#bugan

So this is a very niche thought, but since the official LOTRO forums can be pretty hostile, I thought I post some thoughts here

So playing through Enedwaith alongside the Grey company I stumbled upon the Stoor hobbits of Maur Tulhau and I just love finding fringe hobbit groups outside the shire with different cultures(even if they have to reuse assets) especially how these guys build their home within a hidden valley and uses brambles and thorns to hide themselves away and though they're near swanfleet and other stoor hobbits they chose to remain hidden and isolated to the point they don't even have pipeweed!

but one thing that I really found interesting were the Bugans who lives down south of them and can be found hunting in groups of three consistently throughout this specific area

So the quest starts with you being asked be the Maul Tulhau's leader to try and make peace even though it's been sour in the past as he assumes they're just rough and tough hobbits. But apparently they're just Goblins that somehow LOOK like hobbits.

Unfortunately it doesn't go much deeper than that and they become a repeatable hunting quest. Which sucks because I have so many questions and theories about them.

Which brings to my Theory

We know that as the hobbits crossed over the Misty mountains and such, along the way certain hobbit clans just stayed put and built their own communities there (Stoors settling in areas around Swanfleet and the River Hobbits traveling far north founding Misthollow), and it's said that for these specific Hobbits of Maul Tulhau followed in kind, but seem to strayed even further southwest and then became lost to the other clans.

My guess is at somepoint in history, goblins (specifically the kind we see in the treasure hunt events) and hobbits intermingled with eachother creating half hobbit half goblins and though this may sound extreme I dont believe anything was forced or though violence as when asking NPCs about them they admit theyve had bad run-in, but only such and even these Stoor hobbits are unusually accepting and willing to fight and start a blood feud.

(The clothing the treasure hunt "Bugan" wears is also very neat and clean as well as similar to what the Bugans of Enedwaith wear!)

But for whatever reason the mixed children stayed south of Maul Tulhau and grew apart from their stoorish familes.

Though the in game lore claims they are fully goblin, the clothes they wear aren't stolen and and you can see how they wear their furs with simple stitched outfits that events like the ongoing war and marches through the region and arebliving their lives as hunters rather than pillaging and stealing. And their health and overall damage output is both incredibly low and they almost always try and runaway after you get them low enough which to me shows they aren't used to fighting actual people, just hunting

The question now is "Why would they separate if they haven't had any other contact with people outside their own?"

Could there have been a natural disaster like a horrible winter that forced Goblins and Hobbits together, and goblins with their hunting and trapping skills, and hobbits with their knowledge of settling and tailoring work together to survive and that lead to these Bugans?