The Goblin Isles- Help me flesh this out!

[NealTS]

Alright, guys, here's the plan:

Next week, I'll be starting a campaign for a new group, and I need your help. I'm a little out of practice and all (I've been an armchair DM for about five years now). Anyhow, the group seems to lean more toward fighting and dungeoneering than it does political intrigue. As a result, I want to do something Keep on the Borderlands-ish, y'know, surrounded by monsters with only a tiny pocket of civilization to call home. That way, friends and enemies are pretty clear cut- at least on the surface. If they warm to town-based stuff, the option is certainly there.

The whole Caves of Chaos thing is a little hackneyed, though (not to mention a bit contrived). Why not put the goblins on islands? Islands far away from civilization, like an ocean away. This got my mind rolling in the direction of the Golden Age of Piracy, Port Royal, and all that, but that wasn't really what I was going for. Pirates are the ultimate anti-heroes, dashing, charming, ruthless killers who would complicate the "us vs. them" simplicity of it all. So, clearly, "back home" has to be a monolithic Empire rather than a bunch of squabbling nations, at least at first. So, the PCs are colonists, guards, merchants, whatever, sent off to the New World to reap the riches of the Goblin Isles. Obviously, the goblins aren't happy about it.

For the flavor of the campaign itself I'm wanting a Conquistador/Pirates of the Caribbean II/Heart of Darkness feel. The goblins aren't primitive like cavemen with sharpened sticks and goofy accents. They don't live in caves, for one thing, but in villages deep in the island jungles. The warriors are not cowardly mooks who wet themselves at the first sign of trouble, but fierce warriors who consume the flesh of the fallen to gain their power. Their shamans aren't adepts with a few piddly spells that squabble with chiefs for control of the tribes, but frightening masters of voodoo with alien powers that strike fear into goblins and humans alike. I'm thinking about disallowing most of the core necromancy spells for wizards and priests and making the shamans Dread Necromancers from Heroes of Horror or something. I'm open to suggestions. Basically, when it comes to goblins, don't think bad D&D novel. Think bad Island of the Cannibal God movie.

"Home base" will be a small but rapidly growing port city on the near edge of the islands. This isle, being as heavily populated by humans as it is and being on the periphery of the isles is a relatively safe place. Most of the goblins are "tame," accepting human ministry and serving as menial laborers (okay, so I had to sneak a little moral ambiguity in there). Once one ventures deeper into the archipelago, though, things become distinctly more dangerous. Again, very Heart of Darkness. In thinking about the town, the only big hook that stick in my mind is "Ali-Gukhra's House of Fish," a fish market run by a goblin who has been (illusioned? polymorphed?) to look like an exotic gnome or human in order to spy and engage in general skullduggery.

Aaaaannnnnddd... This is kind of where I run out of ideas. I can only throw so many crazy voodoo goblins at the PCs before they become even more of a cliche than the whiny horde members in leather armor. One kinda neat (I think) idea is the idea of "spike ships," effectively canoes with large rudders and soft iron piercing rams. Goblins ram and approaching ship head on with these and then lock their rudders. The iron rams bend as the ship forces its way forward. The collection of ships all stuck into one side yank the ship off course, usually towards shore. Meanwhile, the goblins swing up to board the (hopefully beached) enemy vessel. The idea is basically a nautical pilum. Is this feasible? Or will I be laughed away from the gaming table? And what other weird ideas can you guys come up with? I can always just steal the Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now plot whole cloth, with a former guardian of the realm who's "gone native." I dunno.

Anyway, I hope I've given you all enough to work with, while leaving enough wiggle room that you can help.

 

[Brakkart]

One kinda neat (I think) idea is the idea of "spike ships," effectively canoes with large rudders and soft iron piercing rams. Goblins ram and approaching ship head on with these and then lock their rudders. The iron rams bend as the ship forces its way forward. The collection of ships all stuck into one side yank the ship off course, usually towards shore. Meanwhile, the goblins swing up to board the (hopefully beached) enemy vessel. The idea is basically a nautical pilum. Is this feasible? Or will I be laughed away from the gaming table?

I'll grant you that it sounds neat,. but I very much doubt it would work. The pilum was a great invention as it was deisigned to go through shields of hide or thin wood and then bend, it's weight then dragging the shield down. The hulls of ships though are built from fairly thick planks of wood that are soaked until pliable and then curved to the ship's framework and bolted/nailed into place. When they harden they retain the shape. It's one thing to drive a soft point through a surface less than a centimeter thick, quite another to do so through a plank a couple inches thick. A thrown pilum is going much faster than any rowed ship ever could, the soft ramming point would just impact on the hull and not go through.

 

[Tonguez]

On the Goblin ship idea - go for speed. Catamarans were much faster than the european ships they encountered and were able to circle the ships a number of times - use that speed for goblin raiders

Some Plot Hooks

1. The Cult of the Volcano God: a long extinct volcano starts to rumble, the goblins declare that the Volcano God is angry and about to return. They're right and the Volcano God just happens to be a Magma Paraelemental with a score to settle - can the PCs appease the fickle god?

2. Sacred Ground: oops the colonist have trespassed on sacred ground and now they are beingplagued by grissly goblin ghasts (and the occasional Barghest). Can they convince the local Shaman to help?

3. Swamp Sickness - the colony is struck by a strange sickness and the only cure lies deep in the jungle where even the goblins will not go

4. Throw in some Insectoid 'Spider' Goblins, and don't forget the aquatic goblin-sharks?

5. Oh and aboreal brachiating bugbears (known as Mangani)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Goblin variants for different islands:

1) An island ruled by a barghest
2) An island where the goblin and wolf relationship has given the tribe a ruling class of "natural" werewolf goblins
3) Forestkith goblins from MM3 work great as jungle goblins
4) An island where a blue (from XPH) rules the tribe

 

[jim pinto]

Goblin variants for different islands:

1) An island ruled by a barghest
2) An island where the goblin and wolf relationship has given the tribe a ruling class of "natural" werewolf goblins
3) Forestkith goblins from MM3 work great as jungle goblins
4) An island where a blue (from XPH) rules the tribe

whizbang, sadly i've never seen you on here before, but that is the best screenname i've ever seen... unless it's a gnome name...

in which case it's not



i really like this island idea. i'd like to see a lot of heirarchy among the goblins. various skin colors and so on, but with a smart caste system that people aren't trying to overthrow, but rather something vital to the survival of their race. draw upon hindi or sumerian myth.

catamaran was a great idea, as well.

harpoons? goblin whalers? rumrunners?

 

[mir]

Maybe the archipelago used to be a large unified Goblin Empire, which just prior to the arrival of the colonists had balkanized into squabbling petty kingdoms. The colony might be trying to play one petty lord against another, to keep the kingdoms weak and divided. The early British colonization of India could give you lots of ideas.

The boat pilum thing is cool. The spike wouldn’t have to penetrate thru the hull, it only has to stick into the wood enough to anchor the canoe. So I think it’s plausible. But more importantly it’s cool, so use it.

Some random ideas:

-The Goblins keep herds of giant spiders which they use to make woven spider silk armor and clothes.

-Just off the coast of some of the larger islands are submerged Koa-Toa cities. The Koa-Toa raid the islands for slaves, food and supplies. How will the fish people respond to the colonists?

-The archipelago is the remains of a continent which has sunken beneath the waves.

-Undead don’t need to breath so how about zombie giant octopuses using their tentacles to drag themselves overland or a Lich Kraken with a permanent flight spell that terrorizes the entire area.

 

[NealTS]

I'm digging on the idea of a shattered goblin empire, for a couple of reasons: 1) playing various tribes off each other is just what a vastly outnumbered group of colonists would do, and it fits in nicely with the conquistador theme (after all, most of Cortez's army were natives who had their own bones to pick with Tenochtitlan). 2) Again dovetailing with the conquistador idea, I'm thinking that the War of Unification "back home" ended only recently, forming the monolithic empire on the home continent. As with the completion of the Spanish Reconquista (driving the Moors out of southern Spain), this leaves a young warrior class with no war to fight. In such a situation, your goal is to get them as far away from your precious cities as possible, i.e., to the New World. This idea of a newly unified Old World vs. a newly divided New World appeals to me. Heck, maybe the appearance of the colonists (and the foreign diseases they brought with them?) caused the balkanization of the islands.

As per the pilum ships, yeah, I agree that even a head-on collision wouldn't be sufficient to drive soft iron into a hardened hull. I'm glad that you all seem to agree that it's a neat idea, though. So then the problem becomes making it work. How about *waves hands* magic? Goblin shamans cast Magic Weapon on the spikes before they launch. I think that'll be justification enough to sneak the ships into one encounter. It's kind of a one-off trick anyway.

I'm going to introduce "failed colonies" further along in the campaign. Attempts at putting towns on deeper islands that have resulted in the inhabitants being sacrificed to the jungle gods and all that. Real grisly-type stuff, wot wot?

And motivation... motivation... There's always the old standby of ancient goblin gold, which, combined with the increasingly bored and fidgety warrior class at home has led to a stepped up colonization/conquest effort. I feel like that's kind of a cheap way out, though, and takes the analogy a bit too far (though it certainly does work). Any other reasons you guys can think up? And keep the other ideas coming, too! I do appreciate it.

 

[Endur]

Use Warhammer Forest Goblin figures for your witch doctor and other goblinoid island natives.

They'll be a great fit.

Goblins riding Giant Spiders -- perfect for the Voodoo Cultist.

 

[Rel]

This whole idea runs kind of parallel to the one I had last night while watching Pirates II. Half way through the movie I knew my next campaign would be a Fantasy Caribbean game.

The one caution I'd offer is that I think the players will get tired eventually if it's always just some new flavor of Goblin (though I do think you can get a lot of mileage out of the Goblins for a long time). I think you need a few other critter types mixed in to mix it up some.

As suggestions for a couple, my campaign will DEFINATELY have some Crabmen lurking just out on the reef in their Coral Castles underwater. And I think you can have a lot of cool shipboard battles if you'll put a race of seafarers who dominate the waves the way the Goblins dominate the jungles. How about some kind of Monkeymen who are totally adept at swinging from sail to rigging? And of course the Goblins will attack them when they stray too close to shore but cannot fully destroy them because on their home island lives...King Kong!

In fact, that could be the central focus of the campaign if you wanted. When the Goblins sacrifice King Kong to their Volcano God then they will have total dominance over the archipelago!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

How about some kind of Monkeymen who are totally adept at swinging from sail to rigging?

A Spelljammer race has been adapted to just such purpose in Stormwrack.