How would you defend your subterranean kingdom?

[mmadsen]

If you're a Goblin, and you're expecting attacks from Men, it only makes sense to play to your strengths and their weaknesses. Goblins are short; Men are tall. All ceilings should be four or five feet high; doors should be even shorter.

Goblins can see in the dark; Men can't. Obviously there should be no lanterns or torches and no windows or skylights to bring in light. Any sign of light is a sign of invasion. Traps and ambushes can rely on the fact that Men can only see so far in torch light.

Goblins show discretion; Men are fools who expect a square fight. Why stand and fight when you can throw down javelins from protected ledges? Why not drop terrible things from (and thrust short spears through) "murder holes"? Thick walls are cheap when you live in a mountain. The entire kingdom can work as a series of castle gate houses.

With a straight assault almost impossible -- no walls to topple or climb over, and deathtrap gatehouses at every approach -- you then have to worry about other siege techniques. Can they dig around your existing defended tunnels? It should take a long, long time, but if you can't sally forth to stop them, they'll go for it. So the wolfriders need a secret exit for counter attacks.

Can they flood you out or smoke you out? If you're going to live underground, take note of how those Men handle gophers and other underground enemies.

 

[Stormdale]

Two words: Tallow's Deep!

An old module from Dungeon mag (#18). I just ran an updated version with PCs (5 & 6th level party), the body count was about average: 3 or 4 PCs in 3 sorties and they didn't get half way through.

"Dammit, they are only goblins. How tough can they be?"

Some of the highlights of this lair:

Ambushes, narrow passages (5' high & wide), goblin traps built in 3D!

The PCs really, really hate my Viet-kong goblins and their "pillboxes."

If you can get a hold of this adventure I highly recommend it. Lots of fun (for a DM) and you'll never design a goblin fortress the same after it!

Goblin should make full use of traps, narrow passages, killing zones, secret passages and any other advantage they can find. In Tallow's Deep for instance there is a midden with a green slime so I had the goblins (carefully) full clay flasks with the stuff and use it as a grenade! Nasty, but that's what goblin's should be.

Stormdale

 

[Agback]

Defending an underground kingdom

Another constraint to consider is that a goblin tribe is probably rather poor. They might have expensive one-shot defences for dire emergencies, but most of the defences will have to be rather cheap or else reusable.

A couple of obvious defences spring to mind:

1) The entrance tunnels and outer caverns should be defended through arrow slits and murder holes from spaces that are connected back into the secure areas, but which have no entrances into the areas they are defending. And each one should be covered by another one. That way any attackers will have to file past an arrow slit/murder hole, their pioneers will not be able to create a safe passage for the back up that follows them.

2) The complex should be divided into compartments that are sealed off by airtight doors or by water-filled U-passages so that we can't be smoked out. On the other hand, we ought to invest in [items that allow us to cast] gas spells like Stinking Cloud, and should install furnaces in which we can burn sulphur etc. to fill areas that have fallen to the enemy with poisonous and irritating smoke.

3) Tunnelling is extremely laborious, so we probably can't afford to collapse roofs too often. Nevertheless rigging chambers and tunnels so that we can collapse them is a good insurance policy against dire threats. The cheaper alternative (for use against lesser threats) is to rig some areas and tunnels so that we can flood them with water (water, ewspecially seeing that it need not be of potable quality, is much much cheaper than oil and available in larger quantities).

4) If we get lucky we might find that some of our tunnels collect firedamp. That's not much of a problem for us, because we don't need fire to see. But if we can either mislead humans into those tunnels or somehow introduce the firedamp into the tunnels they are in it ought to be good for a giggle.

5) Cheap and deadly. We're probably too poor to afford Fireballs and Cloudkills. But we can, for instance, breed wasps and poisonous centipedes. When an area is captured by the enemy, drop in a beehive or a bushel of black widows.

6) The enemy must attack through limited ground area. So let's drop tanglefoot bags or winchesters of cooking oil on the floor in bottlenecks, and cover the area through a pair of arrowslits.

7) Borrow neighbours' defences. We can construct tunnels into the lairs of monsters that are more powerful than ourselves, but that don't share an elf's ability to detect secret doors, or that are large to squeeze down our tunnels. When attacked, we decoy our enemies into the tunnels and let them fight it out with the neighbours. Or we build lairs and encourage dangerous beasts to settle in them.

8) Stagecraft. Use puppets, painted backdrops &c (instead of expensive illusions) to fool the attackers into firing off their spells.

9) Cultivate slimes and deadly fungi. Breed dangerous beasts in cages and release them into captured parts of the complex.

10) Install voice tubes. These can be used for quick discreet communications, and can also be used to eavesdrop into areas that have fallen to the enemy and in which they might be planning their next assaults.

11) No-one expects to find a 'trip'wire at 4'6" above the floor.

12) Keep hostages, and kill them at the slightest provocation.

13) If we manage to fight off an attack by terrorists, launch a reprisal against the community from which they staged their raid.

14) Go to some efforts to make sure that attackers cannot easily revivify their fallen or heal their injured. A reputation for irreversible deadliness will to some extent deterr aggression. So finish off their wounded, capture their fallen, and feed them to the wolves.

15) Be prepared to abandon our complex and escape through any of several tunnels we can collapse after we have passed. Better homeless than dead.

Regards,


Agback

 

[mmadsen]

Re: Defending an underground kingdom

Great post, Agback!

Another constraint to consider is that a goblin tribe is probably rather poor. They might have expensive one-shot defences for dire emergencies, but most of the defences will have to be rather cheap or else reusable.

I consider this the chief constraint on the goblin tribe. What can they do with some good ol' "malicious ingenuity" (but not much else)? After all, they're trying to support a whole tribe on a few low-risk raids and some highway robbery; they're neither rich nor powerful.

The entrance tunnels and outer caverns should be defended through arrow slits and murder holes...

I shudder to think just how murderous murder holes and arrow slits could be in an underground complex of narrow passages.

And each one should be covered by another one. That way any attackers will have to file past an arrow slit/murder hole, their pioneers will not be able to create a safe passage for the back up that follows them.

Excellent "castle" design.

The complex should be divided into compartments that are sealed off by airtight doors or by water-filled U-passages so that we can't be smoked out.

Airtight doors sound more dwarf (or gnome) than goblin, but water-filled U-passages...perfect!

 

[Vaxalon]

Cheap, nasty goblin trap

Imagine two water-filled u-shaped corridors with a bit of passageway in between. The area in the middle is filled with a poisonous gas, anything from heavy smoke to Insanity Mist. The natives know to keep holding their breath when they emerge from the first u-trap, and continue directly on to the second, but invaders take a deep breath when they emerge from the u-trap and get hit with the poison gas.

 

[Forrester]

Pardon my ignorance, but I'm not getting the "Water-filled U-passages" reference. Exactly what does that look like (I know, a "U", ha ha), and what does it get you?

 

[Tzarevitch]

I don't know if comeone stated this already but make sure the small tunnels (no larger than a tall goblin and about 2 goblins wide) twist and turn a lot with a lot of sharp corners. That way the invaders who will be strung out in the passages cannot engage you with their whole force. Your goblins can then engage lone enemies at the front or rear without support of magic and missile fire from the rest of the companions. Also make sure the ground is rough so that footing is poor. If possible, keep the ceiling sharp (or at least rough) too to prevent fast movement of bigger enemies. Tunnels should also slope up from time to time to prevent gas clouds like Cloudkill from entering and wiping out the entire tribe.

Use a lot of twigs, gravel and other noisy matierials as flooring in the entry passages so that enemies can't sneak up on your sentries. Conceal caltrops (very cheap) in the debris. Use tripwires tied to alarm devices (bells) a LOT. They are cheaper than alarm spells and force invaders to loose surprise or stop and spend a lot of time disarming them.

Animals with scent (dogs for instance) are VERY hard to fool. They make better guards than goblins do and will raise the alarm. They also are much better attackers than standard goblins. If you are using the small, twisting tunnel defense you can't use full size wargs and dire wolves. They are too big. The goblins should store the dire wolves and worgs outside. Keep ordinary wolves or smaller dire wolves/worgs inside as guards.

All goblins (if they have a class level or two) should know PB shot and Rapid Shot if possible. Range is our friend. Goblins can't do much damage in melee but they can get a lot of shots off (hopefully with cheap poison). Ranges will be short due to the twisting passages so PB shot helps. If they can get shot-on-the-run, even better. Hit and run always. Do not stop and engage, make your foes chase you (crawling in narrow tunnels that are unfamiliar to them.)

Goblins should always take cover and only go from cover to cover. If no cover is available, use miniature tower shields for the goblin archers to hide behind. (Each goblin has a shield bearer whose job it is to handle the shield).

Tzarevitch

 

[mmadsen]

Pardon my ignorance, but I'm not getting the "Water-filled U-passages" reference. Exactly what does that look like (I know, a "U", ha ha), and what does it get you?

Look under your sink. You'll see a U-shaped segment of pipe. That U stays filled with water, forming a seal between the evil, nasty things that have gone down the pipe and smell bad and your pleasant residence that doesn't smell quite as bad.

In the goblin kingdom, U-shaped passages filled with water could keep out smoke, poisonous gasses, etc.

 

[Trevalon Moonleirion]

I didn't see anyone else mentioning this in my brief skim of the thread, but has anyone tried out Reverse Dungeon? It's one of the last 2e products that got put out I think, but it wouldn't be all that hard to convert I don't think. It always looked fun, but I was too lazy to run it...lol

 

[Forrester]

Look under your sink. You'll see a U-shaped segment of pipe. That U stays filled with water, forming a seal between the evil, nasty things that have gone down the pipe and smell bad and your pleasant residence that doesn't smell quite as bad.

In the goblin kingdom, U-shaped passages filled with water could keep out smoke, poisonous gasses, etc.

Ahh -- got it. So the gobbies will just have to do 5' to 10' of swimming, then, right? A small cost to pay to protect the main area -- but it won't protect the goblins behind the murder-holes.

I have to say, the idea of flooding the area with a trap is GREAT. Lethal *and* simple. Hell, even if there isn't a waterway nearby, a few clerics memorizing nothing but Create Water or Create Food And Water for a month or two could probably generate a few thousand cubic feet of water for said trap (8 gallons a cubic foot, right?)

(I think a 4th level cleric gets something like 5 cantrips, 4 1st level spells, and 3 2nd level spells, with a wisdom bonus. Use them all for Create Water (8 gallons each, or one cubic foot). That's 12 cubic feet of water a day -- 600 cubic feet after 50 days. Enough to flood a 25' by 5' by 5' passage. Woohoo!)