Wednesday, December 5, 2018

Reorganizing and reinventing goblins

Goblinoids are a standard monster in fantasy gaming. They also have legions of less effective imitators and an unfortunate history of being pigeonholed. I cannot change that, but in this post I can wax about my personal ideas and discoveries for making goblins less boring and stale.

Etymology

Here is some meaningless trivia for my enjoyment. Fantasy gaming seems to love twisting the meaning of dictionary words. Those words do not mean what you think they mean.
  • The words goblin and kobold are cognates. In folklore they were synonymous.
  • The word hobgoblin is a compound of hob and goblin. In folklore it refers simply to a rustic goblin. See my other post on that etymology for details.

Condensing similar monsters

The goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears, blues, nilbogs, belsamaug, high goblins, ja noi, kijimuna, monkey goblins, snow goblins, wikkawaks, etc are all goblinoids. Other monsters make sense as goblinoids or share the same niche: orcs are chaotic hobgoblins, bullywugs (boggards, grippli, etc) are amphibian goblins, kobolds are subterranean goblins, ratfolk are furry kobolds, gremlins are tinker goblins, etc.

Goblins are typically assisted by a variety of domesticated monsters and allies: goblin dogs, hobbe hounds, worgs, barghests, goblin snakes, and so forth. These are generally some flavor of rodent, wolf, demon or a combination thereof like a "wolfrat" or something.

These are all variations on the same concept plus they are all monsters that want to kill you, so why equivocate? Take a page from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, The Princess and the Goblin, Ridley Scott's Legend, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings and make goblins physically diverse rather than pigeonhole them into green-skinned pointy-eared hellions. Give them beaks, pig snouts, chicken-foot arms, second heads, goblin cats, rock bands and whatever else you can think of.

Reimagining goblins

The default fantasy goblins are all primitive savages that the party has to kill in order to get experience, loot and advance the adventure. Maybe they are the minions of the evil overlord if the adventure has an epic quest. If you are in the mood, you could replace this stereotype with something more original and less violent. Here are some assorted ideas:
  • Goblins have a hive mind
  • Goblins are fey born from negative emotions
  • Goblins reproduce asexually, they are voracious eaters and fast breeders
  • Goblins are actually plants or fungi
  • Hobs and bugbears are successive stages in the goblin life cycle
    • Goblins, hobs and bugbears are castes of the same goblinoid race
    • When goblinoids are born they will random grow up to become goblins, hobs or bugbears regardless of their parents' forms
    • Goblinoids, and perhaps all monsters, may be promoted to higher CR monsters in the same family (a la That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime)
  • Goblins are related to trolls, forming a single family
    • Goblins and trolls are fairies that make bargains, attend court, harvest screams, and live under bridges. They are not strictly evil, just alien and lacking empathy.
  • Blues are psychically or magically-gifted goblins or kobolds (see 13th Age Bestiary)
  • Hobgoblins are crossbreeds of orc and goblin (see Wayfarers)
  • The goblin rulers are attractive elfin humanoids like Maleficent (Disney’s Sleeping Beauty), Jareth (Jim Henson’s Labyrinth) and Cronan Darkroot (LEGO Elves: Secrets of Elvendale), or wicked demonic beings like Darkness (Ridley Scott’s Legend)

Relevant links

Here comes a bunch of links I found while researching this subject. They are not very well organized, but hopefully you can find something useful.

Goblinoids


Orcs

Bullywugs and kobolds

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