D&D 5E Goblins and their "Curse of Strife"

[Hexmage-EN]

So recently WotC talked about how in the future they were looking to change how they depicted various creatures, such as orcs. Wildemount was given as an example of where they were headed in the future. Whereas other 5E sources established orcs had an inherent drive to violence that even good orcs had to constantly suppress, Wildemount's write-up on orcs invents the term "curse of ruin" for this drive before dismissing it as a myth. There is no curse of ruin, just people who have heard of this false curse and used any example of an orc getting mad to argue it was real.

However, Wildemount DOES establish a real curse on goblinkin, the curse of strife.

Here are some quotes concerning it from Explorer's Guide to Wildemount:

• "The term 'goblinkin' refers to three types of related peoples: goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears. All three are affected by Bane's curse of strife..."
• "Goblinkin who manage to overcome Bane's curse are freed from the compulsion that leads them to evil. Unless the goblinkin was freed near birth, however, they have likely internalized their bias towards law, chaos, or neutrality..."
• "It is nearly impossible for a goblinkin to break Bane's curse on their own."
• "Whenever a goblinkin returns to consciousness after being reduced to 0 hit points, they can make a DC 20 Wisdom saving throw, with advantage if they were brought back to life. On a success, the goblinkin breaks free from the curse of strife. A goblinkin targeted by remove curse can also make this saving throw, with advantage on the save if the caster is a trusted companion."
• "Many bugbears are cleansed of the curse from birth by a druidic order of bugbears who managed to break free from Bane's influence decades ago."
• "Goblins who suffer from the curse of strife are...goaded by Bane to commit acts of wanton destruction and malice."
• "Hobgoblins afflicted by the curse of strife are almost exclusively lawful evil, and are urged towards acts of conquest."
• "Bugbears who suffer under Bane's influence are typically chaotic evil..."

Elsewhere in the book it states that four special items called the Luxon beacons prevent a goblin that is born within 100 miles of one from ever being exposed to the curse of strife.

Personally, I understand the in-setting justification for this. Bane is the god of tyranny and conquest who created the goblinkin for specific roles and uses this curse to try and make sure they follow his commands. That sounds exactly like something a god of tyranny would do.

I was fully onboard with the concept. It retains a reason for goblins to be low-level opponents while also giving players multiple reasons to deal peacefully with goblinkin or to subdue them instead of killing them, as showing compassion gives them a chance to make a saving throw against the curse. An encounter with goblinkin might even be resolved by casting "remove curse" on the leader of a hostile group. These goblinkin, now free of the curse, could go back to their communities and help free their families and friends from the curse through acts of compassion.

Further, there's an established group of bugbears druids interested in helping other goblinkin free themselves of the curse. A player character goblin might have been freed of the curse with the help of that organization. They might make it their personal mission to try and free as many goblinkin of the curse as they can, viewing the god of tyranny as a fiend who treats his people as mere tools of conquest. They might free fellow goblins of the curse and teach freed goblin communities how to make sure future generations avoid Bane's curse. It might become traditional for goblinkin parents to take their newborn children to spiritual leaders who use their holy magic to protect the children from the influence of Bane.

A DM could even run a goblinkin-only campaign where the ultimate goal is to stop Bane's curse of strife at its source. Bane, god of tyranny and conquest, defeated by the goblinkin people he created as mere tools of conquest!

I personally found this all very inspiring. Sure, it was a little weird that the same book would call out the orc's supposed curse of ruin as fake only to establish a real curse of strife for goblinkin, but the way it was presented as something that could be defeated through compassion and holy magic was very inspiring. It made me interested in playing as a goblin for the first time. It made me want to include more goblinkin in games I run as friendly NPCs. It made me want to run a scenario where goblins are raiding merchant caravans for food that could be resolved by the players bringing a cart full of food to the goblin village, an act of compassion so surprising for the goblins that it allows them all to make a save with advantage gainst the curse of strife.

However, after bringing up the details of the curse of strife on another forum, a number of people had some very strong criticisms of the concept.

I quote one reply in particular (which I have edited for bravery) because it summarized a lot of the points others had raised and added new ones:

• That goblinkin can be broken free from the curse more easily when they're very young is reminiscent of real world illegal adoption industries, where Christian parents believe they are saving a child from sin by taking them from their homeland and its culture.
• That goblinkin can be shaken free of the curse of strife through compassion is reminiscent of the language used by Conversion Therapy advocates.
• That goblinkin can be shaken free of the curse of strife through experiencing traumatic events ignores the real world effects of trauma.
• The solutions proposed to the curse of strife are too similar to harmful things people have done to real people in the real world for comfort.

So I've decided to see what people here think of the goblins of Wildemount and the concept of the curse of strife. Is it an interesting bit of worldbuilding, a hook for goblinkin player characters, and a means to encourage encounters with goblinkin that end positively, or is it too evocative of the real world issues this person brought up?

 

[DEFCON 1]

The problem everyone will face in any game that involves fantastical elements is that any of those fantastical elements could be seen as allegory to some part of real life situation. When that happens... a certain segment of the population will take issue with it because it can be seen as problematic for certain people and from certain points of view. It's impossible to not have that occur. I mean, even a simple standard magical spell like 'Charm Person'... when taken apart and analyzed it is incredibly simple to see how the idea of it can be problematic when taken at face value and attributed to real life. We actually already had that occur with the 'Love Domain' bruehaha several months ago.

What is inevitable in situations like this is that some people will point out how something is problematic/bad when looked at in a certain direction through a certain prism. Usually, they have a point that it could be seen that way from a certain point of view. But that is when the rest of society takes a look at it and comes to a group conclusion as to whether it is a view that most people see and agree with, or if it takes such a roundabout way to get there most people will determine it's really too much of a stretch to make it into something actionable. And what that happens, society as a whole just sort of says "We can understand the potential for concern, but most people can tell the difference between the thing and what could be considered a problem. And thus it isn't as much of a concern right now as you are telling us."

So in the case of Charm Person... I think most of society has come to the conclusion that the spell is "magic" and thus not possible, it's a part of a fantastical "game" and thus does not represent actual life, and it is written in such a way as to not align with whatever real-life techniques are used for gaslighting or domestic abuse or cult behavior etc. We might be able to agree from a certain point of view that if Charm Person was a real thing that it could certainly be used to commit atrocities... but just the existence of the idea of the spell is far enough away from reality that it can't be seen as potentially harmful or hurtful to 99.99% of the world, and thus we can and will all just brush it off. Now could there be someone in the 11 billion people of Earth wherein just the idea of the spell Charm Person is a triggering event for them? Sure. But that is true for every single thing possible and we can't eliminate everything. That's just statistically not possible. So at some point society just says "Sorry, but the view you are seeing this with is just too far afield for most of us and what you are asking the rest of us to accommodate you for is just too much" and we collectively choose not to act on it.

In the case of Wildemount... sure the Curse of Strife could be seen as problematic from a certain point of view. But as that is the case potentially with everything in the game... picking and choosing this one thing over anything else would need to really pick up steam with players for the rest of society to agree with them. And I don't personally see this specific thing in the game achieving that right now. There are a lot of other stuff in the game that I suspect will get touched upon first before Curse of Strife (but then again, I could be wrong.)

Now that societal voice that decides collectively whether something is worth keeping or not keeping obviously can and will change over time. And what was considered fine or at least ignorable by most people at one point in time might no longer be seen as such later on. And that's where we get all the complaints we see of "Well, if it wasn't bad then, why is it bad now?!?" And the answer of course is that the group that was seeing this thing from a certain point of view and found it problematic had a much smaller voice. But that voice can always grow louder. And when it does, society can choose to make the change. Now granted, it usually helps when the change gets tied to economic reasons-- companies and corporations follow the almighty dollar and if the group of voices that is getting larger fall into the 18-45 demographic of purchasing power, then the companies are more apt to listen to them than the 60+ age group ranting about how the "kids today" don't know what they're talking about. So it isn't always altruism that pushes change forward... but if at the end of the day if you get where you are going, does it matter what spurred on the horses to get you there?

 

[Weiley31]

I see the Curse of Strife as an interesting "devil on the shoulder" type thing that would explain the negative aspects of Goblinkind.

 

[Parmandur]

One important distinction for Exandria: Bane did not create the Goblinoids, he conquered them and twisted them with his curse. Given that the curse is not an intrinsic part of them, bit something forced from outside, the way the book handles it makes sense to me.

 

[DemoMonkey]

"You can't have creatures that are inherently evil! That's offensive for real world reasons!"

"Oh. Fair enough. How about creatures that are evil because they are cursed, but there are ways to remove or prevent the curse?"

"HOW DARE YOU IMPLY THAT CURSES CAN BE REMOVED OR PREVENTED!! That's offensive for real world reasons!"

Damned if you do, damned if you don't I guess.

 

[jgsugden]

D&D is an RPG. A role playing game. Characters play a role in a story. Most stories are battles against something that is wrong, and that can be fixed.

Here, goblinkind are enslaved by an evil God. Their free will is limited, if not removed, by the curse. This would be similar to a leader directing his people to attack a neighboring community through misinformation or intimidation. The assumption is not that they are bad people - but that they are forced to be bad against natural inclinations. Obviously, this is a step on a slippery slope, but in the eyes of many, it is not too far along that slope.

I'm betting there is a chance that Mercer addresses this in the coming years on Critical Role by having heroes put an end to the curse.

 

[pukunui]

While I don’t have a problem with any of this per se, I do find it a little odd that WotC would choose to unshackle one group (orcs) from their problematic lore while at the same time introducing a whole new set of shackles for another group (goblins).

If Wildemount is an example of where their hearts are, it seems like maybe their heads haven’t quite caught up yet.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

What makes sense in a world of magic is going to mirror what makes sense in the world of magical thinking that certain religious fundamentalists inhabit. The moment an "evil god" shows up in the setting you are going to have certain parallels between characters fighting it and real world zealotries.

 

[ccs]

I quote one reply in particular (which I have edited for bravery) because it summarized a lot of the points others had raised and added new ones:

• That goblinkin can be broken free from the curse more easily when they're very young is reminiscent of real world illegal adoption industries, where Christian parents believe they are saving a child from sin by taking them from their homeland and its culture.
• That goblinkin can be shaken free of the curse of strife through compassion is reminiscent of the language used by Conversion Therapy advocates.
• That goblinkin can be shaken free of the curse of strife through experiencing traumatic events ignores the real world effects of trauma.
• The solutions proposed to the curse of strife are too similar to harmful things people have done to real people in the real world for comfort.

So what was this geniuses feelings on the ages old standby method of solving the evil goblin problem - stabbing them until they're dead?
Should we now avoid doing that because people here in the real world also get stabbed to death?

So I've decided to see what people here think of the goblins of Wildemount and the concept of the curse of strife. Is it an interesting bit of worldbuilding, a hook for goblinkin player characters, and a means to encourage encounters with goblinkin that end positively, or is it too evocative of the real world issues this person brought up?

Sure, sounds interesting enough. If you can make use of it, use it. Maybe check with your players & see if they've got an opinion on it. But at least it's another way to deal with the goblins & might make for different stories.
I mean, in my general experience, unless given a reason to (such as in the Wildemount setting) players rarely care why the goblin is evil. DMs either. It's evil because the MM says so, full stop. Because it's the low lv monster you have to exterminate in The Lost Mines to get xp & treasure....

Humorous thought - if an evil goblin can change alignments after being reduced to 0 HP & surviving, could the curse reclaim a non-evil goblin who suffers the same trauma?

 

[Todd Roybark]

While I don’t have a problem with any of this per se, I do find it a little odd that WotC would choose to unshackle one group (orcs) from their problematic lore while at the same time introducing a whole new set of shackles for another group (goblins).

Or it shows that the flavor of settings is customizable.

Now instead of Half-Orcs being the angsty hero type fighting against inner darkness, it can be goblins.

Sidebars detailing designer intent, is a best practice. WotC needs to do this with much greater regularity.

As a DM, I hate creating names. I either use other published names, like Bane in Wildemont, or grab my trusty Almanac of the Ancient World.

Wildemont, like many homebrew setting, clearly is leaning into recycling traditional elements with a twist.