Gremlins typically didn't have names. They were 'hey you', and 'don't touch that', and 'go get me some food'.

Elder Gremlins always had names, and they were the kinds of names that took several minutes to say properly and left any who attempted it out of breath and with a tired tongue.

What Gremlins, both elder and otherwise, had in common was a very strong sense of hierarchy. The Elder with the most knowledge of The Beyond and its many, many secrets was in charge. Below him were the Elders with slightly less knowledge or position from that distant world. This continued on until there were no elders left, and after that was the first generation of Gremlins.

They would be at the bottom of the ladder until they in turn spawned a second generation, who would be on the bottom until they created their replacements. This continued on forever.

There were only a few notable exceptions to this hierarchy; one of which was when a gross, slimy, pulsating Gremlin cyst, the pods they were born from, burst and spat out something other than a Gremlin.

The Elders had very little concern about the health and well-being of their spawn, viewing them as little more than an easy and fun to create kind of minion. When they had enough of them running around, they would begin to perform rituals and experiments on the Gremlin cysts. The experiments varied from dark prayers to evil beings they knew of, to injections of poisons and strange reagents, even evil rituals; pretty much anything they could think of, regardless of how likely it was to have a beneficial effect or not. It was careless and cruel, and overwhelmingly resulted in stillborns.

Occasionally, the experiments were successful and produced a living Gremlin.

Very occasionally, the living Gremlin was more useful than the standard model.

Very, very rarely, what they produced was a true, and utter monster.

It was a fortunate thing, a very fortunate thing, that Gremlins were terrible record keepers. They rarely bothered to approach these experiments on their own young as anything more than an amusing thing to do while drunk, or angry, or bored.

The Elder Gremlins of the Overcavern Forest were no different at all in this regard. They had only the foggiest idea of what they'd done to produce the many larger and more dangerous varieties of Gremlin that stalked the perpetually dim forest. The difference between them and the endless other Gremlin tribes of The World was very simple:

They'd been doing it uninterrupted for thousands of years. Nobody had ever bothered to plunge deep into the dangerous, mimic and fairy infested Overcavern Forest for something so basic as a Gremlin extermination. Why would they? The Gremlins in the forest stayed in the forest, content to be gross little slime balls, their numbers managed by the monsters that preyed on them.

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Yes, the Sunlet City of Solas, the official capital of the Sunlet Race, had better problems to occupy their adventurers. The higher elemental beings and the AI's that inhabited the city, along with the glorious Sunlets themselves, just weren't that worried about it. Certainly they didn't have such a surplus of adventurers that they could afford to send them to die in the Overcavern Forest.

So the Gremlins sat, unchecked, for thousands and thousands of years; running their experiments, taking the occasional note, and growing in power.

Now, finally, it was their time to claim prominence in The World. With the help of the Mushrooms, they had been able to pull a wide variety of beings from The Beyond, but their power source had been limited to the weak souls of their offspring.

The Eldest Gremlin, who was old beyond old, gazed at the shining soul he clutched within his wretched, bloodstained hands. With an evil grin he stroked the gem with his thumb, whispering to it.

When he looked up once again, he saw a cyst of a grand size, nearly thirty feet tall and filled with an orange glowing fluid. Inside the pulsing light could be seen the shadow of a shape, curled up in the fetal position.

The creature was tall and had great curved horns on its head. Sharp claws like daggers adorned its fingers, and its body had a sleek, scaly, almost reptilian appearance.

It twitched and kicked with clawed feet, as creatures in the womb are prone to do.

The Eldest Gremlin chuckled and continued stroking the soul gem. He hadn’t wasted his opportunity with the Summoners Brew, pulling some random creature through. No, he’d gotten in contact with some old, evil, and rather knowledgeable beings. Entities who knew the secrets of shaping flesh as easily as shaping clay, who could see the monsters they could make of all things. The Eldest Gremlin had even bothered to take some notes, jot a couple of things down.

He’d been trying to create a Bladed Slayer for thousands of years. Now, with the secrets he possessed, it was just the beginning. This one, however, he would imbue with the power of a Quasar Soul. Its greatest weakness was always that it would have the weak soul of a Gremlin.

“No more,” The Eldest said, and the Elders behind him bowed their heads and repeated in unison.

“No more.”

And, sitting among them, full sized and without wings, was a young man with empty, flat eyes. The Void Soul owed so much to the Gremlins, who had found him in the woods and recognized him as a kindred spirit. They had saved him, taught him, given him equipment.

He wondered how much more they had to give him, and how much more he could take. A utility pocket appeared and vanished, depositing an apple in his open hand. He glanced over at the growing abomination and grinned.

He’d overheard every madness inducing word exchanged between the Eldest Gremlin and whatever terrible beings they’d contacted. Every technique and tool of the transmutation of flesh was recorded in his perfect mind.

No way he was leaving, not until he’d taken these Gremlins for every secret they were worth.