Variation on goblin encounter

[Eradis]

Ah our friends the goblins... They can be so punishing at low level, yet so harmless later on by themselves. I would like to start a little list of the kind of encounter we can face against goblins to spark our minds a bit so we can do something more than the standard village raid or road block.


1. Supply Trouble
Goblins are ransacking dumps and supplies of the market in hope to establish a peaceful colony near the town after internal conflict.

2. Odd Dwarves
A band of goblins posing as hooded dwarves are starting a troublesome night life in the city.

3. Unfortunate Slaves
After losing a war against a town, the captured goblins are enslaved. This has been going on for generations and they are treated worst than vermin.

[MrConsideration]

4. Urchin Thieves
A group of inept young Goblins are becoming a nuisance in the town as they try to kidnap and mug passers-by who are much stronger and more powerful, with little conception of their own ineptitude. Can you find them another way to live?

5. Goblin Supremacists
Despite all evidence to the contrary, a group of radical Goblins have taken to the belief that Goblins are in fact the superior race of the planet and that they have a natural right to rule over the bigger, clumsier races.

6. Nothing To Lose But Our Drains
A colony of Goblins who made their homes in the sewers of a large human city are going on strike - they will no longer dispose of refuse and waste until the quality improves dramatically.

[Eradis]

7. Useless Hireling
An ambitious goblin, hearing about your exploits, offers you his service as a personal valet, claiming adventuring will never be as easy with him carrying your loot and cooking your meals. If you refuse he instead lurks on you to learn as much as possible about being a "hero", in hope to become one himself in the future.

8. Land of the Dead
An important land counting many towns has been taken over by an undead affliction. The natives turned into Zeds while the outsiders are quickly a meal for them. Oddly enough, those deads don't care much for goblin meat and are far too numerous for your team alone to handle.

9. Live Munitions
A massive goblin band has undertake a siege on a fortified villa. They are too weak to get in even with a ram, so they start shooting themselves over the walls with a trebuchet all because their demands have never been answer by the owner. What they don't even know is that the place is long deserted.

10. World Domination
A goblin alchemist found a way to generate goblin features to other humanoids. He messes with supplies of charlatans selling youth elixirs or cure-all potions to accomplish his plan of transforming the world population into goblins.

[Tanarii]

7. Useless Hireling
An ambitious goblin, hearing about your exploits, offers you his service as a personal valet, claiming adventuring will never be as easy with him carrying your loot and cooking your meals. If you refuse he instead lurks on you to learn as much as possible about being a "hero", in hope to become one himself in the future.
When you finally snap and tell him "Go home, Grubby!" he goes on to found a company selling goblin-engineered war machines to the most powerful world rulers, eventually becoming a BBEG with a personal grudge against the hero.

[Eradis]

When you finally snap and tell him "Go home, Grubby!" he goes on to found a company selling goblin-engineered war machines to the most powerful world rulers, eventually becoming a BBEG with a personal grudge against the hero.

Whoa, I like that. Even a version where he stills see the protagonists as the fanboy he is would be interesting to pan out. Neglecting of course any discount or sale on the basis he made exclusive contract with the evil nation.

Otherwise...

11. Cute Litter
After being afflicted by a spell, a goblin thinks himself a ferret in dire need of company. He acts like a fur ball and choose you as his companion as you are the first humanoid to cross his path since the mysterious spell. included in his new behavioral habits: hiding in your backpack, climbing on your shoulder, purring at your feet, growling at smaller and harmless critters, shivering behind you at any threatening signs.

[Zertryx]

12: Goblin Druids
A tribe of Goblins trying to survive ended up taking shelter deep into the forest, there they started adapting and even calling upon nature to help and eventually started learning druidic ways. They even gone as far as making friends with the nearby animals which now act both as mounts and protecting their village.

13: Old Band, New gig
A group of goblins who were once war drum beaters decided to defect from their current tribe and seek out a new better life, this is when they met a group of bards and learned that their old tricks could be put to new uses. Traveling from town to town this new goblin bardic band puts on performances trying to get by and make a living. The trick is, they put the town to sleep with their soothing songs before ransacking it as they prefer not to fight and rely on other kinds of tricks.

[McSkrag]

14. Strange Bedfellows
Goblins have suddenly appeared in the area surrounding the town. They are harassing hunters, raiding local farms, and doing other nasty goblin crimes. What the party does not know is the tribe has been forced off it's native land by a much bigger threat. Can they find a way to work with the goblins against a common enemy?

[SuperFerret]

15. A goblin chief contacts the PCs and asks them to stop a conspiracy within his tribe to overthrow him as ruler. The problem is that goblin society is built on conspiracy and leadership is only determined who is the biggest and strongest.

[Derpldorf]

16. Battle of the bands
Your Bards exploits have reached the ears of the regions number one goblin rock band and they're here to challenge them to a musical duel. There seems to be some sort of minor trinket on the line. No, you don't know how they manage to make banging rocks together sound that good.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

17. The terrible Gwarg

Three goblins fashion a disguise. A long coat worn by three goblins sitting on each others shoulders as a body, a deer skull with a torch inside at the head, branches stuck through the arms for awed hands. It demands a toll of travelers at night.

18. Mego

Mego works as a living training dummy and makes funny noses when hit. He's also the guild go for and gripes about every command "mego open door, mego shine sword."

[Grey Watcher]

A Goblin priest, allied with a lich, is pursuing a secret plan to harness a world-shattering force for unknown ends.

Wait, has that one been done before? :smallconfused:

[Eradis]

A Goblin priest, allied with a lich, is pursuing a secret plan to harness a world-shattering force for unknown ends.

Wait, has that one been done before? :smallconfused:

Whether is has been done or not, it made me think of the summoned Primals of the Final Fantasy series.

Here some more "advanced" or "tougher" hooks/settings:

20. All-Out War
A mysterious figure visited all the goblin war bands of the region. After said visit, the goblins seem to realize the raw power they have over most civilized cities if they comes together and they do so in order to wreck havoc with their war machines, thus creating a new world (or region) order.

Well, goblins being goblins, it probably wouldn't last, but the region would still be ruined and chaotic for a long time after their prime.

21. Disposable Remote Vessels
During your travel you encounter multiple occurrence of highly intelligent goblins performing coordinated thievery or tactical assassination. They all share that blank stare unless being capture. Then, they act like confused dumb, well... stereotypical goblins.

[ImproperJustice]

Help Wanted!

After years of seeing various tribes wiped out by low level adventurers, a Goblin Cheif gets the bright idea to hire adventurers to clear out local rivals and begin a rise to power.


Horse Theives

Instead of the usual pillage and plunder, a goblin understudy of a Theives’ guild from a larger city has come to a mid sized suburbia and started a horse theft ring. He even has a few locals in his pocket, and a hat of disguise to maintain an above ground presence. Swiping PC mounts is a definite must, possibly leading to a horstage exchange at some point.


The Goblin Amoeba Gang:
Ever see that episode of Power Puff Girls where the Amoeba Gang turns out to be super lethal by accident because they can carry disease?
Same concept, a fired group of goblins who had dreams of being underlings for the BBEG, wander into town. Turns out their time as an Ootyugh keeper turned them into lethal plague carriers. Now the clock is ticking to capture these guys alive before their remorseful boss can hire them back.

[Bohandas]

25.) Ethnic Strife
There's a violent race war going on between the green goblins and the orange goblins

[Eradis]

26. Corpses Disposal
Goblins are hired for picking up the corpse of the sicks. The mayor asks you to check on them since the pit dug for the purpose should be long filled, yet once you get there, it's empty.

27. Globinators
On top of their traditional roadblock ransacking, a goblin tribe is capturing the people, pitting them at each others in a gladiator pit dug in the ground. They then ask a ransom for the survivor.

[Bohandas]

28.) Soul collection

The periodic wars between the goblins and the humans in a certain land have been engineered by baatezu soul-collectors to generate hate and militarism

[dmteeter]

Gob Gob can be princess too!!!: A goblin stumbles upon an ancient magical potion that transform her into a beautiful maiden. While disguised she meets the crowned prince who falls madly in love with her. After a short courtship the Prince takes her as a bride. The night of the wedding the "princess" becomes pregnant. Shortly before the children are due the spell wears off revealing to everyone that she is actually a goblin. The goblin flees the city to hide out in secret and have her children.

The king in a rage hires a large group of mercenaries to track her down and kill her before her "abominations" can be born.

The crown prince however hires a group of adventurers to find and protect his bride and future children.

[ImproperJustice]

Gob Gob can be princess too!!!: A goblin stumbles upon an ancient magical potion that transform her into a beautiful maiden. While disguised she meets the crowned prince who falls madly in love with her. After a short courtship the Prince takes her as a bride. The night of the wedding the "princess" becomes pregnant. Shortly before the children are due the spell wears off revealing to everyone that she is actually a goblin. The goblin flees the city to hide out in secret and have her children.

The king in a rage hires a large group of mercenaries to track her down and kill her before her "abominations" can be born.

The crown prince however hires a group of adventurers to find and protect his bride and future children.

If you don’t mind, I wanna steal this one.
This would be right up our group’s alley. We have a lot of Role-Player’s and romantics in our crew.

[Bohandas]

30.) Competitive Exclusion Principle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competitive_exclusion_principle)

The herkes are recruited into a three-way war over territory between goblins, kobolds, and gnomes

[Finback]

13: Old Band, New gig
A group of goblins who were once war drum beaters decided to defect from their current tribe and seek out a new better life, this is when they met a group of bards and learned that their old tricks could be put to new uses. Traveling from town to town this new goblin bardic band puts on performances trying to get by and make a living. The trick is, they put the town to sleep with their soothing songs before ransacking it as they prefer not to fight and rely on other kinds of tricks.


13B: They strike at night, out of nowhere. Goblin bards, forcing street performance onto the city. They ask only for charity, but if they don't get it - they keep playing. By all the gods, make them stop. We haven't slept in days.


31: There is an all-out turf war between goblins and kobolds, in a dwarven mine. The goblins vastly outnumber the kobolds, but the kobolds have superior tech and planning. But despite elaborate traps, you can eventually overcome anything with enough goblin corpses, right? The dwarves aren't skilled warriors, they're miners, and if they do intervene, they fear being caught in between and being wiped out.

[dmteeter]

If you don’t mind, I wanna steal this one.
This would be right up our group’s alley. We have a lot of Role-Player’s and romantics in our crew.

Steal away

[Zanthy1]

32. Hidden Kingdom

The Goblin kingdom retreated underneath a mountain long ago following a war. Now a secret entrance has been discovered, and the goblins have thrived in their isolation. Various parties learn of this kingdom, and each try to manipulate the Goblin King into their bidding. Little do they know, the Goblin King is super smart and powerful, and wears incredibly tight pants.