What's that noise?
Do you hear something?
What was that? Is anybody there?
Hello?
Anybody....?
Fun fact: there's no standard, accepted scientific term for a fear of the dark. There's names for a fear of bridges, a fear of being out of mobile phone contact, a fear of the sea, a fear of the pope, and a fear of having a fear of something. As for fear of darkness...we have achluphobia, nyctophobia, scotophobia, lygophobia...but the problem with diagnosing a fear of darkness is, well, who isn't? At some time, on some level, when you're alone in your house and everything is quiet...eerily quiet...and beyond the warm light of your room and your monitor, there is an all-consuming inky blackness, and you see a shine of light in the bushes...were those eyes? Who is watching you? What is lurking out there, just beyond the world you know? The fear of darkness is pervasive in children, it makes good biological sense in our evolutionary history, and it is exploited time and again in our movies and our stories and our haunted houses...darkness hides the things that make our minds panic. We are diurnal creatures who are very visually-dependent. It is only natural that we mark the longest night of the year, the winter solstice, with a festival of light.
And while we know there's nothing under our beds, or hiding in the bushes -- while we're generally aware our minds play tricks on us, and that our fear of bridges is likely irrational -- in D&D, there is a reason to be scared: goblins.
KM's Goblins
To me, the key to understanding goblins is that they are creatures of darkness and fear.
They are creatures of the night. When darkness falls, the goblins come for you. They are brazen and bold, held at bay by bright light, but sneaking in wherever there is shadow, and waiting for the time to strike. That noise under your bed? That face in the bushes? Goblins. Watching. Waiting. Ready to blow out your candle or extinguish your light, waiting for you to step slightly into the darkness so they can grab you and kill you and eat your tender toes. They grab at you, pawing at the light, hungry and eager.
Goblins are associated with wolves, and for good reason. Like wolves, they lurk on the fringes of civilization, killing the bold or the ignorant or the un-protected. If a lamb goes lost, the ever-hungry wolves waiting just out of sight might devour it. If a child goes missing, the ever-hungry goblins might devour it. Farmers keep their livestock close, and parents would do well to do at least as much for their children: every village has tales of the boy who came home late, or the girl who loved to dance in the moonlight, or the baby left by an open window by a reckless mother, each one disappearing, leaving only tattered and bloody clothes as evidence of the misdeed done.
Goblins are the first challenge of many adventurers because they are a darkness that lurks close at hand. Dragons may be in far-off lands, and vampires might lurk in forgotten crypts, but goblins follow in the wake of civilization, appearing at the fringes in the darkness wherever children are born in enough numbers to keep the goblins fed. A full-grown adult has less to fear, but even then, three or four goblins versus even a trained warrior late at night might yield a tragic result for that warrior's family and friends.
Goblins are not creatures of the daylight. They will not talk to you, deal with you, or stand in the open. The concept of a goblin merchant or inventor should be absurd: these brutal creatures of darkness murder merchants on lone roads, and have no use for technology any more advanced than a rusty knife. Goblins are not jovial or jolly -- the are silent, except for perhaps their cruel barking laughter, and remain unseen, except for perhaps their gleaming eyes and fangs...and blades...
When the party encounters goblins, there should always be plenty of shadow -- more shadow than light, in fact. The numerous goblins stay in these regions of darkness, darting out en masse to mob weak, unprotected characters. They ignore the strong and the hardy, they flee any concentrated resistance. They don't flee far, staying close enough to watch, ready for the moment guard is dropped. Go to sleep, whisper the goblins, feel safe, feel warm, feel the knife slide in between your ribs, feel the choked scream come through your strangled throat, feel the claws on your face digging into your eyes. The party should learn to fear that darkness, to be punished for entering it, or for letting down their guard. If they remain vigilant and paranoid, they might stay safe. Risk-taking will be foolish: the goblins have the upper hand in the shadow, and there is no telling what may happen beyond the warm light of this torch...this flickering, weak torch...as it sputters in the sudden rain....
Is that a smile you see there in the shadows?
Not Generic Green Bad Guys
In almost 40 years of D&D (and more than that of Tolkienesque fantasy), goblins have at many tables become the very definition of vanilla fantasy fare. Meaninglessly numerous, generically evil, cunning but unquestionably savage, goblins have been low-tier ankle biters since before "bree yark." When re-envisioned, hoping to spice them up and "make them interesting," goblins have wound up tech-savvy, skilled merchants, turned into comic relief, or otherwise defanged. They are adorably misanthropic mascots at best, and at worst simply appear to be decimated in droves. So we have a situation here where "typical" goblins are seen as boring, weak, and comical. Even in The Hobbit, possibly the Ur-example of the modern fantasy adventure, the movie couldn't get away without a goblin king without a witty one-liner or two.
But this situation isn't quite universally poor quality. The scene in The Hobbit was pretty awesome in a sort of "wall of mooks" way at least. And in Pathfinder, there's at least one very conspicuous example of goblins that, while comical, maintain enough of a savage edge to be legitimate low-level threats (if humorous threats). Each of these buys into the idea that goblins are weak, or hilarious, but makes sure not to leave them one-dimensional: just because they're small and funny doesn't mean they can't be aggressive and deadly, too!
That's awesome as far as it goes. Those goblins can each be a lot of fun. To me, though, goblins were not goofy mooks with a bloody streak or a propensity to swarm. To me, the thing that made goblins interesting is the thing that makes all monsters ultimately interesting.
That is, the psychology of play.
Barbarians At The Gates; Rats In The Walls
As might be obvious from articles about the "left brain/right brain" or "director/actor" tendencies of thought, our brains contain a tremendous capacity for organization and edification. This habit is soothing to human beings in a way that chimps and zebras and probably yetis don't fully appreciate. When we can confidently predict and control things, we are fairly content. When there is something unknown and unknowable, we feel anxiety, fear, and apprehension. Sure, the unknown could bring a great bounty, but humans are loss-averse: we fear what we might lose more than we anticipate what we might gain.
Thus, the fear of darkness: it hides all potential things, and so we are much more afraid of what it might hide that could hurt us than we are hopeful of what good it may conceal. If the darkness outside the campfire might contain a lion that would devour you, or a delicious cake, would you personally venture forth?
This is in part why border regions, "liminal spaces" in anthropologist-speak, hold such an allure for our minds. At the very edge of what we can see, where we try to make out faces in the darkness, our attention is engaged as it always has been, trying to impose order on the chaos, trying to make sense of the nonsense. We are fascinated by the point at which one thing becomes another, where light fades into darkness, where security blends with fear. The border spaces, the gates, the walls, the crossroads, these are the magical places in our minds and in our myths, where we are not one thing, nor another, and hold great power in that place.
If a game of heroic fantasy is us playing in that liminal space, then my vision of goblins is as a standard-bearer for that darkness and vagueness we all fear. Goblins are liminal creatures: they lurk in the darkness, and dart out only to feast on the defenseless -- children, possibly the elderly, the weak and vulnerable. Goblins are what you are afraid of when you fear the monster under your bed, or the look of that dark road: they are there, watching, waiting for you to try something a little brave or bold or reckless, so that they can pounce and devour you.
This makes goblins to me the quintessential monster, and one of the standard-bearers for monsterkind in general. They are at the edge of the darkness, the beginning of the unknown that holds even greater menace. D&D, like most heroic fantasy, is about pulling back that veil, about celebrating our ability to wade into the darkness without fear. Goblins are where the heroes first overcome that fear -- and perhaps learn that they are strong enough to face it. They present a clear and present threat to everyday lives and happiness, eating children and making it unsafe to turn your back. Ending a town's goblin problem makes it possible for them to sleep at night, to celebrate without fear, to be able to safely predict their continued survival without hyper-vigilance and paranoia. Their association with wolves highlights this: wolves are this to herding societies, nightmares that eat the defenseless when the herders' backs are turned, consuming the most vulnerable.
That's the essence of goblins to me, psychologically, in game play.
News You Can Use!
Below are a few "edition-neutral" rules or advice bits you can add onto your next goblin encounter or adventure to reflect this vision of goblins.
- Native to Darkness [Defense]: Goblins that are not in bright light are effectively hidden: they cannot be targeted individually, and there's no way to know what space they occupy. Only goblins who end their turns in bright light become visible, and then only until they end their turn in an area of dim light or shadow, when they become hidden again. Creatures who can see in the dark can see goblins normally, even in the darkness.
- Snuff [Attack]: Goblins know the advantages they have in darkness, and have no need of lights, so they tend to snuff out lights that arrive. As a standard action, any goblin can target a creature carrying a light source with an attack, and if they hit, the light source is extinguished (the object emitting light is destroyed). Unattended objects can be snuffed automatically, without an attack.
- Paralyzed with Fear [Attack]: When a character is in an area of darkness and cannot see the goblins, the goblins can apply a fear effect to the character (they must make an attack or the character must fail a save): the "scared" character cannot move from their position, and takes a -2 penalty on their defenses. Taking damage allows a character to move again, but the goblins can apply the "scared" status again if they so choose (and the repeat attack is a success or the save is failed again)
- Living in Darkness [Tactic]: Goblins can see in the dark, so they live in the dark. They have no need of light, and so don't employ it. Any light that comes in is the light of outsiders, and so instantly marks potential prey. In many goblin encounters, the only light might be the radius of torchlight that the party itself brings to the fray.
- Mob the Weak [Tactic]: Goblins prefer weaker characters, and they evaluate this based purely on the appearance of physical hardiness: generally, the party member with the lowest Constitution score is the preferred target, and the goblins prefer to attack all at once (on the same initiative count, employing flanking, etc.), not giving the target a chance to respond.
- Flee the Strong [Tactic]: If a goblin is attacked, they generally flee, at least to a place where they can watch without being watched. This flight might even be reckless: a goblin would much rather take a slap while darting away than risk their lives in a fair fight.
- Pleasant Dreams [Tactic]: Against a stronger foe, goblins play something of a war of attrition: they damage the characters over the long term, and prevent the party from resting (they attack the party if it tries to rest, even sneaking in and attacking the sleeping people while someone is standing guard). They may flee after being attacked once, but they'll come back in a few minutes, making it impossible to recover hit points, spells, or other resources.
- Wolfriders [Ally]: Goblins are often found in the company of wolves, and they share hunting strategies, generally speaking: the weak, the young, the old, the sickly, and the lame are the preferred prey. Goblins may ride wolves, using spears the way humans may use lances, and benefiting from the wolves' speed and senses. The wolves, in exchange, get a greater range of prey than they normally would: young sheep is all well and good, but a fat young halfling or elf might be a rare treat that only goblin-used wolves get to sample.
So, that's my goblins. What do you think? What about YOUR goblins? What kinds of psychology do they exploit?
