Grubb

Grubbs

Grubbs are the peaceful and spiritual native race that inhabits the land around the Mongo River. Evolved from fish, the Grubbs at the height of their civilisation inhabited the Mongo from source to mouth, covering all the tributaries, but industrial activity has displaced and dimished the population.

Victimisation and Resistance

The building of Sekto Springs Dam dessicated the Mongo River downstream, the lower regions drying up completely. In many areas, Grubbs were unable to feed because there was no river to fish in—​fish are the Grubbs’ staple, and favourite, food—​and fruit harvests withered. Subjected to the Official Grubb Removal and Steal the Aqua Act, the indiginous populations were forcibly ‘removed’—​or shot—​from their settlements, which were bombed to ruins. Survivors were victims of intense trespassing regulations that prevented them from approaching remaining waterways, which the Wolvarks used for shipping. Grubbs caught fishing were impaled on stakes and hung from suspended rope lines.

When the lands revealed by the diminished river were colonised by settlers, the ruins of the Grubbs were scoured by Clakker miners and Outlaw tomb raiders for native trinkets and artefacts to sell between the two races. Being a highly friendly and generous race, the Grubbs are frequently enslaved and forced to excavate their own holy relics.

The Steef, heralded by the Grubbs as their guardians, were hunted to the brink of extinction. When the Stranger was discovered by the natives to be a Steef they mounted a final backlash against the genocidal invaders of the Mongo River, organised by the Native Resistance Leader. After protecting one of the few remaining villages from an attack and fortifying Last Legs armoured only in intricately fashioned water reeds, the Grubbs moved their catapults upstream to fire a devastating volley of flaming rocks at Sekto Springs Dam, toppling it and releasing the water.

Religion

The Grubbs believe in the Spirits of Nature, the greatest of which is the Great Spirit. Their personal favourite is the spirit of the river as their lives depend so much on it. To avoid disrupting the water’s flow, their settlements are built in canyons high above the water table. These dwellings grow into the walls of the valley, forming unseen caves and chasms. Grubbs revere the regular journey of Gabbits upstream to their spawning grounds at Ma’Spa (at the Mongo’s source) as a sacred event, and worship their Steef protecters.

They are viewed by more advanced and narrow‐minded species as being highly superstitious. Although some Clakkerz such as Professor Dimble and Eugene Ius took an interest in their myths and legends, they readily dismiss the Grubbs as being a ‘bunch of silly, superstitious little shits.’ However, these tales of invasion are actually stories told of the privatisation of their lands and the hunting of the Steef.