When the first goblin explorers reached the shores of northern Esmia near what would become Port Zog, roughly four thousand years before Tol was born, they found a diverse and beautiful landscape. The north was covered in deep forest from the eastern shore all the way to the foothills of the Masrons that formed a divide between the inland plains and the western coastal savanna. The center of the country was high desert grading to fertile plains and grasslands, while the south was mountainous in the west and marshy lowlands in the east.
The mighty Mernal river begins as a mere rivulet high in the northern Masrons and gathers strength from innumerable tributaries along a watershed a hundred miles wide as it bisects what will become Tragacanth west to east on the way to Myndrythyl Bay on the Sea of Fleriz. The Mernal River valley constitutes the most fertile region in the northern half of the continent and it is here, along a bend of the river that provided a natural berth for barges, that Goblinopolis was founded.
It was little more than a pier and a meeting of wagon paths in the beginning. Barges were pulled upriver along the north bank by yoke-beasts, guided across by dockers with lines and poles, loaded at the piers, and then sent downriver to Port Zog hugging the south bank. The cargo consisted of grains, fruits, vegetables, metal ores, and raw fibers destined mostly for the ancient cities of Hagfar and Zilond in the Merton Empire.
As the years passed, storage sheds and quarters for the resident dockworkers went up, along with a hostel to house visiting barge crews. Traders began to build there, as well, to facilitate the exchange of goods coming off or being loaded onto the barges. The vessels themselves increased in size and frequency, necessitating the construction of more and larger support buildings. Inevitably the further trappings of commerce came, and a thriving village sprang up around the river piers. A total of three ferries operated just upstream of the barge turnaround point, moving people, goods, and animals from one bank to the other, as the river was far too wide and deep to ford for a hundred leagues to the west.
Back then there existed more hazards to frontier life than mere weather and terrain. There were a number of different grass-eating beasts in the area, for example, and where there is large prey there are appropriately sized predators. Most of these were just sleek collections of teeth, fur, and anywhere from two to eight limbs for running very fast, but the most terrifying/disconcerting was the abomination known as the giant prickleball. Giant prickleballs were two-meter diameter squamous spheres covered with short, stocky limbs terminated by retractable clusters of claws. They propelled themselves ridiculously fast by flexing these stumps and rolling along over just about any kind of topological feature you care to name.
Once they close on a prey animal, the prickleball’s claws bury themselves inextricably into its body and hold on until the victim is exhausted. The barbed talons can only be removed by nibbling away or dissolving the flesh in which they are embedded. It then rotates itself (if necessary) until the mouth is facing the prey and everts a membrane that first suffocates, then surrounds and dissolves the animal in toto, bones included. There’s not much more nauseating a sight on N’plork than a plainsrunner being digested in full view. It cannot be unseen. The giant prickleball was hunted to near-extinction within a hundred years of the founding of Goblinopolis—not because it was tasty or conversely particularly fond of munching goblin, but out of general revulsion at its eating habits. Really, really disgusting.
By the time prickleballs were becoming hard to find, Goblinopolis had grown from hamlet to small city. It was beginning to engage in commerce with the other habitations springing up along the coasts of the north and east, notably Dresmak and Lumbos, respectively. The future nation of Tragacanth was taking shape bit by bit.
The Masron Mountains run from the northwest coast all the way down to the desert of Asga Teslu that separates them from the towering Espwe range in the south. While they present a formidable barrier to anyone traveling northwest from Goblinopolis, between those mountains and the western shore sits a wide and richly fertile triangle of ancient volcanic plain that stretches from north of Amnil Bay all along the coast of the Noorprid Sea down to the border with Galanga, widening as it proceeds south.
The first settlers of northern Esmia landed at what would become Lumbos and Port Zog on the eastern coast, but there were subsequent settlements founded on the west coast at Cladimil and Fenurian, as well. The eastern immigrants came across from Litria and western Turmia, but the west coast settlers were master mariners who spent most of their lives on the open waters of the vast Noorprid Sea. Their ancestors had come mostly from Nerr, Blostt in Tantatku, and the port cities of eastern Solemadrina. These two distinct waves of settlement met at Goblinopolis, which made it the economic and cultural centerpiece of nascent Tragacanth.
As the years passed, a steady stream of immigrants came to Goblinopolis in search of opportunities to carve a new life out for themselves from the raw, bounteous land. The city grew at an increasing pace, spreading mostly to the south of the river. At a meeting held one hundred and thirty-seven years from the first landing at Port Zog, elders of the cities of Lumbos, Port Zog, Dresmak, Cladimil, Tillimil in the south, and Goblinopolis met in conclave in Goblinopolis to declare themselves members of a coherent nation. They named it “Tragacanth” for reasons history seems to have forgotten and chose a prominent leader from an ancient Solemadrinan noble family as their first king. Goblinopolis was chosen as the capitol and its role as one of the premier cities of N’plork thereby cemented. Within two centums it was the largest metropolitan area on the planet.