Question about Goblins

[chronoplasm]

Do we have anything as far as an origin story for them? Like, were goblins created by some demon during the great war between the gods and the titans or what?
Is there anything in any of the fluff to indicate where goblins think they come from?

 

[Thanael]

Do we have anything as far as an origin story for them? Like, were goblins created by some demon during the great war between the gods and the titans or what?
Is there anything in any of the fluff to indicate where goblins think they come from?

Paizo's Classic Monsters Revisited possibly lists an origin story. 2E's Monster Mythology has the goblin pantheon and probably includes an origin story too.

Candlekeep has the following on goblin Mytholgy in the Forgotten Realms:

Goblin Mythology

Goblins believe that in the beginning, the world rebelled against the old gods. A war ensued in which the gods killed the world. From the blood of the gods, maggots were born who burrowed into the corpse of the world. In the darkness, the maggots feasted and celebrated the victory of the gods.

When the forces of light arrived, a sun was born in the sky that burned the eyes of the maggots. The maggots’ cries of pain were heard by the old gods. Angry at the light for hurting his children, one of the old gods (maybe Maglubiyet) transformed the maggots into goblins. He told the goblins that the forces of light owed them a debt and that they were always to remember the times of darkness when the gods of old ruled victorious.

Goblins consider themselves the first born, spawned from the very blood of the old gods. They believe that other races owe the goblins a debt for ancient wrongs.

from http://www.candlekeep.com/library/articles/goblins.htm

 

[chronoplasm]

Thanks!

I didn't see anything about goblin origins in the Monster Mythology, but that text you quoted should be helpful.

 

[Thanael]

The mythology parts should be at the beginning of each chapter in Monster Mythology. Parts can be deduced from the individual deities histories.

Tom Rinschler did some great Faiths & Avatars' style writeups for the goblinoin deities on The Forgotten Realms Mailing List. Here's his
Maglabiyet article.

For the other articles search for authour = Rinschler and subject = Faith here


If you want an ecology, definately check out Paizo's Classic Monsters Revisited . I hear it is very good in fleshing out the monsters.

 

[Set]

The version I've seen and gone with is to have goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears be the unseelie counterparts to elves and gnomes, born of the fey realms, but so long ago transplanted into the material world that they've lost their fey type and become humanoids (again, like the gnomes and elves).

Somewhere in the fey realms, great dark kingdoms ruled by ornately armored hobgoblin knights war endlessly against their seelie 'elf' counterparts in great ritualistic combats, while twisted forests teem and chitter with skulking goblin-fey.

The only mysterious gap was in the correlation between gnome and goblin, and elf and hobgoblin. Could there be a seelie equivalent to the bugbear out there?

 

[chronoplasm]

Can someone tell me more about Acheron?

 

[Thanael]

Acheron is a plane of iron cubes hanging in midair, where armies class endlessly with one another. It is a place of dead hopes and dying dreams, where the law of Mechanus is perverted by the evil tinge of Lower Planes. It is a place where the organisation does not care about the individuals: a place where you are just another number in the crowd.

from Lady's Cage Mush - Planes


Also:
Planescape - Planewalking - Acheron
Li Po's Guide to Acheron
Acheron (Dungeons & Dragons - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Acheron: a possible past

 

[chronoplasm]

Thanks!

I was wondering if anybody could help me out with an idea.

In my setting I'm trying to work in a theme of "For every three sides that are visible, there is a fourth side that is hidden."
My idea is that there is a being called Warheart, one of the Cosmic Masters (a race of beings that served as mercenaries and arms dealers in the war between the Primordials and the Gods).
Warheart resides in Acheron and deals with both Gruumsh and Maglubiyet, selling them weapons and instigating conflicts between them.
On the mortal world of Runa, Warheart takes the form of three human mages (a master of the living, a master of the dead, and a master of the inorganic) who create strange monsters to sell to the highest bidder. They are attempting to start an arms race between the goblins and orcs.

Suggestions? Comments?

 

[Set]

In my setting I'm trying to work in a theme of "For every three sides that are visible, there is a fourth side that is hidden."
My idea is that there is a being called Warheart, one of the Cosmic Masters (a race of beings that served as mercenaries and arms dealers in the war between the Primordials and the Gods).
Warheart resides in Acheron and deals with both Gruumsh and Maglubiyet, selling them weapons and instigating conflicts between them.
On the mortal world of Runa, Warheart takes the form of three human mages (a master of the living, a master of the dead, and a master of the inorganic) who create strange monsters to sell to the highest bidder. They are attempting to start an arms race between the goblins and orcs.

Suggestions? Comments?

The 'hidden fourth' notion leaves me wondering who the hidden fourth human mage is.

Strange monsters as in chimera and owlbears and gibbering mouthers and vulture hounds?

Or could these mages be responsible for modifying goblins into hobgoblins (perhaps by adding some elven traits, which would help to explain the elven / hobgobling antipathy) and bugbears (by mixing them, quite literally, with bears), and modifying orcs into orogs or ogrillons or whatever, to create more vicious warriors to throw at each other?

 

[chronoplasm]

The fourth, the hidden mage, is in fact the true form of the three mages, Warheart. The players aren't supposed to find out that the three mages are actually a Cosmic Master until much later. But yeah, thats the side that is hidden.

Good ideas though!

I like the idea of Wu, mage of life, being responsible for Bugbears and Hobgoblins. There needs to be another though. So far we have three races of goblinoid; Bugbear, Goblin, and Hobgoblin. There needs to be a hidden fourth bred in secrecy deep underground... do you think Nilbogs would work?

The thing about Wu is that he prefers to use traditional breeding combined with magical serums to enhance the natural capabilities of beasts. In other words, he's responsible for dire animals. I actually have a different plan for chimeric animals like owlbears.


I think I'll go over the mages then.

Magus Wu, mage of life. He breeds dire animals and races of super soldiers and he is a master of unarmed combat.
Magus Aare, mage of death. He strives to create more efficient undead. Some say that his "hospitals" can produce a thousand zombies a day.
Magus Raux, mage of the inorganic. He creates diabolical machinery and experiments with grafting his devices into living and undead test subjects. He is rarely seen, but some say that he has transformed himself into one of his own artifacts.
Warheart, the hidden fourth mage. He appears in the form of a giant bloated maggot in a suit of ornate armor. He sells weapons to both Gruumsh and Maglubiyet.

I've never heard of Orogs, or whatever they are called. Can you tell me what book they are from?