Rise of the Goblin

[halcyonforever]

So I have been kicking around an idea. In no small measure inspired by events in OOTS from fairly early on.

Why ARE goblins relegated to merely low level cannon fodder? Looking at their stats, they are actually average intelligence, slight hit to wisdom, but aren't designed to be drooling buffoons. Why don't you see more situations where they have developed a society, or are organizing their attacks.

So what I have been thinking of for a campaign/world idea is playing on the idea of organized goblins rising from the primordial ooze of their lairs to re-claim the world.

Goblins reproduce at an alarming rate, so something akin to a litter say 4-6 per gestation. While the average stat for int is a 10, if they generate stats the same as a PC 1.67% will have an 18 int. So we are going to see that there are brilliant goblins mixed in with the rabble.

So the goblin rise begins with a classification system. The smart ones are educated, the dumb ones are fodder, the strong are trained. (future thought, rpg genetics for having parents score influence your base score).

So the goblins begin massing their numbers in secret. The PC's first encounter your average camp of goblins, but it is a ruse, those goblins were just keeping up appearances and serving as lookouts.
They next encounter a more organized group. As the PC's level so do the goblins, with goblins forming ranks, taking up defensive positions, forcing the PC's to attack in weakness or defend in a disadvantage.

Despite being more organized their attacks are very distinctively goblin. Probably pulling from some of my favorite MTG cards:
Goblin Kaboomist - plants landmine but may blow self up
Goblin Petard - runs up to the PC with lit explosive
Lots of sacrifice options - Sacrifice a goblin every goblin gets a buff
Goblin tossing - throw goblins into the midst of PC's just to give flanking bonuses or to hit squisy PC
Goblins with feats that stack (been alot of these over the years so names escape me, feats that give a +2 when next to another character with the same feat)

Eventually the PC's face an organized invasion targeting the city they are in. (I like having normal sized encounters surrounded by large conflict) And they have the choice of defending specific strong points, trying to rescue the helpless, fighting off goblin heroes, destroying goblin siege equiptment
(Fodder Cannon
Step 1: Find your cousin.
Step 2: Get your cousin in the cannon
Step 3: Find another cousin)

The goblins have invested heavily in necromancy and during the battle are turning countless bodies of fallen goblins into a second army of the undead (also known as the oh, you invested in echantments/feats vs goblinoids - now fight some undead)

Progressing into higher levels the PC's learn that there is a new goblin pantheon which are helping to raise their status. To thwart this the PC's must face new hybrids of other known monsters. (Goblin Angels or Goblin Demons, etc)

My question to the room is. Does this sound interesting, what would you like to see, how would you have the goblins behave?

[Mechalich]

The tricky point here is that goblins are, as generally presented, neutral evil. That means, essentially, they are a society of psychopaths. Such societies have...difficulties...developing past a fairly low tribal organizational level and their leadership spends a massive amount of their effort constantly monitoring for threats from below scheming to overthrow them.

So, building a society of goblins without fundamentally changing you definition of 'goblin' from the D&D base means finding some way to suppress this problem - especially important if you want to keep MTG-style goblin flavor. The classic approach is to have some sort of incredibly powerful BBEG with massive information resources keeping your goblins in line - various fiends and dragons are popular choices - while taking advantage of their high reproductive rate and general savage ferocity. Your example presents the possibility that the BBEG is actually a group of new gods (visitors from another crystal sphere perhaps), which works though it raises a bunch of questions regarding vacant divine real estate. In that case the goblins should have a powerful, and considerably more lawful, clerical caste and probably a theocratic government.

[sktarq]

also look at the Birthright Campaign setting (originally for 2e but a WotC blessed fan site for 3.5 exists) for their view of goblins.

but the real reason it doesn't work has been stated above the way goblins are classically presented they are each too willing to risk themselves in overthrowing/breaking the rules of the system and putting themselves higher up (on a basic level this could just be corruption) and related do not trust each other enough to build a system that they would follow.

what you describe especially as the suicidal tactics leads me to ask why. . . why do the suicidal attackers do it? Goblins are classically selfish and suicide so that your army can advance is not a selfish act.
So how do you change this. The new goblin pantheon? If they are into necromancy have such things be incentivized by the gods in the afterlife. If this world is simply seen a a proving ground for a confirmable afterlife then this may well make sense.

[therakishrogue]

Ah, the humble and much maligned goblin finally gets their due! I ran a similar campaign a while back, with a goblin led nationalist revolt breaking out in a much larger orc-ruled humanoid empire. Due to the PC's bellicosity and low expectations for the goblins, they actually wound up being a far greater threat than the orcs I originally thought they'd team up against. Scary times for them, fun times for me.

I didn't have them following any supernatural powerhouse though. Just an exceptionally gifted goblin leader -- sort of a fantasy mashup of Giuseppe Garabaldi and Attaturk. Even if you are running goblins as NE schemers prone to suicidal tactics (and the wisdom hit does make a good excuse for fun things like your Fodder Cannon) they;d still like as not follow a charismatic champion, particularly if they are promising to bring low the hated tall folk once and for all!

[therakishrogue]

So are your goblins trying to conquer the world? Or did you have something more specific in mind?

[halcyonforever]

Probably world domination as an end goal, revenge and shiny's for goblins.

Mainly I just wanted to build on the idea of taking a oft thought trivial foe and advancing them with the PC's. Maybe giving reason for getting that goblin specific feat or bonus vs goblin items and have it feel like a good investment.

I just started to think of redcloak and really saw the potential for so much more with just a bit of creativity.

Tatics: instead of bull rushing using creativity
Goblin = Easy; Goblin with Explosives = challenge
Goblin with PC levels = more interesting
Goblins with suicidal technology and unlimited goblin reserves = sight to behold



How much more entertaining would it be to fight goblins that instead of charging at the PC line, picks up and throws their smaller cousins so that they are flanking or taking attacks of opportunity at every move. Even better if those goblins are rogues and backstab you where ever you turn.

[redwizard007]

...In that case the goblins should have a powerful, and considerably more lawful, clerical caste and probably a theocratic government...

This is brilliant. I was having a hard time rationalizing the MTG approach until I approached it from this angle. I'd leave everybody as (primarily) NE but have this strong religious theme run deep in goblin culture. Nothing is more terrifying than religious zealots. Suicidal assassins, brutal slayings or enslaving of noncombatants, indiscriminate acts of terrorism... You know, this might be a little much for some groups, but it wouldn't have to be. Avoid drawing parallels between any specific real world religion and your goblins, but take the worst of every religious conflict ever and mash them all together.

It might even be interesting to have secular leaders (i.e. the classic chieftains) struggling against the religious leaders to reign in the hordes for strategic or personal reasons. Lets say, the non-religious leaders are actually in charge, but the religious leaders are constantly whipping up the masses who must then be unleashed against something... This infighting maintains the NE aspect of goblins and slows their conquest enough for the other races to at least stand a chance.

[jqavins]

I guess "Why don't you see more situations where they have developed a society, or are organizing their attacks?" was largely rhetorical, but I'll jump in anyway. It's because you rarely see monsters of any kind portrayed with developed societies or organized attacks. Sure, you do sowtimes; it's not super rare, but it's pretty uncommon.

When you're doing the world building, if you want LE goblins then you shall have LE opblins. The reason behind it is an interesting question, and may be a useful one, but it's not mandatory. My notion would be a eugenics program. Either a deity or a strong leadr decides that lawful or lawful-leaning followers would be an improvement over the standard model, and starts executing or rendering infertile the ones who don't serve his purpose.

As a general rule in biology, the larger an animal is the smaller it's litters and longer it's gestation. To me, 4 to 6 seems rather large, fwiw. How many litters per year? I'd go with 2 litters a year of 2d2 goblinets each. More if there's magical (maybe divine) help (in which case 2d2+2 or 2d3 wouldn't seem high after all.)

UPDATE: I was thinking in the shower (always dangerous) that the eugenics model could mean just one particular nation of goblins rising. That would make the other goblins - the savage goblins, the leaders would call them - among the risen onesx natural enemies. And possibly a pool of slaves, though interbreeding with the savage slaves would have to be a very strict taboo.

[ReaderAt2046]

In one setting I did, everyone feared goblins not because they were individually more powerful than usual, but because they bred much, much faster than normal. So fighting goblins was less like fighting any kind of conventional army and more like fighting one of those South American ant swarms you hear about. The goblins don't care about gold or silver or political conquest, they just want to strip the land of everything that can be eaten or made into a tool. This also means that the goblins don't fear horrible death in their conquests, because they know that a horrible death via starvation and/or cannibalization awaits them anyway if they aren't perpetually conquering new territories.