Three Color Critters

In the north seas there’s a small chain of sizable islands removed from any major continent, where rolling hills and chistled mountains define the horizons.  Where once, its told, a tribunal of territories shared the islands, now only the Grand Gummi Garrison remains.  Thought to be distant cousins of the Candy Commonwealth, the Grand Gummi Garrison is a militant order of soft, squishy creatures wearing soft, squishy armor and riding soft, squishy steeds.  While they seem sweet on the outside, the Grand Gummi Garrison is rabidly empirical, driving their territorial competition into the seas and claiming every inch of land they can find in the name of their King, the greedy George VI the Gobstopper.  Given how sweet they seem on the outside, it’s hard to believe a group like the Grand Gummi Garrison would deal in invasion and oppression, but their history is written in gooey globs of glucose and blood.

The three realms of the northern isles once lived in harmony- the hardy Hardbodies with their mastery of might, the twisty Taffidyls whose bowstrings stretch and strike the Heavens, and of course, the Gummi Garrison, whose soft arms were better for diplomacy than acts of aggression.  Their old king, George III the Gracious, was the backbone of the sweet tribunal, able to broker peace between the Taffidyls and Hardbodies, who famously competed for greater shows of military strength.  The Gummi Garrison lived in the shadows of these armies, ever fearful of being consumed by conflict, until George III had had enough, and struck upon a plan.  Using their power of persuasion, agents of the Gummi Garrison learned the technology behind both armies’ arsenals- the Taffidyls’ potent bows and the mallets and lances of the Hardbodies.  Then, on the eve of a tribunal summit, the Gummi Garrison capitalized on a conflict and turned each tribe’s own technology against them in a sudden show of sugary strength.  The Hardbodies’ mallets could not crush the squishy bodies of the Gummi Garrison, as they would spring back into place, and arrows sunk into their soft surfaces instantly closed up.  There was nothing either army could do to hurt the Gummi Garrison, who cracked and pierced their former-friends one by one, beating them to the shores, leaving them little choice but to drown or die.  With military power in their possession the Gummi Garrison no longer lived in the shadow of giants, no. Now all the isles were theirs to claim, and so they have sought to grow and expand for generations since, never the sweet speakers they seem at first taste.