Goblin Fortress/Ideas and Suggestions

[Tuka]

So Tuka, a second level rogue and second level ranger has managed to become king of the Goblins.

Brief Summary of Events:
Got seperated from party. Found a goblin cave were he met with a few of the chiefs. All the tribes are living in the same cave with different chiefs for each tribe. Stole a staff of weather from the strongest chief in his sleep. Got it blamed on the grey tribe, who then got decimated by the orange chief. Under the suggestion of the yellow chief *who wanted to usurp the orange one as high chief* challenged a killed the green chief. I used a sneak attack and black lotus poison. Immediately challenged the orange chief after his battle with the grey tribe. Killed him with the same poison and sneak attack damage. Then walked up to the Yellow Chief and blasted him with the weather staff and fried him.

So I looted their bodies and my stats are now (using magic items) 21str, 22dex, 17con, 21int, 10wis+cha. All the goblins and wargs now worship me. I have a tiny sized assassin comrade with a collar that has my name engraved in it. The lead warg is now mine and is my mount. I've ordered the 1000 goblins assembled to pile all the magic items in the middle of the cave and all to take 20 on searches.

I want to make my goblin nation recognizable and respected. There are dwarves that have resurfaced over 1000 year absence who would be neutral towards me. I was wondering if you have had any experience with a situation like this?

I'm planning on focusing on crafting and training blacksmiths. Also I'm having the wisest children begin training under shamans. I think I'm going to have the shamans focus on making magic items and trying to find a way to extend the health of the goblins to rival humans and eventually elves.

How would you fortify your fortress (I plan on traveling to the dwarf cities, trading political assassinations for favors to help put allies in power) I want my city to be around when I get back, bringing books, skilled craftsmen to train and possibly a wizard or two if I can.

Thanks for your help :D

[8wGremlin]

You have 1000 level 1 goblin commoners...

read the Commoners Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=232822)...

If any of the goblins are higher level, what are they and how high.
Also if you leave why will they be loyal to you, perhaps you need to send diplomats instead of going...

[Tuka]

I only got a brief description of the caves so far. Lots of the goblins are leveled and have classes. Our DM is really good with that kind of stuff.

As for how I'm going to get them to stay loyal. I wrote an Epic Tale (I have it as a craft) of my conquests and exaggerated a bunch of stuff goblins generally wouldn't have known, which is on display in the centre of the cave complex. They haven't had a king in a few hundred years, none of them remember more than Chiefs. I'm leaving a few foreman in charge of their respective areas, blacksmiths/shamans/hunters+riders.

But I think I solved my trading problems since my friend is joining our campaign as a bard and I think I'll be running into him shortly.

Thanks a bunch for the help.

Cool ideas for dungeon design/links are always welcome too!

Cheers!

[ArcturusV]

Well, are Goblins in your campaign under any particular cultural limitations? Like in Faerun ALL Goblins are Neutral Evil. Locked in. This matters. If your Goblins are more cosmopolitan and can be anything, how I'd suggest you approach it is different.

Now you have a lot of factional infighting. You need a way to keep this under control if you want to create some Goblin Kingdom first off. This can be handled in two quick ways, and one long term way that leaps to mind immediately:

Method 1: Outside enemy. If you give your Goblins a threat that they MUST band together to overcome (Perhaps those Dwarves) this cuts down on infighting as their very survival can and should be painted as being at stake unless they can work together.

Method 2: Encourage Factional Fighting in limited Regards. This is kinda how the drow operate. They are expected to fight among themselves but in a ritualized fashion with rules and limitations. Assassinations rather than open warfare. You probably don't want to go to that extreme. but have things like a "Favored Faction" status, and some means that doesn't involve Dead Goblins to achieve "Favored Faction" status under your regime. This could be something like a Goblin Olympics (The faction who wins the most events is Favored), ritualized combat, or even recognition of great deeds (First Faction to figure out long term argicultural stability is Favored for a year, etc).

Method 3: Crosstraining. This is a long term goal. What it is, is to take the new generations of Goblins (so it would take something like 20 years to really take effect as the old guard dies off), and raise them in such a way that Factional differences aren't such a big deal. They train together, they school together, as Goblins "Graduate" your boot camps and academies they are formed into Mixed Factional squads, etc. If this is also combined with an external enemy a la method one it helps blur the Factional lines. Suddenly instead of "That Orange Faction Scum!" to the veterans and survivors of the conflict, it is, "Did I ever tell you about how Jimbo the Orange Faction guy saved my life in 'nam?"

This can help eliminate factional strife. At least in the open warfare and assassination varieties. The quicker you can eliminate that as a problem, the more effective your Goblin Nation will be.

[Squirrel_Dude]

*opens up stronghold builder's guide*
I knew this book would come in handy one day! Give me a sec, I'm sure there is something moderately useful here.

Magical Items you should look into procuring.
- Decanter of Endless Water
- Everburning Torches
- Immovable Rod
- Lantern of Revealing
- Quaal's Feather Token (Bird)

Random tips:
- Secret doors are your friend
- Lead lined walls if you want to help mess with divination spells.
- Murder holes are a good addition to any fortified doorway.
- Magically treat your doorways so that they are stronger
- Magically treat the iron bars in your dungeon

Oh, and make sure to buy yourself a nice room with a golden bath, and stock your kitchen with T-Rex eggs cause that's how to be a baller.

[8wGremlin]

Take a look at my posts on the how would your character ... (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14726867&postcount=301) thread

You can make rune circles only work for specific race, ie goblin

By turning the decanter of endless water in to a 5' sq rune circle of endless water usable by goblins only you reduce the price from 9000gp to

Goblin only -30%
Rune circle 5'sq -50%
= 3150gp


Oh and for extra cheesiness have the rune circles be built with statues of your likeness

[Tuka]

Thanks a ton ArcturusV and Squirrel.

ArcturusV

I really like all the ideas. I will implement the first and second immediately. There is a growing lich threat that ended a war between the orcs and humans just a while ago and is still on going. I've tried to distance myself from it because I lose lots of abilities fighting undead. But it would work as a good common enemy for now. I was thinking I could maybe split up groups into professions. I might have the professions compete against each other. This would allow them to work together to a goal and be rewarded for working as a team with the other goblin factions. At this point they all kind of obey me so I could stay for a while and make sure the fighting is minimal. I could use the wargs to help calm the initial tensions the change may take.

The third option is amazing and what I was looking to achieve in the long run. You did a great job in your explanation of it. It really gave me some great ideas, thanks again!

Do you think I should leave my loyal friend in command in a steward position and give him some magical items to make sure he wont be usurped. He has a collar is bound magically to me until I die. He would be a great asset to me in my party, I'm alone till I meet my bard friend. But it might be worth it to risk not losing my kingdom.

Squirrel Dude

I managed to get 3 immovable rods in my travels. I was planning on taking them with me, but if they would be useful in the fortress I might leave them.
I`m planning on murder holing and trapping the hell out of this place.
I have to research a few of the items you mentioned but that won`t take long. I might start digging and seeing if there might be any precious metals or anything in the cave, kinda doubting it because its in a hilly area. But it never hurts to try :D

Thanks a ton!

[Scow2]

Take a look at my posts on the how would your character ... (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14726867&postcount=301) thread

You can make rune circles only work for specific race, ie goblin

By turning the decanter of endless water in to a 5' sq rune circle of endless water usable by goblins only you reduce the price from 9000gp to

Goblin only -30%
Rune circle 5'sq -50%
= 3150gp


Oh and for extra cheesiness have the rune circles be built with statues of your likeness

But you can't strap a dozen of those rune circles to your back for an instant jetpack. Also - is it mobile? That's something critical to the decanter's function.

[Tuka]

8wGremlin that`s so badass! I`ll check out the link.

Thanks dude!

[Tuka]

Man rune circles are the tits!

[Fable Wright]

The problem with increasing the Goblin lifespan is overpopulation. If you really wanted to be able to keep them all alive, Traps of Create Food and Water would be the most efficient way to feed the tribe. Traps of Remove Disease would also help improving life in the tribe. Now, you have a population with way too much free time, which is a bad thing. The best way to handle it, of course, is to start training people for combat; training shamans, training warriors (and offering amenities like real meat and fruit to the best of them in each category, creating an imperative to do well) and generally creating a society where a lot of people have class levels. The best way to model your city would probably be the Roman Empire; 2 years of mandatory army service, bread and circuses. Of course, that's long-term stuff.

If you want the fortress to be there when you get back? Use the methods that the Goblins used for the last century or so. If they managed to set up a fortress, chances are that they also know how to defend it, and can keep it standing until you get back.

In the moderately short term, if you want to stay in power, find high level characters (preferably spellcasters) and recruit them to your side. There are probably a few 5th level characters in the fortress. Convince them to be your allies. They're respected pillars of the community and have powerful sway in addition to their combat prowess. Don't try to offer assassinations for political gain; if people find out you're killing people, they're much less likely to placidly accept your rule, and anyone in danger of being assassinated would turn against you (openly or otherwise) and destabilize your reign. Trade favor with the power centers, but keep assassination of the table.

Later, if you want to get your fortress respected, you need to get a resource that other nations need. This may be something as simple as mineral resources, or it could be having a large number of druids who are willing to work for hire (making yourself a name as a mercenary side). You need to provide something other people need to get political weight. Also, rather than focusing on making items, I would focus on getting high level Druids. Seriously. Getting a bunch of low level items is okay for trade, but it won't make you a big name for your fortress. Having a single 15th level druid, who can wreak unholy havoc on enemies by calling earthquakes on important structures in the form of a sparrow 1,000ft in the air several thousand feet out, is a much better in terms of making a name for your country. When your druids make items (which cost experience) rather than gain experience fighting, you don't get high level characters like that, and that's where you get real power in D&D.

[Tuka]

So what would you suggest I do with my character then? Since I was aiming at becoming an assassin. Should I start leveling different classes. I'm currently rogue2/ranger2. I guess I could just keep going that way and maybe assassinating known evil villains. Hmmm, so many options. What do?

[ArcturusV]

Well... one thing to keep in mind is that almost any group wants to be ruled by themselves (Even if it's a worse ruler in any metric, efficiency, inspiration, tyranny, etc) than they do by a Foreigner. For now I assume that keeping your population cowed by sheer force of arms and personality is enough. But that won't always be enough. Now if you can improve the tribes' lot in life, and become an "unofficial goblin" by some means, that helps make them feel like you're one of them, and thus more likely to accept your rule. Let them keep some cultural artifacts that don't impact your plans. Let them worship what gods they want. Let them eat what they want, etc. The more you try to make them into YOUR culture, the more they will resent it.

Presuming you have the time and inclination, pick out some of the best and brightest of the tribe. People who understand what it is you want to accomplish, and make one of them the caretaker while you are gone. If your buddy has some means like Detect Alignment, Zone of Truth, etc, to help the process of vetting the underling, that's good.

[Tuka]

Oh I am a goblin. I'm red and 4' tall. Spending some time in a magically enchanted area increased my height and strength a bit.

and my full name is

Tuka the Slayer of Many Things.

I introduced myself as that enough and it managed to stick.

Also when this character gets into epic level adventuring I'm debating attempting to make a stab at demi-god status. But that's a long ways away.

[Tuka]

Another question if I may?

So I have the gauntlets of ogre power. I would like to acquire the hammer of thunderbolts and belt of giant strength. How would I go about finding the hammer? Preferably before the belt. My DM is quite generous and will likely put the weapon in if I make the proper course of action and roleplay it out properly. Like finding out about the connection between the items, ask a shaman maybe? He might know of a correlation between the items or something.

[8wGremlin]

But you can't strap a dozen of those rune circles to your back for an instant jetpack. Also - is it mobile? That's something critical to the decanter's function.

Actually, a dozen of them would be 108,000 gp, and wouldn't really provide you enough thrust to get you off the ground. ( see other threads for details )

However free reliable water can be achieved by this.

Or if you have access to OA shamans they get a cool spell called create spring 2nd level, perminent, but only provides 6 gallons per hour

Cost effective would be buy a wand...