Goblin Hordes

[Buttercup]

My players will soon be venturing into a vast cave-pocked, hilly area that is home to "The Goblin Hordes." I'm trying to develop this area, and am unsatisfied with my progress. I've got several goblinoid sourcebooks to mine for ideas, but I'm hoping that all you creative folks will have some great suggestions.

The books I have are Strength and Honor: The Mighty Hobgoblins of Tellene, Ships of the Goblinoids and Slayer's Guide to Hobgoblins.

Here's what the players know already about goblins. 1. From time to time they destroy a frontier settlement, killing the residents or taking them as slaves, taking anything of value that isn't nailed down, and then burning the buildings. 2. The Empire wants to expand into the western lands now held by goblins, but isn't having the easy success they expected. The war of expansion has been dragging on for 12 years, with not much progress. 3. Goblins are the featured boogeymen of all the fireside tales told to frighten children into good behavior. 3. Gupta the ratcatcher, a local character known and despised (but needed) by all, has goblin blood. That's why (it is said) he is gnarled and smelly and stupid and likes to eat the rats he catches. Not everything they have heard about goblins is necessarily true.

Here's what I know about these goblin hordes. They occupy an area about 200 miles from east to west and about 100 miles from north to south. There are two or three (haven't decided) warring kingdoms that are of Lawful Evil alignment. These kingdoms are fond of ritual combat, but are not averse to raiding the rival kingdom to acquire resources and status. If the players were to visit one of the communities in any of these kingdoms, they would be able to trade, eat and sleep at an inn without too much danger, as long as they didn't do anything stupid. There are also numerous small tribes of goblins that aren't affiliated with any kingdom. Some of them are outcasts, and some of them have other reasons for remaining outsiders. These tribes would just as soon slit the PCs throats in their sleep as look at them.

The PCs will be crossing this area soon, because they (correctly) believe that the lands pictured in a map they recently acquired can be found on the other side. Here is where you can see the map. Right now the PCs are second level, and there are 7 of them.

So, what juicy details can you come up with? Do you know of another sourcebook I should have? Anything about the design of goblin cities or the conduct of goblin warfare? Anything?

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

There's always The Hobbit.

The first 3E FR adventure, Into the Dragon's Lair, had an entire goblin city with competing goblin army factions in it.

 

[Buttercup]

I don't want them to be Tolkien inspired goblins.

I'll check out that module.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

At the risk of moving the topic away from D&D

There's always Warhammer. Obviously, it isn't D&D cannon (what with it being a war game and all) but the authors have an excellent way of conveying the gobbo experience. I'd check them out and get some Warhammer minis for the adventure.

There are goblin fanatics. These are guys who eat too many underground mushrooms. They then drive themselves into a state of drug-induced frenzy. They pick up an oversized ball and chain and start swinging it around. They quickly lose control of what direction they go in and sometimes end up killing their own troops, but that's life in the big city, eh?

There are also goblin squig riders. Squigs are a race of semi-sentient fungus ... with an appitite.

... just thought I'd throw that out.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Once again I'm reminded why I don't play Warhammer (or actually more to the point, buy Warhammer minis -- nothing against the game itself) ... cartoon goblins & fungus.

 

[Azul]

In a prior campaign I ran, I had the goblinoids (we unified them into one race, with the various types being subraces) be Machiavellian (sp?) mercantalists. Lawful evil, honoring their contracts but always trying to sneak in exploitative clauses and whatnot, and happily selling arms and magical goods to any who had the money to buy them.

Our goblins were master craftsmen, rivalling the dwarves for sheer quality, but lacking the dwarven sense of artistry. Goblin weapons and goods were of excellent quality, but drab in appearance. A strong rivalry existed between the dwarves and goblins in our world, with both vying for the same trade and the goblins being prone to mass producing and undercutting the dwarves.

We had our goblins be sophisticated and amoral. They saw themselves as socially more advanced than the neighbouring races (having transitioned from absolute monarchies to a society based on plutocratic cartels, with only the framework of the old royal order existing to fulfill needed governmental function). They were also quick to exploit any new technological developments (including alchemical inventions such as crude gunpowder) because they were less conservative than dwarves or elves. Their fighting forces were well trained heavy infantry (bugbears and hobgoblins) mixed with lighter skirmishers (goblins).

The traditional goblinoid infighting was replaced with "wars of assassins" where rival merchant houses would arrange for premature "retirements" of those they found troublesome. All very civilized, in a brutally cut-throat sort of way. A little poison in one's meal, a slit throat while one slept, that sort of thing. Our model was the merchant families of late medieval and renaissance Italy (i.e. Borgias and Medicis).

The other thing we did was have our goblins be disinterested polytheists. They accepted all gods as having some validity and honoured them, but they bowed down to no god. They worshipped power and wealth... very materialistic and pragmatic.

They also tended to ham up their cultural peculiarities which made them seem crude and uncivilized to outsiders because it made outsiders underestimate them, both in trade and in power (they were our "sleeping giant" in military terms, hiding their true strength by restricting access to their mountain fortress cities to "foreign quarters", which also gave the cartels better control over the flow of trade goods).

Anyway, I don't know if these ideas of are any use to you, but feel free to swipe any bits that you like.

 

[Tonguez]

GURPS Goblins

."Greed is the first great motivator behind the actions of goblins. The main point to a goblin's life is to achieve something within their own lifetimes, which they themselves can enjoy contemplating.
"Fear is the second great motivator . . . The possibilities of cripplings, maimings and destitution also stir powerful emotions in the goblin heart.

"Revenge is the third great motivator . . . particularly . . . when a goblin has lost everything, and has no hope of regaining it. At such times a goblin has nothing to sustain greed or fear, and is consumed entirely by the desire for revenge.

"Vanity is a strong emotion in goblins, and sometimes it can overcome greed, fear and revenge. A classic example is the public execution at Tyburn, to which quite a few condemned goblins go eagerly, relishing the opportunity to be the centre of attention of a crowd of thousands, wearing a well-tailored suit of clothes and showing devil-may-care courage in the face of Death.

"Superficially, lust is a strong emotion, particularly in more mature goblins. In fact it is usually just fear of Age and Death, or some form of greed, fear, revenge and vanity, masquerading as lust. Occasionally even young goblins may be driven to do foolish things out of lust, but usually they show a rapid change of heart if other motivators pull in a contrary direction. Green Sickness will sometimes smite a goblin, and fill him with irrational passions, resembling love. It is best cured with a strong dose of Dalby's Carminative (1s 9p per bottle) or Frampton's Pill of Health (1s 1p per box of 20)."

 

[Sanackranib]

goblin ideas

look for the dungeon mag module tallows deep. you will have to convert the monsters but the ideas really work. its amazing what even piddly goblins or kobolds can do when the cards are all stacked in THEIR favor.

Good luck!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

In my campaign, I have the goblin hegemony (i am not sure if that`s the english expression for it).
You could as well call it a goblin empire.
It is lead by hobgoblins (beeing lawful evil it is easy for them to maintain a big empire).
In armies, Goblins usually take more technical positions, and bugbears are the grunts with heavy weapons & armor.

Though it seems to be a big, single Empire, it is actually not. Many hobgoblin warlords are in conflict with each other, and this severely weakened their empire in the past.
In this moments of conflict, orcs invaded their empire and gained control over some parts of it. The hobgoblin warlords worked together to get back as much as possible, but currently, there are no further advances. The warlords do not really trust each other, and are waiting for the others to make a mistake to spring onto it.

Not all of the warlords are neccessary evil, but only insiders would know who isn`t, and most of them don`t care if someone is good, neutral or evil...

Thanks to the strong hobgoblin influence in the Empire, you should expect big armies (and starfighter squadrons in my campaign, since it is a space-fantasy campaign) fighting in tight formations, highly efficient reactions to threats (especially fireball-slinger - tight formations aren`t really a good way to counter them, but imagine the typcial fleeing caused by it precisely organized).
(Mechanical-wise, you could describe it as the armies readying an action, and once their accompinieng caster fraction has identified, but not dispelled a fireball or cone of cold, they all use their action to spread out before the spell hits..
Alternatively, you could use the swarm rules from fiends folio or D20 Modern to emulate an armed mass as a single unit, which also eases your bookkeeping)

Sometimes a leader might assemble a special task force, similar to a regular adventuring group (but only consisting out of goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears), dedicated to the destruction of special enemy buildungs, troups or similar things...

A hobgoblin leader would probably use bugbear bodyguards, and maybe goblins or other hobgoblins for gathering intelligence, when he nears a possibly dangerous region.

The inner conflicts of a goblin society allow for some nice "dungeon-politics" part... Even if the players do not expect it, and only want to kill things, they might come between the frontiers of two enemy armies, which might be ... interesting. Especially when they decide not to work with any of them and are suddenly confronted with a new and short lived alliance directed against them...

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[bwgwl]

i had an old campaign where goblins were the major enemy.

worg riders with some fighter levels and mounted combat feats are nasty.

goblin archers with even one rogue level can get ugly -- sneak attack ambushes and all...

my goblins also had two racial prestige classes that i used from time to time. if your PCs are only 2nd level, they probably shouldn't be encountering these types of opponents just yet, but they may be something to keep in mind.

the first were the spider riders (detailed here). basically just like it sounds, they ride monstrous spiders into combat. can be really nasty for ambush attacks -- the spiders can climb anywhere and catch the PCs unawares. i used them mainly when my group was traveling through a dense forest -- the spider riders would swarm out of the canopy, down tree trunks and surprise the party.

the second prestige class was the stalkers (detailed here). these were goblins "intensively trained in the arts of tracking, hunting, and killing humanoid opponents larger than themselves. They operate with stealth, incredibly sharp senses, and ferocious cunning." also, very good for giving Medium-size PCs a run for their money.

a couple others i threw against the party were a pair of fighter/rogues -- one tricked out with a spiked chain (Expertise, Improved Trip, Improved Disarm, among other feats) and another who had a totally maxed out Tumble skill and was virtually impossible to hit in combat.

and then there was my favorite goblin NPC, who nearly wiped out the whole party -- a vampire goblin rogue.

the goblins know they are physically weaker than the larger races, and their tactics will reflect that. also, goblins aren't stupid -- they're just as smart as humans and their tactics should also reflect that. they won't just assault the PCs in waves of melee. they'll snipe at them from range, use their wolf, worg, and spider mounts for greater maneuverability and mobility, harry the PCs whenever they try to rest, retreat whenever the PCs engage them a little too closely, and otherwise try to win through gradually wearing down the party until they can't mount an effective resistance any more.