The Slayer's Guide to Goblins

Throughout history, creatures of all types have underestimated the goblin's cunning and sheer will to survive. Often they have paid for this misconception with their lives. Deep in the warren of a goblin tribe there is no room for error. This harsh and unforgiving environment shapes the goblin and thwarts the invader.

Full of a hatred for all life, driven by their dark god to unspeakable depravity and far more cunning than Game Masters and players have given them credit for, goblins are truly worthy of our respect. They breed faster than most races and given time can outlast and overwhelm most enemies. They are masters of stealth, traps and ambushes and goblins are rarely spotted until it is too late.

This book will introduce you to the customs, legends and culture of one of the smallest but most formidable races in the land. The information herein will equip you, if you let it and bring you safely home when you next cross the path of the ‘mere’ goblin.

Each Slayer's Guide features a single race, in this case the goblin. In the following pages is a wealth of information on the physiology of the goblin species as well as an overview of their typical habitat. You will learn the fundamentals of their violent society and the bloody religion driving them. Game Masters will be provided with a number of scenario hooks to bring goblins into their existing games, as well as information designed to help them portray these creatures with more personality than ever, injecting renewed challenge into old encounters with faceless enemies. Also provided herein is important information on how goblins wage war, stage raids and their view of combat in general.

Game Masters will find a ready-made warren, complete with background, occupants and tactics at the end of the book, and statistics for standard goblin archetypes for use in their encounters. The Game Master can insert the adventure into a campaign as a straightforward dungeon crawl. More likely however, once the strengths and tactics of the goblin race are better understood, this challenge will stretch over a number of exciting gaming sessions.

With the information provided herein, Game Masters should be able to ensure their players never again encounter these cunning and malicious creatures without giving them a healthy dose of respect. In sufficient numbers, goblins are a match for any challenge. They surely understand this maxim and should be making the most of it in every campaign.

The Slayer's Guide to Goblins
Mongoose Publishing product number MGP0020
Shawn Girard
32 pages, $9.95

The 20th in the ever-expanding line of successful "Slayer's Guides" takes a look at that fantasy staple, the goblin.

The cover, by Anne Stokes, shows a small band of goblins along a cliffside, preparing to ambush the small caravan passing below. The placement of figures is not optimal, however, for what looks to be the goblin shaman has his face obliterated by the word "Goblins" in the title. (Since the Slayer's Guide cover layouts have not changed since the original, you'd think they might have foreseen this.) The inside front cover has the ubiquitous Chris Quilliams anatomical diagram, this time also in color as well. Chris is up to his usual high standards; I'll state for the record that I think his goblin profile is singlehandedly the BEST goblin depiction I've ever seen. (I plan to use it in my own campaign to show my players what a goblin looks like.) The rest of the illustrations - 13 in all, plus the map to the accompanying short adventure - are black and white, of merely average quality.

Perhaps I should explain that last statement. I make no secret of the fact that I am a major Chris Quilliams fan. He has the ability to completely capture the essence of the creature in question whenever he does one of his anatomical diagrams. The last "Slayer's Guide" I looked at ("Kobolds") had a wonderful "unity of vision" throughout because the interior artist made his kobolds look the same as Chris'. Sadly, this is not the case with "The Slayer's Guide to Goblins." The interior artist, Patricio Soler - while talented in his own right - fails to match the "look" of his goblins to those inside the front cover. Worse, he fails to keep his goblins consistent with his own goblins: the one on page 5 fits in nicely with the Quilliams goblin (not surprisingly, it's my favorite of Soler's work here), but the one on page 18 looks like some kind of dinosaur man, and the one on page 29 is anybody's guess. (If pressed, I'd have to say it was a long-horned planarian-worm-headed humanoid.)

Lest anybody think I'm just picking on Patricio, Anne's cover painting also fails to match Chris' goblin standard, but at least she's consistent among the six goblin figures we can see in the foreground of the picture. Also, I'm not arbitrarily picking Chris' as "the right goblin depiction" because I happen to like his artwork better, either - his happens to be the only one of the three to completely fit the description of the creatures on page 4. Anne forgets about the goblins' sloping foreheads; Patricio only remembers about half of the time.

Okay, I've dwelt on artwork long enough - on to the written content. Shawn Girard (who for some reason is credited only as "S Girard" on the front cover), does an outstanding job on depicting the filth and cruelty of the goblin. Despite the fact that this is his first "Slayer's Guide," he ranks up there at the top part of the "Slayer's Guide" writers list as far as I'm concerned. "The Slayer's Guide to Goblins" follows the standard format, giving us the following chapters:

• Introduction - describing the purpose of the "Slayer's Guide" line and following with a page-long bit of fiction
• Goblin Physiology - focusing on skin coloration, body modification and adornment, goblin lifecycle, diet, mindset, and a sidebar depicting the mythological goblin origin story
• Goblin Habitat - a quick look at goblin warrens and how a tribe goes about moving on to new lands
• Goblin Society - focusing on leadership, raiding, slavery, more on warrens, religion (with details of the same deity, "The Mighty One," that hobgoblins worship), a goblin prestige class, and 4 goblin spells
• Methods of Warfare - where we learn about goblin scouts, archers, worgs, and ambushes
• Roleplaying With Goblins - focusing on their brutality and cowardice
• 6 Scenario Hooks and Ideas
• The Torn Heads Warren - a very nicely done goblin lair
• Goblin Reference List

Shawn deserves much credit for taking a well-known (and somewhat ho-hum) monster and making it CREEPY again. Time and again he drops in a little fact that reinforces that goblins are just plain EVIL. Want some examples? Female goblins usually give birth to twins or triplets - uh-huh, interesting, makes sense given their proclivity for rapid tribal repopulation after numerous combat losses - oh, and pregnant females often eat the weakest of the tribal young to nourish themselves as they grow the next generation in their wombs. Disgusting!--and yet it makes perfect sense. Female slaves (of other races) are often forced to wet-nurse goblin young, and once the young grow big enough they devour their former wet-nurse. Ugh! And speaking of slavery, guess what slaves of goblins are often fed? You guessed it: flesh from slain slaves (in this way, the goblins save the best food for themselves, get rid of their oldest and weakest slaves, and inflict psychological torment on the other slaves all in one fell swoop).

The book is filled with all kinds of fascinating little tidbits that to my mind make the goblin much more interesting than I'd ever deemed possible. Female goblins can determine the gender of their unborn offspring. Goblins believe that worgs are imbued with the bravest of slain goblin spirits - this would certainly explain why the two species work so well together. Communal goblin females (those "shared" by the rank-and-file goblin warriors) are called "the stew." (Why? Beats me, but it sounds interesting, doesn't it?) Shawn breathes real life into these nasty little critters!

As far as some of the new things go, I really like the goblin prestige class, although its name ("the skulk") could potentially cause some confusion since skulks are also a separate race of D&D creatures dating back to First Edition. I like the fact that it's only a 5-level prestige class, no bigger than it needs to be, really. The four new spells are well thought out and have a definite "goblin feel" to them, although I was surprised they weren't alphabetized (not a big deal, though, since they're all on one page), and "Vision of the Wolf" should probably have been called "Vision of the Worg," seeing as how it's based on seeking out and finding the nearest worg, not wolf. The adventure at the back ties everything nicely together: narrow little goblin passageways in their warrens, traps, one of the new spells, filth, etc. It gives plenty of attention to goblin tactics, so DMs should have no trouble giving their goblin-hunting PCs a run for their money.

There is short snippets of fiction interspersed throughout the book, something fairly common in a "Slayer's Guide." Shawn's fiction bits are okay, recounting a fairly standard adventuring party's encounters with a group of goblins. I won't give anything away, but he managed to make the story much more interesting by rearranging the sequence of events somewhat.

This might be an unusual thing to point out in a review (at least, I haven't seen many reviews doing so), but kudos to Lucya Szachnowski, credited on the Table of Contents page as the Proof-Reader. "The Slayer's Guide to Goblins" has the fewest number of typos in recent memory of all the "Slayer's Guides" I've seen. While still not perfect (I caught a missing question mark, a missing space, and a couple of capitalization errors in one of the spell listings), the typos were few and far between. (Typos are by no means solely a Mongoose problem; they seem to be prevalent among most d20 company's products, so a good proofreader's worth her weight in gold.)

I also noticed some new formatting changes with this product. First of all, the inside back cover has been given up for ad space. I don't know if I like that or not. It's kind of jarring, since I've come to expect a lair map or rules table summary to be there, but if it's needed to keep the price of the "Slayer's Guide" line from increasing then I'm all for it. Also, I noticed that Mongoose is playing around with putting a "shadow" underneath the chapter headings (or most of them, anyway - they forgot to do it to "Goblin Reference List"). I think it makes the headings too cluttered and hardr to read; maybe they should consider lightening the shadows considerably if they want to keep up with this approach.

Speaking of the "Goblin Reference List" section, I notice that the statistics of the various sample goblins - goblin chief, goblin shaman, goblin warrior/archer, goblin cavalry, etc. - have been "squished" together to make more room. I don't know if this was done because the inside back cover ad ate up some room (I'm thinking that normally the lair map would have gone there), but it's not a bad idea regardless. Since they bolded the stat categories it's just as easy to find anything as it would have been using the standard "Monster Manual" format, only it takes up far less space this way. It might be a good idea to carry on with this format in the future.

All in all, this is an excellent addition to the "Slayer's Guide" line - I think "The Slayer's Guide to Goblins" is among my favorite five of the 20 published so far. I rate it a strong four stars and recommend it for anyone wishing to bring the creepiness back to the well-worn goblin. And I hope that Shawn Girard starts work on another "Slayer's Guide" in the near future!

This is not a playtest review.

The Slayer's Guide To Goblins is another in the score or so of short explorations of various monsters and other less pleasant groups from Mongoose Publishing.

The Slayer's Guide To Goblins uses a similar format to previous Slayer's Guides - it's a mono softcover 32-page product costing $9.95. The inside covers are used and are in colour. Whilst the front inside cover has the usual excellent depiction of skeletal and muscular build of the race, the back inside cover has an ad from Paizo for Dragon & Dungeon mags. Though there are no blocks of white space, the font, margins and space between paragraphs give the product a somewhat airy feel. The front cover by Anne Stokes shows goblins setting up an ambush along the walls of a gulley - it evokes a great feeling of depth and the animosity of goblins. The interior art is variable in quality and depicts the race in very different ways depending on the artist and are often not reflective of the surrounding text. The writing style is fairly standard. Spread throughout the book are various sidebars with flavour text, mainly showing the sly tactics that goblins can use against PCs. Editing seems good.

Chapter 1: Goblin Physiology
This chapter expands upon the basic goblin traits and discusses such aspects as skin colour, ritual scarification, breeding and child development, their cannibalistic tendencies, and the goblin mindset, which is enhanced in its basic hatred of life and beauty by the tenets of their religion.

Chapter 2: Goblin Habitat
A very short section discussing underground lairs, and moving the tribe from one lair to another.

Chapter 3: Goblin Society
Discusses leadership and goblins' brutal justice system, raiding and slavery (both their own and enslaving of others), and religion - these goblins worship The Mighty One, though no stat block or rules information is given on this deity. A new 5-level prestige class for goblins is introduced - the Skulk. The Skulk is a specialist in ambushing and gains abilities such as poison use, tracking, and various bonuses to hiding, spotting victims, and ambushing them. The Skulk gets a standard average BAB progression with good Ref saves. Oddly, has three ability score prerequisites and base 3 skill points per level. Four new spells are also presented: blood glyph (bursts blood vessels of targets in a warded area), extinguish light (non-magical only, Lvl 2 Clr spell), vision of the wolf (locates worg), and child of the mighty one (creates 'rage' with sigil marked on body).

Chapter 4: Methods Of Warfare
Discusses goblin military units (such as goblin cavalry riding worgs plus a sidebar on the relationship between goblins and worgs), a brief section on goblin equipment (where we learn that the battleaxe is the favoured weapon of The Mighty One), fighting tactics such as ambushes and raids, and mass warfare.

Chapter 5: Roleplaying With Goblins
A brief section discussing goblin behaviour (particularly in relationship to battle) and lone encounters with goblins, goblins and worgs, or perhaps a warren of goblins.

Chapter 6: Scenario Hooks And Ideas
Six short adventure ideas playing on the concept of surprising PCs who are used to viewing goblins as cannon fodder. The final adventure idea is, however, a basic discussion of a straight dungeon crawl through a goblin warren, and provides an introduction of sorts to the next chapter.

Chapter 7: The Torn Heads Warren
Provides a brief history of this example goblin warren, some features (e.g. traps, vermin, filth), tactics used by the defenders, and a chamber by chamber guide to the fourteen locations within the warren, along with guidelines for combat tactics for the residents of each chamber where applicable. Accompanying this section is a useful map showing the layout of the warren, though the map gives no scale and no compass direction.

Chapter 8: Goblin Reference List
Provides stat blocks for various classed goblins from 1st to 7th level, along with stats for goblin females and young.

High Points:
In my opinion, the most useful part of this product was the example warren, which would be very helpful if you wanted to run a session with the PCs waging all-out war on a goblin warren. Indeed, much of the rest of the information in previous chapters could be used to flesh out this example in terms of warfare tactics, the state of the goblin caverns, and possible linked scenarios.

Low Points:
For me, the Slayer's Guide To Goblins concentrated too much on warfare - even the roleplaying section seemed to contain little information on helping GMs to portray goblins from a roleplaying perspective. At the other extreme, there were not enough crunchy bits - more space could and should have been dedicated to goblin equipment, traps, poisons, disease, stats for the The Mighty One, perhaps another prestige class or a couple of ambush-related feats. Instead, I felt there was a lot of repetition of the idea that goblins are sneaky and evil, which I could have gained from the description in the Monster Manual, though there were some interesting and new pieces of information on aspects such as cannibalism and slavery, which balanced this out.

Conclusion:
If you want to challenge your PCs with goblins in combat, there are a number of tactical and atmospheric hints and tips to round out the useful example goblin warren. For me, it required more crunchy stuff and more help for the GM on roleplaying, rather than tactics, to reach beyond the average.

It seems like an age since I’ve looked at a Slayer’s Guide but if we’re only just at The Slayer’s Guide to Goblins then there must be plenty of mileage left in the series.

Goblins are green, right? No, of course not. Goblins are imaginary creatures. I imagine them as green, though. The Monster Manual says they come in many colours, ranging through yellow to red. The Slayer’s Guide says that they always come in a shade of red, yellow or orange. Yeah. I know. It’s far from being a big deal. It is about the only lingering gripe I have with the book.

As Yoda would say, "A lack of lingering gripes does not a good book make." And yes, I had to throw some Yoda speak into a Goblin book review. The 32-paged Slayer’s Guide series often struggles to find enough space to fully do justice to the monster in question and then introduce bells and whistles by which to reach a better than average score. The Slayer’s Guide to Goblins is a classic example. It does the goblin race justice, getting the basics right first, and then tries to score a critical hit in the page space remaining. It’ll depend on where you’re reading this review as to whether you see the numerical rating for the book as a better than average, B grade, 6/10 or as a 3 star average ranking. I think the B grade makes more sense. If you see a C grade as a narrow pass then that doesn’t apply to this Slayer’s Guide, it comfortably does what it needs to do, nothing narrow about it. There’s nothing in the book, especially in today’s rich d20 marketplace, to warrant an impressive A rating either.

I like the front cover. Classic. Goblins on the prowl and the closer you look then the more goblins you spot. Vicious looking buggers they are too. The inside front cover has the typical Slayer’s Guide anatomical view of the goblin. Um. I’m not saying there’s an anatomically correct illustration of a goblin. Oh no. Let’s not trip up over that enthusiasm. We’ve an illustration of the goblin with flesh texture and bone structure on show. Unusually this is in colour. Nice. The inside back cover has an advert for the Dragon and Dungeon magazines. It’s probably a coincidence but this advert has started to appear in Mongoose books ever since they launched their own Signs and Portents magazine.

The book gets going with the usual look at goblin physiology. The colour issue pops up in the physical description. There’s a look at the goblin lifecycle; they’re walking in six months and an adult in nine years. Goblins are lucky to live more than 20 years but can live to be 50. The goblin mind seems simple enough, despite the book tossing in the odd reminder that they are more than brutal thugs. The strongest goblin in the boss, pick on people lower than you and expect to be picked on by those stronger than you. They hate beauty (okay, beauty is subjective but this probably isn’t a point you’d make to the goblins), live in filth (because they can and don’t care otherwise) and don’t bother making anything they can take. If they can’t take it then they’ll probably do without. There’s an interesting side note on goblin slaves. Goblin’s make pretty good slaves, okay, they’re evil and backstabbing but if you show them who’s boss then they’re not likely to try and escape the luxury of life as a slave for the horror of the warren and aren’t likely to cooperate long enough to escape anyway.

The goblin god is known as The Mighty One. He’s a heartless bugger and the goblins think he made them to foil the civilized races after sneering at the unremitting failure the orcs would be. He likes sacrifices. Goblins also think Worgs are animals with the spirits of powerful goblin warriors in them. There are even spells the goblins have to track down the nearest Worg so it can be asked to join their ranks. The Worgs often do.

There are a handful of new spells. They’re all available to priests of The Mighty One and all but one available to Adepts of various levels. How often do you see the unfortunate Adept class included in a spell’s level?

There’s a goblin only prestige class too. Only a 5 level prestige class but I think this is right for Goblins. We’re back to the "new look" for Mongoose class tables here, grey and light grey shading, boarded and decorated. The Goblin Skulk is an advanced rogue. Class specials on every level make it rather scary; Ambush Mastery, Poison Use, Tracking Mastery, Cover and Concealment Mastery, Lesser Surprise Mastery and Greater Surprise Mastery. Fortunately for heroes the requirements are fairly tough and life as a Goblin Skulk tends to be short.

There’s tip and tricks (a paragraph or so) on how to best portray goblins and run encounters with goblinoids before the Scenario Hooks and Ideas chapter begins. I think the Hooks and Idea chapter is the heart of the book. It presents a half dozen solid goblin based scenario ideas (as promised) and whereas someone like Wizards will give you only a single obscure line (in those awful 100 plot idea sections) there’s a healthy paragraph or two for each hook here.

Starting on page 24 there’s a sample warren/pre-written adventure. There’s a good, near page-sized map, just a little one that clearly depicts the warrens and contains a dozen numbered locations. If you want instant goblin location then this is it.

The book finishes with a collection of stat blocks for various goblins. I really couldn’t care for such crunch anywhere else than a Slayer’s Guide. It works here. I treat the books as thoroughly fleshed out entries for a fantasy beastiary.

There you have it. The Slayer’s Guide to Goblins isn’t going to rock your roleplaying world, it’s not going to inspire any campaigns but it will add a little more depth to the fantasy stalwarts and you shouldn’t see the race as empty cannon fodder again. I doubt anyone could really be disappointed with the book.

* This Slayer's Guide to Goblins review was first posted at GameWyrd.