someone who never stood in the queue.
Placeholder artworkChapter 02
The message that fits beneath a door
At first the coordination concerned food alone. One worker warned another when a serving pot ran low. Another saved a place for somebody delayed beneath a cart. Small signals passed through store rooms: a tap, a mark, a cloth tied where only someone near the floor would notice it.
The network grew because useful information brought immediate relief. It did not require every goblin to like every other goblin. Some argued over portions, some exaggerated their work, and some tried to take advantage. The group developed ways to check claims through people who had been present. That ordinary, imperfect cooperation mattered more than any fantasy of effortless unity. By the time the commander noticed workers moving in unexpected numbers, they had already spent weeks learning who knew which passage, which store, and which officer became confused when asked a direct question without several minutes to prepare a speech.
Placeholder artworkChapter 03
A punishment delivered to the wrong scale
The commander responded to a collective complaint by reducing the workers’ access to the main yard. He expected isolation to break the group. Instead it pushed more activity into the low passages and service routes the workers understood best. The visible fortress became quieter. The functioning fortress became harder for him to direct.
When the next supply convoy arrived, the goblins unloaded only the portions assigned to them and left the soldiers’ loads beside the gate. Nothing was stolen. Nothing was sabotaged. The work simply followed the distribution of respect with an accuracy the commander found outrageous. Soldiers attempted the remaining tasks and discovered how much lifting, sorting, counting, and repairing had previously occurred below their notice. By evening, their meal was late. Several described this as a crisis. The goblins recognized the condition immediately and offered a detailed account of how long it had been ordinary for everyone else.
Placeholder artworkChapter 04
The swarm enters the account
The commander threatened punishment. The quartermaster asked who would move the remaining stores if the threats were carried out. The question did more damage than the complaint because it connected authority to a task due before morning. Negotiations followed in a room whose chairs had to be adjusted for the people finally invited to sit in them.
The workers presented their scrap records. The quartermaster compared them with the official ledger and found the gap impossible to dismiss as appetite or misunderstanding. Rations were counted by person, distribution was witnessed, and late workers received reserved portions. The commander claimed these changes had always been his intention. The goblins allowed him the phrase in exchange for the actual food. A victory could survive an inaccurate speech if the sacks were weighed correctly. They had learned enough about institutional pride to recognize when letting a man finish talking was cheaper than asking him to become honest.
Placeholder artworkChapter 05
A multitude with individual appetites
The name Runt Swarm began as an insult from soldiers watching the workers gather. The goblins adopted it because the image frightened people who had previously found each of them easy to ignore. The collective remained composed of distinct creatures with distinct wants. Its strength came from agreements, routes, and memory, not the erasure of those differences.
In the Toxic Goblin Xenoverse, the Swarm can move information and effort through places designed around larger bodies. It can also fracture when trust is abused or rewards become uneven. The origin establishes that coordination must be maintained; it is not a magical resource that appears whenever a leader shouts convincingly.
At shared meals, members still count who is missing before dividing the last pot. The habit is practical and slightly defiant. Somewhere nearby, an officer usually complains that the small creatures have become impossible to overlook. The Swarm regards this as a reasonably accurate progress report and asks whether the officer intends to carry anything useful while delivering it.
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