#gilgoblins

Ngl, This made my day.

There’s a lot we don’t know about the details of Azshara’s kingdom but we do know enough to draw a few logical conclusions!  I have a lot of headcanons about this part of Azeroth and it’s fishy denizens! <3

Most of them being that virtually nobody gets along down there.  The naga, the gilblins, the kvaldir, the murlocs, the elements… they all seem to get along best when they keep their distance. Disclaimer: as an individualist in regard to RP characters and lore I also feel it necessary to add that there will always be exceptions! I’m just speaking in broad cultural political terms here- there’s a lot of bad blood.

Well, sort of when it comes to gilblins.  Gilgoblins are a young race who’ve only been around a generation or two and whose mutations have cost them some of their higher brain functions. They’re scavengers with simple priorities. Stuff! Shiny stuff!  Finders Keepers is the unspoken only law of the curious and grabby gilblins. They don’t really have a formal government per ce, they’re still working that out, so for the most part it’s every gilblin for themselves with (I suspect) loose family groups. Think chaotic neutral. No real structure, just winging it and making a mess. They’re the seagulls of the deep! I personally headcanon them as being really confused by the idea of theft being wrong to the point of not even realizing they’re doing it.

Naga, meanwhile, are ALL about structure and precision. If you’re a naga who thinks maybe Azshara isn’t an infallible goddess you must lay down your life for you’re probably gonna keep that to yourself or risk getting culled. It’s basically a fascist Orwellian society and cult all rolled up into one. Lawful evil, if you will. They’re also supremacists. So yeah. They do not play well with others as a general rule. One of my favorite ideas is a splinter group of young naga freedom fighters (or an opposing cult a la Skar'this the Heretic) trying to rebel, survive, and undermine Azshara’s regime but that’s a discussion for another time. Azshara rules with an iron fish!  Conform, obey, serve, or be shark bait.

 Point is- diplomacy is not a priority for either group and naga tolerance let alone patience toward gilblins would be really limited.  Naga perception of them is probably along the same lines as murlocs.  Annoying but occasionally useful slaves at best. Otherwise just pests to be ignored and/or exterminated depending on the situation. 

But naga can and do enslave gilblins!  In Deepfin Ridge you can see naga working alongside Merciless Ones with gilblin thrall/slaves. In other areas gilblins are doing their own thing and the naga more or less ignore them.

So to answer your question- yes and no. Naga will enslave gilblins just like they’ll enslave anybody else. Enslaving outsiders is a thing they do. A lot. But Azshara and her followers don’t have control of gilblins as a group. Gilblins don’t have control of gilblins as a group. They probably irritate the shit out of naga, tbh. The Merciless mind control likely made them a lot more tolerable as slaves. Otherwise they get into everything, don’t follow directions, ‘borrow’ and hide stuff like ferrets… They likely view them as an infestation more than anything!

Hell, naga just might be the ones suing Hobart Grapplehammer for negligence!  XD

Pearl and Plunder by ~bluegorgon