Darth Credence
2021-03-01, 03:29 PM
My campaign has taken a turn that I didn't expect, but it all fit together and I'm running with it. I'd love feedback on what I can do with this.
In my world, the two hemispheres are mostly cut off from each other. One, the "new world", still knows about the old world, but the old world is unaware of the existence of the new world. This is because during the last earth shattering event, the new world was pretty much left alone while the old world was driven back down. This means that the new world is more advanced than the old world, among other differences. The reason for this is mostly that I had no intention of having artificers in the world, but one player really wanted to play a hobgoblin artificer, so I said great, you came over to the old world with an expedition, the rest of the expedition was killed, leaving you alone on this side. While I was writing the lore to make this work, I decided that it might as well mean that there are no hobgoblins or bugbears on this side of the world, but they are major players on the other. When a player made a new character, they decided to go with a bugbear blood hunter - I allowed this by him being a hunter from the other side of the world, specifically sent to find out what happened to the previous expedition.
But, I left goblins, because sometimes you need goblins. And for the most part, the goblins have just been enslaved by orcs and ogres, as well as by humans, elves, and the like who are fine with slavery in general. Well, the current campaign has them trying to find out why giants are starting to attack along the borders of the kingdom. The giants have ogres, ogrillons, and orcs working for them, and a whole lot of goblin slaves. Before the current unrest, they had been engaged in selling goblin slaves to the town closest to the badlands where they live. Along come the players, and they now know about the goblin slaves.
I had already come to the conclusion that goblins, if given a choice, would prefer to be slaves of the humans than the orcs and ogres, because while it is horrible either way, the humans are much less likely to decide to just eat them. This would have come up when the orcs/ogres sent a bunch of goblins in to 'rescue' the goblin slaves, but the party missed that raid. Instead, they were there for the next assault, ended up fighting off the giant, ogres, and orcs, and found that most of the goblins had surrendered when the giant fled. Then the goblins saw the hobgoblin and bugbear in their midst, the first time that a goblin on this side of the world had seen one of the others for a thousand years.
And I decided the goblins would look upon them as their saviors. They have built up legends of how the hobgoblins and bugbears protected them from the orcs and ogres, and they only became slaves to the orcs when the other goblinoid races were wiped out. So one goblin, who was a personal slave of the town's leader and had therefore learned a lot more than most, snuck away to talk to the hobgoblin first. The hobgoblin bought the goblin and set him free, but said he couldn't fight a revolution for them. Newly freed goblin then found the bugbear. Bugbear thought through the numbers and realized he could have his own army of cannon fodder if he freed all of them, so he spent all of the money he had to buy all of the captured goblins. Now he has 200 goblins sworn to help him, as long as he goes to the badlands to free the rest of them that are being forced to mine for the ogres.
So, he is now the goblin messiah. The hobgoblin is still looked up to, but there is also some suspicion of him. (I was actually hoping each of them would attempt to help, then I could have a schism, but we are where we are.) I'll use mob rules to pare down the number of goblins on a regular basis, but I hope to have them eventually form a goblin tribe that is loyal to the bugbear. Any thoughts on what I can or should do with this setup?
In my world, the two hemispheres are mostly cut off from each other. One, the "new world", still knows about the old world, but the old world is unaware of the existence of the new world. This is because during the last earth shattering event, the new world was pretty much left alone while the old world was driven back down. This means that the new world is more advanced than the old world, among other differences. The reason for this is mostly that I had no intention of having artificers in the world, but one player really wanted to play a hobgoblin artificer, so I said great, you came over to the old world with an expedition, the rest of the expedition was killed, leaving you alone on this side. While I was writing the lore to make this work, I decided that it might as well mean that there are no hobgoblins or bugbears on this side of the world, but they are major players on the other. When a player made a new character, they decided to go with a bugbear blood hunter - I allowed this by him being a hunter from the other side of the world, specifically sent to find out what happened to the previous expedition.
But, I left goblins, because sometimes you need goblins. And for the most part, the goblins have just been enslaved by orcs and ogres, as well as by humans, elves, and the like who are fine with slavery in general. Well, the current campaign has them trying to find out why giants are starting to attack along the borders of the kingdom. The giants have ogres, ogrillons, and orcs working for them, and a whole lot of goblin slaves. Before the current unrest, they had been engaged in selling goblin slaves to the town closest to the badlands where they live. Along come the players, and they now know about the goblin slaves.
I had already come to the conclusion that goblins, if given a choice, would prefer to be slaves of the humans than the orcs and ogres, because while it is horrible either way, the humans are much less likely to decide to just eat them. This would have come up when the orcs/ogres sent a bunch of goblins in to 'rescue' the goblin slaves, but the party missed that raid. Instead, they were there for the next assault, ended up fighting off the giant, ogres, and orcs, and found that most of the goblins had surrendered when the giant fled. Then the goblins saw the hobgoblin and bugbear in their midst, the first time that a goblin on this side of the world had seen one of the others for a thousand years.
And I decided the goblins would look upon them as their saviors. They have built up legends of how the hobgoblins and bugbears protected them from the orcs and ogres, and they only became slaves to the orcs when the other goblinoid races were wiped out. So one goblin, who was a personal slave of the town's leader and had therefore learned a lot more than most, snuck away to talk to the hobgoblin first. The hobgoblin bought the goblin and set him free, but said he couldn't fight a revolution for them. Newly freed goblin then found the bugbear. Bugbear thought through the numbers and realized he could have his own army of cannon fodder if he freed all of them, so he spent all of the money he had to buy all of the captured goblins. Now he has 200 goblins sworn to help him, as long as he goes to the badlands to free the rest of them that are being forced to mine for the ogres.
So, he is now the goblin messiah. The hobgoblin is still looked up to, but there is also some suspicion of him. (I was actually hoping each of them would attempt to help, then I could have a schism, but we are where we are.) I'll use mob rules to pare down the number of goblins on a regular basis, but I hope to have them eventually form a goblin tribe that is loyal to the bugbear. Any thoughts on what I can or should do with this setup?