OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

[The Giant]

New comic is up.

[Keltest]

Woo, new comic!

Although, in 999 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0999.html), it seemed you called the god of monsters Fenrir rather than Fenris. I assume theyre intended to be the same?

[Skull the Troll]

New comic is up.

Love this! I am really seein g the giants quote about Fantasy being useful for how it reflects upon the real world. This may be the best explanation I've seen for privilege.

[Neoriceisgood]

I love Minrah, she's great.

[RMS Oceanic]

Huh, I never interrogated how much I took the Goblin version of events at face value. It's nice to see another perspective on the thing. Not to mention a divine mea culpa.

[MoonCat]

Publishing to stop fiddling hits very hard on today, the deadline of my thesis.

[Shale]

Judging from how that discussion went, I think Durkon might need to bring along a couple of Ibram X. Kendi books the next time he Communes...

[SlashDash]

That last line was hysterical :D

Interesting, I didn't expect Durkon to get a confirmation of the story so quickly.
I wonder what his next move will be. Honestly I expected some third party to be a mediator.

[Ivrytwr]

A shout-out from Thor, yeah Minrah!
Thanks Giant!

[UtahBrian]

What does it mean that he made the green ones medium? Are they supposed to be larger than other goblins now, because they look the same size?

[The Giant]

Woo, new comic!

Although, in 999 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0999.html), it seemed you called the god of monsters Fenrir rather than Fenris. I assume theyre intended to be the same?

Yes, historically they've both been used in various translations/contexts. I didn't go back to check which one I had previously picked. Maybe I'll fix it but it's not really wrong per se.

[Alaris]

What does it mean that he made the green ones medium? Are they supposed to be larger than other goblins now, because they look the same size?

Green Goblins in DND 3.5 (which this is somewhat based on) are usually Small-Sized.

It has been pointed out a number of times on the board here, so I imagine this is Rich poking fun at it.

[Schroeswald]

What does it mean that he made the green ones medium? Are they supposed to be larger than other goblins now, because they look the same size?

In D&D green goblins are small sized, but in OOTS to make them more of a threat the Giant drew them the same size as humans and elves (aka, medium), just a little joke about one of the changes from traditional d&d

[dancrilis]

Nice to see the debate answered in the comic - so word of a god is that goblins were not delibrately screwed over (wonder what this means on the whole no gods before the Dark One element).


What does it mean that he made the green ones medium? Are they supposed to be larger than other goblins now, because they look the same size?

They are normally small in DnD.

[Shining Wrath]

So Fenris made the goblins, but they don't worship him any longer? Does Fenris have any opinions on this? Does it make him weaker?

Also, why do the goblins live outside the Northern Pantheon's demesne if a NP god created them?

Anyway, the natural order of things is the stronger eating the weaker, and the entire OOTS universe is built upon that principle. Even vegans are preying upon defenseless plants, and so on. If the entire principle is unavoidable, then the lot of the goblins is more Fenris' design fault than it is of the good gods or the "good" races. I doubt very much Redcloak will buy that argument.

So - what can Durkon say to Redcloak that is persuasive based upon this conversation with Thor? Not much.

Minrah is having a Belkar moment.

[RMS Oceanic]

What does it mean that he made the green ones medium? Are they supposed to be larger than other goblins now, because they look the same size?

In official 3.5, green goblins are small sized. Fenris/r has houseruled this.

[Zhorn]

Very much enjoyed the meta humour here.
Loving the work as always, Giant.
Huge fan :smallbiggrin:

[Shining Wrath]

Yes, historically they've both been used in various translations/contexts. I didn't go back to check which one I had previously picked. Maybe I'll fix it but it's not really wrong per se.

Clearly, the right answer is Fenri. He's Fenri the 8th after 7 previous monster-gods didn't get enough worship.

[Dragonus45]

Huh, who could have guessed that the Dark Ones interpretation of event as presented to Redcloak was inaccurate...

Sarcasm aside this goes way past that, to the point I now have to wonder if the Dark One knows how wrong he is or if this is just him manipulating his clergy.

[Pampukin]

Holy social commentary (pun intended) I had not expect Durkon to be the one complaining about an injust system, our bearded boy has grown so much.

[hroþila]

Very surprised that Redcloak is not essentially right on this. On the other hand, when the Dark One was raised the other gods attempted to convince him that everything was actually fair, and their arguments weren't very convincing. It's possible that Thor is kinda doing the same here, but the vibe I get from this comic is that Thor is being both truthful and accurate.

I dunno, I just think the less right Redcloak is about the goblinoid question, the less of a compelling villain he is. And I'm not sure that's for the best. But still, let's see how this goes - I doubt we've heard the last on this topic.

[Xihirli]

In D&D goblins are generally Small, but Redcloak and the other goblins are taller than Durkon, even though Dwarves are generally Medium sized. This panel was poking fun at the fact that the strip doesn't quite follow D&D rules. Or at least not the more well known versions.


Tiny
Small
Medium
Large
Huge
Gargantuan

A question I have is regarding the creation of goblins, the "turn order," and what we know about the Quiddities. If only one god (Fenris) is responsible for creating the goblins, are they one-color beings? Or is the process of "taking turns" more complicated than that, and Fenris got to design and make the model of goblins but the other gods had to put power into them to make them "real"?

[Dragonus45]

Nice to see the debate answered in the comic - so word of a god is that goblins were not delibrately screwed over (wonder what this means on the whole no gods before the Dark One element).


It means the statement is flat wrong, they did have a god before the Dark One, he just got bored of them and left them hanging.

[Keltest]

Yes, historically they've both been used in various translations/contexts. I didn't go back to check which one I had previously picked. Maybe I'll fix it but it's not really wrong per se.

I like Fenris better personally. But i also like the idea that in-universe they also just genuinely cant remember his name.

[hroþila]

It means the statement is flat wrong, they did have a god before the Dark One, he just got bored of them and left them hanging.
No, it means a god created them, which we already knew even though we didn't know it was Fenriʀ. It doesn't mean the goblinoids ever worshipped him.

And yes obviously the solution to the Fenrir/Fenris problem is to write it as "Fenriʀ", with a kind of retroflex z transitioning into r.

[RMS Oceanic]

It means the statement is flat wrong, they did have a god before the Dark One, he just got bored of them and left them hanging.

Not necessarily? I don't think every personal creation of a god is set to worshiping them by default. Also it sounds like they've made fantasy goblins before.

[Shining Wrath]

In D&D goblins are generally Small, but Redcloak and the other goblins are taller than Durkon, even though Dwarves are generally Medium sized. This panel was poking fun at the fact that the strip doesn't quite follow D&D rules. Or at least not the more well known versions.


Tiny
Small
Medium
Large
Huge
Gargantuan

A question I have is regarding the creation of goblins, the "turn order," and what we know about the Quiddities. If only one god (Fenris) is responsible for creating the goblins, are they one-color beings? Or is the process of "taking turns" more complicated than that, and Fenris got to design and make the model of goblins but the other gods had to put power into them to make them "real"?

Those are the 5e size categories. 3.5 has more (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/movementPositionAndDistance.htm), as you might expect - 9.

[EDIT]: On the quiddities - I think gods have quiddity, mortals do not. The world has 3 quiddities because there are only 3 pantheons left. But dwarves are not yellow quiddity because Thor made them, any more than the goblins are yellow because Fenri made them

[Shale]

Very surprised that Redcloak is not essentially right on this. On the other hand, when the Dark One was raised the other gods attempted to convince him that everything was actually fair, and their arguments weren't very convincing. It's possible that Thor is kinda doing the same here, but the vibe I get from this comic is that Thor is being both truthful and accurate.

I dunno, I just think the less right Redcloak is about the goblinoid question, the less of a compelling villain he is. And I'm not sure that's for the best. But still, let's see how this goes - I doubt we've heard the last on this topic.

I don't think Thor being truthful about the gods' motives/methods makes Redcloak wrong in any way that really matters. Whether or not they specifically created goblinoids as fodder races, the pantheons still made a universe whose fundamental laws provide material incentives for sapient beings to kill each other, and didn't see structural inequities as a problem worth balancing for. Somebody was almost assuredly going to get the short end of that stick, and whoever it was would have a valid grievance against the gods who set it up so that would happen, even if they left the exact outcome up to chance.

[Xihirli]

Very surprised that Redcloak is not essentially right on this. On the other hand, when the Dark One was raised the other gods attempted to convince him that everything was actually fair, and their arguments weren't very convincing. It's possible that Thor is kinda doing the same here, but the vibe I get from this comic is that Thor is being both truthful and accurate.

I dunno, I just think the less right Redcloak is about the goblinoid question, the less of a compelling villain he is. And I'm not sure that's for the best. But still, let's see how this goes - I doubt we've heard the last on this topic.

I can see this. It's still true that the goblins were thrown into a disadvantageous position by the twin factors of being created with access to fewer resources and then not receiving the same guidance and help as the other races of their intelligence level.

And it's true that Goblins were created explicitly as monsters, as Fenris is the god of monsters. And as part of the mechanics of this world, monsters do exist for heroes to kill and gain xp. That's accurate.

It's also true that at least some of the gods hate goblins. Don't have the strip number memorized, but one of Thor's illustrative flashbacks has a god dismissively calling the Dark One "that goblin" in a context suggesting that him being a goblin makes negotiating with him beneath that god's dignity.

Redcloak believes


The goblins were created as monsters
Monsters exist as xp farms for the "heroes"
The gods have a bias against goblins
All of these are contributing factors to the goblins' state as less fortunate in general than other humanoids.


And all of those, as we've just learned, are correct.

[Robots]

Update!

Ooooh, very interesting. I don't have much to say, but I'm excited for what's going to come next. Very intriguing.

[Metastachydium]

Nice to see the debate answered in the comic - so word of a god is that goblins were not delibrately screwed over (wonder what this means on the whole no gods before the Dark One element).


On the other hand, now we also have Word of God that the goblinoids (et al.) are objectively worse off than the PC races, and that's the gods' fault (even though it is so owing to their stupidity and carelessness rather than to active malice).

[MirEgal]

Wow. The comic didn't shy away from moral dilemmas before, but this is larger than anything else.

Unequal starting conditions, repeated over multiple generations, leading to grave injustices. No evil plan behind it, just ignorance of the people in power. With no clear solution in sight. I'm kind of interested in seeing how this will be resolved.

[Shale]

Wow. The comic didn't shy away from moral dilemmas before, but this is larger than anything else.

Unequal starting conditions, repeated over multiple generations, leading to grave injustices. No evil plan behind it, just ignorance of the people in power. With no clear solution in sight. I'm kind of interested in seeing how this will be resolved.

Me too, and I also want to see how the comic turns out!

[Dragonus45]

Not necessarily? I don't think every personal creation of a god is set to worshiping them by default. Also it sounds like they've made fantasy goblins before.
It seems to be roughly the standard, although the more pantheonistic practices of the OOTS world muddy the waters a bit.



No, it means a god created them, which we already knew even though we didn't know it was Fenriʀ. It doesn't mean the goblinoids ever worshipped him.


The presentation from the Dark One described them as a patch to the system made by the gods in an offhand way, the idea a specific god had a real plan in mind for them to succeeded rather then being convenient EXP farms is news. Important news. It shows that that the god most invested in them wound up being the god least invested in any of his projects, and probably led to their resource issues in the first place.

[Reboot]

Eh, anyone who's played a modern game knows that publication is no longer the end of the matter, however firmly it once was*.

*And that still didn't stop, e.g., Tolkien from rewriting a whole chapter of The Hobbit years after original to fit with his Lord of the Rings retcons...

[Keltest]

I don't think Thor being truthful about the gods' motives/methods makes Redcloak wrong in any way that really matters. Whether or not they specifically created goblinoids as fodder races, the pantheons still made a universe whose fundamental laws provide material incentives for sapient beings to kill each other, and didn't see structural inequities as a problem worth balancing for. Somebody was almost assuredly going to get the short end of that stick, and whoever it was would have a valid grievance against the gods who set it up so that would happen, even if they left the exact outcome up to chance.

Yeah, but "the gods didnt create a post-scarcity society because doing so would deprive them of one of the few things they directly and specifically need from the world." is a substantially weaker reason to be doing what Redcloak is doing.

[RMS Oceanic]

Also this likely closes the door on the Gods "patching" the world to address the grievance. Honestly that makes the possible solution more interesting. How do flawed mortals deal with a flawed world?

[Windscion]

I love that Fenrir is wearing Gleipnir, the chain forged from:
The sound of a cat's footfall
The beard of a woman
The roots of a mountain
The sinews of a bear
The breath of a fish
and
The spittle of a bird.

Which makes sense since Tyr is missing a hand.

However, this reading of goblinoid creation does bolster the possibility that maybe the Rat/Tiamat/Loki axis is, in fact, deliberately manipulating TDO.

Also, Minrah continues to be awesome.

[Shining Wrath]

I don't think Thor being truthful about the gods' motives/methods makes Redcloak wrong in any way that really matters. Whether or not they specifically created goblinoids as fodder races, the pantheons still made a universe whose fundamental laws provide material incentives for sapient beings to kill each other, and didn't see structural inequities as a problem worth balancing for. Somebody was almost assuredly going to get the short end of that stick, and whoever it was would have a valid grievance against the gods who set it up so that would happen, even if they left the exact outcome up to chance.

Or: if evil gods don't really care if their worshipers prosper, but good gods do, the races created by good gods will, world after world, tend come out on top.
And if cooperation among sentient beings is more successful than every-creature-for-themselves, then good-tending cultures will be more successful than evil-tending cultures. In OOTS race and alignment are not coupled, so it's a matter of culture, not race - but the god that creates a people may have some influence on their culture.

It raises the question as to whether or not a god can change alignment. Because it seems that good ought to defeat evil more often than not, and you'd think that after a hundred million billion trillion worlds Fenri would get a clue.

[dancrilis]

It means the statement is flat wrong, they did have a god before the Dark One, he just got bored of them and left them hanging.

Just because a god created them doesn't mean that they ever actually worshipped him - or that he began to deny them clerics etc.

To take this quote:


The goblins, on the other hand, worshipped no one before the Dark One.

It might mean: The Goblin's worshipped Fenris, he turned from them, they had no one and then The Dark One showed up.
But it could also mean: Fenris got bored on the idea even before the world was settled on and so The Goblins never even knew to worship him and so never had any god.

If the first then the question becomes why didn't they try to worship other gods to maintain clerics, if the second then did the early goblins never think to worship a god seeing them as for other races or did they try and get rejected.

[Keltest]

Just because a god created them doesn't mean that they ever actually worshipped him - or that he began to deny them clerics etc.

To take this quote:


It might mean: The Goblin's worshipped Fenris, he turned from them, they had no one and then The Dark One showed up.
But it could also mean: Fenris got bored on the idea even before the world was settled on and so The Goblins never even knew to worship him and so never had any god.

If the first then the question becomes why didn't they try to worship other gods to maintain clerics, if the second then did the early goblins never think to worship a god seeing them as for other races or did they try and get rejected.

Personally i read that as "the goblins, like humans, had no specific patron as a race, and chose a patron based on individual preference, and generally cast about thanks and curses based on whose portfolio is applicable for the situation."

[The Pilgrim]

It was about time that Thor debunked The Dark One's victimization narrative.

It's a dark day for Goblin Justice Warriors.

A much needed strip, Giant. Thank you.

[Hasric]

Could this be why the Dark One and Redcloak never speak to each other? If Redcloak called Fenris would he get an answer?

[Xihirli]

I mean "the goblins" worshipping no one before the Dark One is a cultural answer, not necessarily a scientific one. Like if I said "the Greeks" discovered... oh, I don't know, pi. It's imprecise verging on inaccurate, but to an acceptable degree where yes, there's wiggle room and Egypt was pretty close with 3.16 well before Archimedes's eureka moment.

Like Rich wasn't necessarily saying "there has never been a Goblin cleric or worshipper of any god except The Dark One," any more than saying "Northerners do not worship the Twelve Southern Gods" would mean that no single Northerner has ever done so. It's a cultural answer, with the implied "culture is messy and there are exceptions" going along with it.

[Dragonus45]

Just because a god created them doesn't mean that they ever actually worshipped him - or that he began to deny them clerics etc.

To take this quote:


It might mean: The Goblin's worshipped Fenris, he turned from them, they had no one and then The Dark One showed up.
But it could also mean: Fenris got bored on the idea even before the world was settled on and so The Goblins never even knew to worship him and so never had any god.

If the first then the question becomes why didn't they try to worship other gods to maintain clerics, if the second then did the early goblins never think to worship a god seeing them as for other races or did they try and get rejected.

Who said anything about worship? I totally believe that Fenris started his twelve more projects before he even got to the "establish goblin religion" phase of things. Just because their god abandoned them early on doesn't change that they had one who gave them a very poorly thought out game plan "age fast and breed a lot" and then wandered off to go do something else when it came time to talk over where to plant all the various races and resources.

[RMS Oceanic]

It was about time that Thor debunked The Dark One's victimization narrative.

It's a dark day for Goblin Justice Warriors.

A much needed strip, Giant. Thank you.

I think it's less "the Goblins' grievances are wrong" and more "Hanlon's razor applies to the goblins' grievances." It wasn't malice, it was neglect, and Thor acknowledges that.

[Linneris]

Holy social commentary (pun intended) I had not expect Durkon to be the one complaining about an injust system, our bearded boy has grown so much.

He's acting in accordance with the Giant's interpretation of his alignment: part of being Lawful Good is knowing when to change the law.

[RMS Oceanic]

Also I suspect individual goblins would have drifted to this or that deity, but the main community would have been left without one to rally around until the Dark One. I don't think Rich means no goblin ever worshiped anyone before him.

[Dragonus45]

I think it's less "the Goblins' grievances are wrong" and more "Hanlon's razor applies to the goblins' grievances." It wasn't malice, it was neglect, and Thor acknowledges that.

Pretty much that, although I still maintain that you underestimate the danger and long term health risks of the kind of mining focused lifestyle the dwarves live, even if they are more adapted to it, only if you are a fool.

[Xihirli]

It was about time that Thor debunked The Dark One's victimization narrative.

It's a dark day for Goblin Justice Warriors.

A much needed strip, Giant. Thank you.

Well, no not really. Goblins were created as monsters. This strip confirms that by both having Fenris make them and the line "[Fenris makes goblins] and then turns his attention to the more 'fun' monsters." Word of god (little g) confirming that yes, from the birth of their race goblins were monsters. And monsters do exist for the heroes to kill for xp.

It's a more complicated answer, but Redcloak and the Dark One's gripes agains the gods are accurate. They're true. They're just imprecise and missing context.

[Dion]

Nice to see the debate answered in the comic - so word of a god is that goblins were not delibrately screwed over (wonder what this means on the whole no gods before the Dark One element).


And it’s nice to see they are absolutely 100% screwed over, and TDO is 100% absolutely positively correct even if wasn’t technically “deliberate”.

So now we’re done with the debate forever and ever. The goblins were intentionally designed as XP fodder. They got the worse lands because literally none of the gods cared about them. The gods gave them a short brutal life intentionally. Word of god. Done.

Ha ha ha ha. No, just kidding. We should argue.

[ratfox]

So what's that about equity options?

[Roselily2006]

Ha ha ha ha. No, just kidding. We should argue.

The question is how to start an argument. Anyone know a controversial yet somewhat silly topic of debate?

[Dragonus45]

Well, no not really. Goblins were created as monsters. This strip confirms that by both having Fenris make them and the line "[Fenris makes goblins] and then turns his attention to the more 'fun' monsters." Word of god (little g) confirming that yes, from the birth of their race goblins were monsters. And monsters do exist for the heroes to kill for xp.

It's a more complicated answer, but Redcloak and the Dark One's gripes agains the gods are accurate. They're true. They're just imprecise and missing context.

Everyone was created as a monster, we are all in the manual after all and we all give exp when stabbed. The gods as a whole turn out not to be a giant finger on the scales of goblin life actively working to keep them down. That matters a lot.



So what's that about equity options?

It's a pun as both an investment term, for if you want the chance to buy a stock but want a bit and don't want to be obligated to buy it, and presumably also uses equity as it tends to be juxtaposed with equality when talking about how to handle issues of race. Very creative.

[understatement]

The question is how to start an argument. Anyone know a controversial yet somewhat silly topic of debate?

Star Wars, seafood, Lord of the Rings.

*

Think Durkon's side is stronger. Thor somewhat comes off a little like "well, we personally didn't do it ourselves, but we stood by and let the god who always did it do his thing per usual." It's not malice, but it's sort of like bystander syndrome.

[jidasfire]

I dunno, I just think the less right Redcloak is about the goblinoid question, the less of a compelling villain he is. And I'm not sure that's for the best.

I don't know if that's true. For one thing, the goblins are still to some degree victims of injustice. It's simply an unintentional injustice rather than an intentional one. From a certain point of view, i.e. The Dark One or Redcloak, what the gods intended is academic and the injustice remains. Redcloak himself also remains the victim of personal injustice at the hands of the old Sapphire Guard, so even if his cosmic motivations prove less than true, his personal ones are still fresh in his mind (even though he has more than paid them back at this point).

On top of all this, there's always been plenty of evidence to suggest that The Dark One is an unreliable narrator who's not merely misunderstood. Right Eye certainly had no respect for him, seeing him as petty, spiteful, and willing his own people as nothing more than weapons in his war against the other gods.

But for all that, Durkon still seems unconvinced by even his beloved Thor's explanation, so you're probably right that the matter is far from closed, and we can't just give the gods a full pass on this.

[Xihirli]

Everyone was created as a monster, we are all in the manual after all and we all give exp when stabbed. The gods as a whole turn out not to be a giant finger on the scales of goblin life actively working to keep them down. That matters a lot.

Cool. I'll go let Fenris know he's the god of all races, everywhere.

[Dragonus45]

Cool. I'll go let Fenris know he's the god of all races, everywhere.

Technically he is, since D&D never really defines "monsters". Shame he can't keep track of anything.



Think Durkon's side is stronger. Thor somewhat comes off a little like "well, we personally didn't do it ourselves, but we stood by and let the god who always did it do his thing per usual." It's not malice, but it's sort of like bystander syndrome.

I wonder how much actually interfering they are generally even allowed to do? Especially since the recurrence of goblins as a concept probably means they are a pet project of his and the "this changes everything" line probably means they have tried to talk to him about it at some point and he was defending the choices.

[Ionathus]

Very surprised that Redcloak is not essentially right on this. On the other hand, when the Dark One was raised the other gods attempted to convince him that everything was actually fair, and their arguments weren't very convincing. It's possible that Thor is kinda doing the same here, but the vibe I get from this comic is that Thor is being both truthful and accurate.

I dunno, I just think the less right Redcloak is about the goblinoid question, the less of a compelling villain he is. And I'm not sure that's for the best. But still, let's see how this goes - I doubt we've heard the last on this topic.

I know it's a personal perception thing, but this revelation doesn't take away from Redcloak's story for me. I like how it adds the wrinkle that injustice can happen, even when nobody intentionally decides to screw the marginalized groups over. People look for moustache-twirling villains all the time, and that fixation can make you miss the "unintentional injustices" that happen out of the spotlight, just because nobody cares all that much about the wronged party.

Durkon taking Thor to task over this was pretty satisfying. Really appreciate how he said "that's not really a no."


Wow. The comic didn't shy away from moral dilemmas before, but this is larger than anything else.

Unequal starting conditions, repeated over multiple generations, leading to grave injustices. No evil plan behind it, just ignorance of the people in power. With no clear solution in sight. I'm kind of interested in seeing how this will be resolved.

Agreed, this is really getting into some deep ethics stuff. And what's more, is handling it quite well.


And if cooperation among sentient beings is more successful than every-creature-for-themselves, then good-tending cultures will be more successful than evil-tending cultures. In OOTS race and alignment are not coupled, so it's a matter of culture, not race - but the god that creates a people may have some influence on their culture.

It raises the question as to whether or not a god can change alignment. Because it seems that good ought to defeat evil more often than not, and you'd think that after a hundred million billion trillion worlds Fenri would get a clue.

Worth noting that goblinoids are depicted as very cooperative groups, with rigid social structures and large settlements. Cooperation is not restricted to Good civilizations.

As for Evil always being the sub-optimal choice: Thor did mention last comic that there are worlds where being Evil has loads of advantages.


The question is how to start an argument. Anyone know a controversial yet somewhat silly topic of debate?

Oh, give it 5 seconds, I'm sure we'll think of something.

EDIT: Ninja -


I don't know if that's true. For one thing, the goblins are still to some degree victims of injustice. It's simply an unintentional injustice rather than an intentional one. From a certain point of view, i.e. The Dark One or Redcloak, what the gods intended is academic and the injustice remains. Redcloak himself also remains the victim of personal injustice at the hands of the old Sapphire Guard, so even if his cosmic motivations prove less than true, his personal ones are still fresh in his mind (even though he has more than paid them back at this point).

On top of all this, there's always been plenty of evidence to suggest that The Dark One is an unreliable narrator who's not merely misunderstood. Right Eye certainly had no respect for him, seeing him as petty, spiteful, and willing his own people as nothing more than weapons in his war against the other gods.

But for all that, Durkon still seems unconvinced by even his beloved Thor's explanation, so you're probably right that the matter is far from closed, and we can't just give the gods a full pass on this.

I agree with this completely! Whether or not oppression/injustice is intentional isn't particularly comforting from the viewpoint of the oppressed.

[TerrickTerran]

I realize it amuses me that most of the Dwarves have the Scottish accent but Thor and Odin none at all.

[warmachine]

That was getting dangerously close to discussing real world economics and politics.

[dancrilis]

Think Durkon's side is stronger. Thor somewhat comes off a little like "well, we personally didn't do it ourselves, but we stood by and let the god who always did it do his thing per usual." It's not malice, but it's sort of like bystander syndrome.

Picking a fight with him over it at the time of creation is how you get snarls (if multiple pantheons are involved) or how you get infighting (if only a single pantheon is involved - which the good gods might not have won) - and after the world was set then the gods were out of it and the rest is the result of mortal choices (unless the goblins tried to worship gods and were rejected).

Same for how the land is created - Fenris created them somewhere (or else they were placed somewhere post creation) you can say he didn't put much thought into it but from Thor's version even he wasn't acting maliciously with them, and we don't even know that they did get bad land overall (although apparently worse then dwarven land) - the lower half of the Western continent doesn't seem like a resource rich place but the lizardfolk and the humans seem to have made it work.

[Fyraltari]

I agree with what Minrah thinks Thor said. She is precious and must be proctected.


And now I'm off to read the thread. I'm sure there aren't any big dicussions happening right now.

[Ginasius]

I love that Fenrir is wearing Gleipnir, the chain forged from:
The sound of a cat's footfall
The beard of a woman
The roots of a mountain
The sinews of a bear
The breath of a fish
and
The spittle of a bird.

Which makes sense since Tyr is missing a hand.

I assume you are referring to the white band on Fenri*'s hind leg. Thanks for the information. To my eyes it looked like nothing more than a bandage-like band. :smallbiggrin:

[Ionathus]

Picking a fight with him over it at the time of creation is how you get snarls (if multiple pantheons are involved) or how you get infighting (if only a single pantheon is involved - which the good gods might not have won) - and after the world was set then the gods were out of it and the rest is the result of mortal choices (unless the goblins tried to worship gods and were rejected).

Same for how the land is created - Fenris created them somewhere (or else they were placed somewhere post creation) you can say he didn't put much thought into it but from Thor's version even he wasn't acting maliciously with them, and we don't even know that they did get bad land overall (although apparently worse then dwarven land) - the lower half of the Western continent doesn't seem like a resource rich place but the lizardfolk and the humans seem to have made it work.

I don't think anyone's saying Thor should have stopped Fenriʀ from making goblinoids -- I think they're saying Thor & the other Good gods could've ensured equal distribution of resources to everyone, or more actively sponsored them as deities, once goblinoids were created and then abandoned. He admits it himself at the top of the second page here: "We didn't really plan it that way on purpose...but I guess we didn't really prevent it either."

Also, the jury's really out on whether or not the southern half of the Western continent is actually "making it work" -- see how people are treated under Tarquin's regime, for instance.

[mjasghar]

If they can’t patch the world the possibility of snarl world being given to the goblins seems more likely.

[Dragonus45]

Picking a fight with him over it at the time of creation is how you get snarls (if multiple pantheons are involved) or how you get infighting (if only a single pantheon is involved - which the good gods might not have won) - and after the world was set then the gods were out of it and the rest is the result of mortal choices (unless the goblins tried to worship gods and were rejected).

Same for how the land is created - Fenris created them somewhere (or else they were placed somewhere post creation) you can say he didn't put much thought into it but from Thor's version even he wasn't acting maliciously with them, and we don't even know that they did get bad land overall (although apparently worse then dwarven land) - the lower half of the Western continent doesn't seem like a resource rich place but the lizardfolk and the humans seem to have made it work.

The Humans and Lizardfolk don't have Fenris' bad ideas of what should make a race "outcompete" though. They are going to have a high population with a high resource demand and a need to expansion to survive, then they wound up dropped into resource poor areas that would disproportionately affect them. Incidentally that situation also demand they get those resources most likely and easily through violence. For an evil god who wants to create a race that "outcompetes" as he put it it makes a scary amount of sense, for all that is is a very E Evil thing to do. Doesn't remotely justify the kind of genocide and violence Redcloak his plan deal in and adds even more suspicion to the Dark Ones "I was just a friendly good friend all along and then they stabbed me in the back" story though.

[Souju]

Very surprised that Redcloak is not essentially right on this. On the other hand, when the Dark One was raised the other gods attempted to convince him that everything was actually fair, and their arguments weren't very convincing. It's possible that Thor is kinda doing the same here, but the vibe I get from this comic is that Thor is being both truthful and accurate.

I dunno, I just think the less right Redcloak is about the goblinoid question, the less of a compelling villain he is. And I'm not sure that's for the best. But still, let's see how this goes - I doubt we've heard the last on this topic.

Here's how I see it: Redcloak and the Dark One aren't wrong, per se, they just misinterpreted the same information. Or rather, the Dark One took the same information Durkon just received and jumped to another conclusion (for the purposes of stats, the Dark One's wisdom and int probably aren't as high as durkon's).

The way he sees it: Goblins were made by the gods. Goblins are weaker and have a disadvantage against other races. The gods need strong souls to survive. Therefore, it makes sense to someone used to duplicity and trickery (to the point even paladins used duplicity and trickery one him) that goblins were designed as EXP fodder. Doesn't help that, as Thor said, they refuse to intervene directly to "correct" inequalities even if the inequality was an oversight made by a capricious god.
He also suffers from a problem of perspective: He is/was a goblin. He was raised by goblins, fought with goblins, and is worshiped by goblins. Even the other races he hangs with are goblinoid. He's going to be less inclined to see the "big picture" of creation because it doesn't really affect him or his worshipers. He's a pantheon of one representing a pretty singular group.
Meanwhile, remember the Godsmoot? How many races, both core and obscure, were present there? Both Thor and Odin are there talking to Durkon during Commune, and their high priestesses are a dwarf and a human respectively.
While it's pretty narrow towards "player races," the other pantheons having more diversity in terms of culture due to being made by gods who actually put thought into these things (Fenrir/Fenris seems less inclined to actually do that) means that the general perspectives are going to be wider. A human cleric of odin and a dwarven cleric of thor will have different perspectives beyond religion, but be connected by being within the same pantheon. They'll influence each other.

Dark One? Ain't got that. Redcloak's basically a super-clergy of one for a pantheon of one.

[Ionathus]

Dark One? Ain't got that.

This is a really good point. As Thor mentioned before (and Loki's planar emissaries learned firsthand), TDO is definitely isolated from the other gods & races. We've been shown how that prevents easy communication and conflict resolution, but I really hadn't thought through how it would make TDO himself more fixated on the goal and unwilling to compromise or hear other viewpoints.

[Morty]

Even if the gods didn't intentionally create goblin races as XP fodder, the "civilized" ones certainly don't seem to have many qualms against treating them as acceptable targets. The situation is still what it is. What was removed is the option of the gods just changing their minds about it and making it right.

[Ginasius]

I concurr with Thor that I don't think the goblin problem is that unique, not only from the fictional point of view of an OOTSverse god, but also from a metafictional point of view.

Most fictional universes and multiverses in which there is a gods/mortals dichotomy show mortals living in an essentially unfair, or at least seemingly unfair, world. The very fact that in those worlds there are some immortal and extremely powerful beings sharing the universe with a lot of other much less immortal and powerful beings looks unfair.

That does not endorse mortals to believe that the gods who made them are necessarily unjust or evil because of it. Especially if those gods are not as omnipotent as, for example, Eru Iluvatar was in Tolkien's fictional universe.

The gods could have created a universe that feeds on the suffering of lesser beings in a much more efficient and inescapable manner, in the style of Ursula K. LeGuin's story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas." The very fact that the OOTS goblins have gained the ability to rebel against this is a sign that the system is not purposefully unfair.

[danielxcutter]

Okay, put me in the “the gods didn’t literally make them to just be PC fodder but I don’t think it matters at this point” camp too. Durkon just talked back to his own god.

[Gift Jeraff]

However, this reading of goblinoid creation does bolster the possibility that maybe the Rat/Tiamat/Loki axis is, in fact, deliberately manipulating TDO.

Keep in mind Loki is compelled to constantly lie due to mortal beliefs (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1177.html), so the Dark One getting an inaccurate retelling of events wasn't necessarily part of some scheme between the other 3 evil gods. It's just in their nature to paint the good gods as in the wrong.

[Fyraltari]

So, I've got to point out that if the gods can't make big changes to creation once a world is created, then the Bet can't be called off.


So Fenris made the goblins, but they don't worship him any longer? Does Fenris have any opinions on this? Does it make him weaker?

Also, why do the goblins live outside the Northern Pantheon's demesne if a NP god created them?
Because they take turn determining specific aspects of all of the world, not just their spot.


Anyway, the natural order of things is the stronger eating the weaker
No, it's not. Humans are stronger than worms.


Minrah is having a Belkar moment.
Not enough bodily harm.


And yes obviously the solution to the Fenrir/Fenris problem is to write it as "Fenriʀ", with a kind of retroflex z transitioning into r.
I'm going to call him Fensir and you can't stop me.

It's also true that at least some of the gods hate goblins. Don't have the strip number memorized, but one of Thor's illustrative flashbacks has a god dismissively calling the Dark One "that goblin" in a context suggesting that him being a goblin makes negotiating with him beneath that god's dignity.
Here ya go. (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1143.html) I find the implied identity of that god in relation to what we've just learned about the origins of goblins rather interesting, I've got to say.


Wow. The comic didn't shy away from moral dilemmas before, but this is larger than anything else.

Unequal starting conditions, repeated over multiple generations, leading to grave injustices. No evil plan behind it, just ignorance of the people in power. With no clear solution in sight. I'm kind of interested in seeing how this will be resolved.
If you haven't already (and can afford it), may I suggest purchasing Start of Darkness?

It seems to be roughly the standard
Does it? We know Dvalin didn't create the dwarves despite being their ethnic god, for example.

I realize it amuses me that most of the Dwarves have the Scottish accent but Thor and Odin none at all.[/QUOTE
Why would they? I'm more surprized that Dvalin doesn't, myself.
[QUOTE=Dragonus45;25016698]the Dark Ones "I was just a friendly good friend all along and then they stabbed me in the back" story though.
I mean, Redcloak's story describes him as a warlord who marshalled the greatest military force ever before negotiating. It's less "I was just a friendly good friend all along" and more "Let's consider violence plan B."

[dancrilis]

I think they're saying Thor & the other Good gods could've ensured equal distribution of resources to everyone, or more actively sponsored them as deities, once goblinoids were created and then abandoned.

An equal distribution for everyone is difficult to quantify.

Take the Dwarf-Goblin potential conflict assume goblins outnumber dwarves, so if both races are given the same amount of food and metal the Dwarves end up well fed and heavily armoured and the goblins end up poorly fed and lightly armoured.

Ignoring that Fenris might have created dozens or hundreds of races while Thor was instilling honour into the dwarves, or while another Njord was creating a coastline - giving everyone equal resources might seriously benefit evil races who are more populace in the monster manual and also more likely to try and seize additional resources anyway.

[Dragonus45]

Even if the gods didn't intentionally create goblin races as XP fodder, the "civilized" ones certainly don't seem to have many qualms against treating them as acceptable targets. The situation is still what it is. What was removed is the option of the gods just changing their minds about it and making it right.

It really does change things though, without a divine mandate of slaughter on goblins as explicit tools for exp gain the situation with Azure City and the goblin nations next to it instead now looks like what all the rest of history looks like. Two nations and cultures next to each other who rather hate each other, with a long history of border conflict and wars, which is a very very different situation. That kind of thing can be much more easily solved, or it could be if Redcloack wasn't insistent in his belief that the only way to make things better is a grand plan to hold a gun to the gods heads.

[ByzantiumBhuka]

Whoa, this is interesting. The "Is Thor morally justified" threads may well take their place alongside the ones about V or Miko. An intriguing exploration of racism with no clear way out.

On another note, it seems that Fenrir/s, as the Northern god of monsters, only created goblinoids. Tiamat probably created the kobolds and lizardfolk, though perhaps she's paid more attention (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0737.html) to the kobolds. So is there a southern god of monsters? And if so, what might they have created?

[Gift Jeraff]

Whoa, this is interesting. The "Is Thor morally justified" threads may well take their place alongside the ones about V or Miko. An intriguing exploration of racism with no clear way out.

On another note, it seems that Fenrir/s, as the Northern god of monsters, only created goblinoids. Tiamat probably created the kobolds and lizardfolk, though perhaps she's paid more attention (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0737.html) to the kobolds. So is there a southern god of monsters? And if so, what might they have created?

We saw a ratfolk or something at the Southern Godsmoot.

[georgie_leech]

No, it's not. Humans are stronger than worms.


I mean, we can and do eat worms. (http://www.eattheweeds.com/cooking-with-earthworms-2/) Not generally going out and eating them out of the ground says more about our feelings about sanitary conditions and our ability to be choosy, than it does about whether they work as food. I mean, just because we generally don't eat wizened dirty apples, doesn't mean we don't eat apples. :smallwink:

[danielxcutter]

Keep in mind Loki is compelled to constantly lie due to mortal beliefs (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1177.html), so the Dark One getting an inaccurate retelling of events wasn't necessarily part of some scheme between the other 3 evil gods. It's just in their nature to paint the good gods as in the wrong.

It seems in-character for Loki reframe the narrative just enough to get an ally against the other Good gods.

Guess that bit him in the ass, didn’t it?


So, I've got to point out that if the gods can't make big changes to creation once a world is created, then the Bet can't be called off.

Hel is a bitch, but getting stuck with it for millions of years if TDO joins up is a moderate “oof” moment.

It’s only moderate because she’d probably still be a NE edgy death goddess anyways, but still.


Because they take turn determining specific aspects of all of the world, not just their spot.

Remember how Monkey decided that this world would have ninjas with his turn? Yeah.


No, it's not. Humans are stronger than worms.

I’m pretty sure there’s an early bird joke in there somewhere.


Not enough bodily harm.

Heh.


I'm going to call him Fensir and you can't stop me.

Am I missing a reference?


Here ya go. (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1143.html) I find the implied identity of that god in relation to what we've just learned about the origins of goblins rather interesting, I've got to say.

...Huh.


If you haven't already (and can afford it), may I suggest purchasing Start of Darkness?

Man, I should get around to that some day.


Does it? We know Dvalin didn't create the dwarves despite being their ethnic god, for example.

Not sure if he counts much as ethnic in the first place. An ethnic god, maybe. Dunno.



I realize it amuses me that most of the Dwarves have the Scottish accent but Thor and Odin none at all.
Why would they? I'm more surprized that Dvalin doesn't, myself.

I think Rich mentioned that Thor isn’t specifically a dwarf god, he’s just popular with them.


I mean, Redcloak's story describes him as a warlord who marshalled the greatest military force ever before negotiating. It's less "I was just a friendly good friend all along" and more "Let's consider violence plan B."

Yeah, it’s probably more nuanced than his narrative. Likely close enough for the basics to be the same, at least, and it’d probably have been better for many people if he hadn’t been assassinated then.

Incidentally, I wonder if goblinoid discrimination was always as much of a thing back then, or if the PC races used TDO’s campaign as an excuse to double down on that.

[Fyraltari]

I mean, we can and do eat worms. (http://www.eattheweeds.com/cooking-with-earthworms-2/) Not generally going out and eating them out of the ground says more about our feelings about sanitary conditions and our ability to be choosy, than it does about whether they work as food. I mean, just because we generally don't eat wizened dirty apples, doesn't mean we don't eat apples. :smallwink:

But worms often eat humans was my point.

[Windscion]

But worms often eat humans was my point.
Well, worms find us yummier than we do them. Can we all agree on that?

[georgie_leech]

But worms often eat humans was my point.

Generally when we're at or most physically infirm :smallbiggrin: but point taken.

[Emberlily]

This comic has brought up some information on something I've been wondering since the reveal that there's been countless worlds made.

So goblins aren't in every world (Fenrir does it when it's fantasy-themed only), but they are in enough that green goblins being medium this time was notable. But what about, say, elves? There's evidence of worlds without elves entirely (snack food world), but are they usually involved in worlds, or only brought up in fantasy worlds like goblins are, or something else? I've wondered for a while if the elven gods mentioned to have been raised during this world are an anomaly or if we often get, say, elven gods who only stick around for a couple worlds before passing on.

And what about humans? This world seems to have humans be the most cosmopolitan and among the most populous species, but are humans a special species that shows up more than elves or goblins in general, or is it just this world that is vaguely human-centric? Most gods we see outside of the southern pantheon seem humanesque in shape, but that doesn't say much since gods' form is dictated by the belief of the world they're in.

[Fyraltari]

Hel is a bitch, but getting stuck with it for millions of years if TDO joins up is a moderate “oof” moment.
I, uh, was thinking about the dwarves stuck with her.


It’s only moderate because she’d probably still be a NE edgy death goddess anyways, but still.
I mean, Loki seems to think she's in serious danger of starving to death even if the world blows up.


Am I missing a reference?
Nah, I just think I'm funny. Specifically, I thought it'd be funny to react to the Fernris/r thing by picking a spelling that's just plain wrong and that while I'm at it I should do so by replacing the other r by an s.

[Syoban]

OH. So every time they start a new world, Fenris tries to ZERG RUSH it!

[Shale]

It really does change things though, without a divine mandate of slaughter on goblins as explicit tools for exp gain the situation with Azure City and the goblin nations next to it instead now looks like what all the rest of history looks like. Two nations and cultures next to each other who rather hate each other, with a long history of border conflict and wars, which is a very very different situation. That kind of thing can be much more easily solved, or it could be if Redcloack wasn't insistent in his belief that the only way to make things better is a grand plan to hold a gun to the gods heads.

But there is a divine mandate for Azurites to slaughter goblins, as seen by the fact that their paladins, who may only use lethal force in accordance with a divine mandate, slaughter goblins on the regular. The fact that it's merely a specific case of the general principle that the gods need the sentient races to be in constant conflict either with each other or potent non-sentient beings in order to generate XP doesn't matter to the goblins getting slaughtered. And while the gods haven't explicitly decreed that goblins aren't allowed to fight back, they created the world such that goblins would lack the tools to fight back.

[CountDVB]

What does it mean that he made the green ones medium? Are they supposed to be larger than other goblins now, because they look the same size?

Goblins are usually a Small creature while the Hobgoblins are Medium-sized. Though they actually remind me of the Verdan in that sense.

[MoiMagnus]

Whether or not oppression/injustice is intentional isn't particularly comforting from the viewpoint of the oppressed.

Intentionality is relevant if one want to attribute blame and punitive justice, which is only important to prevent similar situations from arising again in future worlds, if any.
(Fenrir is here a negligent parent for creating a sentient specie but not taking responsibilities as a creator, and the remaining of the gods failed to provide "child protective services" to the Goblinoids, when they didn't made things worse by the system they build)

But as for actually solving the current oppression problem, yeah, intentionality and "who is to blame?" is not relevant.

[danielxcutter]

This comic has brought up some information on something I've been wondering since the reveal that there's been countless worlds made.

So goblins aren't in every world (Fenrir does it when it's fantasy-themed only), but they are in enough that green goblins being medium this time was notable. But what about, say, elves? There's evidence of worlds without elves entirely (snack food world), but are they usually involved in worlds, or only brought up in fantasy worlds like goblins are, or something else? I've wondered for a while if the elven gods mentioned to have been raised during this world are an anomaly or if we often get, say, elven gods who only stick around for a couple worlds before passing on.

And what about humans? This world seems to have humans be the most cosmopolitan and among the most populous species, but are humans a special species that shows up more than elves or goblins in general, or is it just this world that is vaguely human-centric? Most gods we see outside of the southern pantheon seem humanesque in shape, but that doesn't say much since gods' form is dictated by the belief of the world they're in.

I mean they’ve been through like a gazillion worlds and Thor said that this one was kind of scraping the barrel when it came to originality. So yeah.


I, uh, was thinking about the dwarves stuck with her.

...Oh right. That’s a given for sure.

Honestly at this point everyone loses the Bet more or less. Jeez, Loki.

[quote]I mean, Loki seems to think she's in serious danger of starving to death even if the world blows up.

Considering that she almost faded away in this world I’d say she’s in danger already.


Nah, I just think I'm funny. Specifically, I thought it'd be funny to react to the Fernris/r thing by picking a spelling that's just plain wrong and that while I'm at it I should do so by replacing the other r by an s.

Ah.


OH. So every time they start a new world, Fenris tries to ZERG RUSH it!

That... seems to be literally the case, yes.


But there is a divine mandate for Azurites to slaughter goblins, as seen by the fact that their paladins, who may only use lethal force in accordance with a divine mandate, slaughter goblins on the regular. The fact that it's merely a specific case of the general principle that the gods need the sentient races to be in constant conflict either with each other or potent non-sentient beings in order to generate XP doesn't matter to the goblins getting slaughtered. And while the gods haven't explicitly decreed that goblins aren't allowed to fight back, they created the world such that goblins would lack the tools to fight back.

Didn’t Rich say something about some of the paladins who slaughtered Redcloak’s village did fall? Not that it really changes much, of course.

[Pax_Chi]

Interestingly enough, one could see this entire situation as an example of the importance of good parenting.

The gods didn't intentionally create the world as one where goblins would be on the lower totem pole. They created a world where, much like our own, survival of the fittest is a thing, and those that are either individually strong or willing to work together naturally rise to the top. However, most of the Good Aligned Gods actually invested time and effort into their creations, were available to them to help them out, and put the work in to render what aid they could within the limits of the rules of the setting. The goblins, meanwhile, were created by a god that grew bored with them and moved on to other things.

The disadvantage the goblins have isn't that the world isn't unfair to them. They're at a disadvantage because the Good gods actually took the time to raise their kids right, while the goblins were basically left to their own devices. At the same time, that adversity was enough that they created a god for themselves, basically a case of the oldest sibling stepping up to take care of everyone because their deadbeat dad/mom ran off and abandoned them. Only now they want to take out their grievances, not on the god that abandoned them, but on everyone else.

It kind of reminds me of a quote from Babylon 5:


In order to be free, you had to learn to fight no one questions that. But you've over-compensated. You're like abused children who have grown big enough to do the same thing to someone else as if that will somehow balance the scales. It won't. If you let your anger cloud your judgement it will destroy you.

[Phantom Thief]

Regardless if whether or not the God's should be considered malicious in allowing the Goblins to end up as they are, I dont think this changes anything for Redcloak.

Redcloaks original assertion was that the God's made the Goblins intending for them to be kept weak and to die for the sake of PC races.

Thors assertion is that Goblins are weak because Fenrir conceived them poorly, and the God's just couldn't do anything about it.

It's perhaps debatable whether the God's could have done more to compensate for Fenrirs poor planning, but it doesn't really matter.

At the present state of the world, it's agreed either way that Goblins have an inherent disadvantage in the world. It also seems to be the case that the Goblins are considered to be in lower standing than the PC races, because the God's DID seem to put effort into making sure those races were relatively balanced with each other in a way that Goblins are not.

So for Redcloak there's not really a solid reason to help Thor. Either the God's can do something to rebalance racial advantage, in which case Redcloak should insist on that given that it's agreed that Goblins are currently screwed over. Or the God's can't do anything, in which case it could be worth it to let the world be destroyed, since in a new world they would be able to prevent this imbalance.

I dont think the question of whether the screwing over was on purpose or accident changes that.

[Kruploy]

{scrubbed}

[understatement]

FYI, it wasn't really an "accident" either. Thor clearly knew what Fenrir was doing, he just didn't really do anything about it.

And if the Dark One's version is "uncharitable," I feel like Thor is probably being way too nice about the gods' version as well. They made a system of sentient beings that relied on violent conflict, but also at the same time want to keep their hands clean of it.

[Dragonus45]

But there is a divine mandate for Azurites to slaughter goblins, as seen by the fact that their paladins, who may only use lethal force in accordance with a divine mandate, slaughter goblins on the regular. The fact that it's merely a specific case of the general principle that the gods need the sentient races to be in constant conflict either with each other or potent non-sentient beings in order to generate XP doesn't matter to the goblins getting slaughtered. And while the gods haven't explicitly decreed that goblins aren't allowed to fight back, they created the world such that goblins would lack the tools to fight back.

How many of those paladins still had paladin levels after that fight? And no they don’t actually need sentient races on the whole to be in constant conflict, between individual bad actors like Xykon and actual monsters like own bears there are plenty ways to get conflict and exp without nations warring on each other.

[Ionathus]

FYI, it wasn't really an "accident" either. Thor clearly knew what Fenrir was doing, he just didn't really do anything about it.

And if the Dark One's version is "uncharitable," I feel like Thor is probably being way too nice about the gods' version as well. They made a system of sentient beings that relied on violent conflict, but also at the same time want to keep their hands clean of it.

Yeah, even if the gods didn't actively do it, I appreciate how Thor recognizes that they let it happen.

One thing that I'm really liking more and more about this conversation with Thor, after the negotiations with Redcloak, are how Durkon debated both of them. He took Redcloak to task about his behavior, and pretty clearly poked at his arguments and flimsy justifications. Originally I expected that was just Durkon's natural bias against Evil seeping through, but then he turned around and did the same thing to his own god, which has to take a lot of guts!

[Sir_Norbert]

Didn’t Rich say something about some of the paladins who slaughtered Redcloak’s village did fall? Not that it really changes much, of course.

Nope. What he actually said was along the lines of "I chose not to make it clear because that wasn't the point of the scene". However, ever since then, everyone and his dog has misquoted the line as saying "Yes, they definitely did fall, I just didn't show it", but that's not what he actually said.

[Good Coyote]

On Fenric as the god of monsters... I wonder if it's more like a god of knowledge, or god of vigilance situation. Fenrix as the god of monster status, which all races have, but not every individual is interested in having as a religious focus.

In other words, he's a god whose teachings focus very much on the "we're part of a dog eat dog ecosystem" view, pretty much exactly like TDO's teachings except Fenrib would say it as something to be embraced.

Except for the part about goblins being targeted specifically, and therefore it being something to hate other gods for, TDO's teachings do sound like a fairly typical set of Evil god teachings. You're here to get stronger or to be the fodder for someone else to get strong, so strike first and fight dirty.

Though thinking about it I wonder if TDO actually teaches that goblins were targeted specifically? Or did he just say "This happened to goblins," and not mention any other race because they aren't important to him. But then his followers are like "Oh, that explains the difference between us and everyone else." Or, maybe it was Loki who misleadingly didn't mention that this is a universal condition.


On another topic, I think this page actually brings the comic further away from representing real life situations. (Which I certainly don't object to it doing.)

[ratfox]

I realize it amuses me that most of the Dwarves have the Scottish accent but Thor and Odin none at all.

When did it become traditional for dwarves to have a Scottish accent in the first place? Does Gimli have a Scottish speech in the books? I think my introduction to the trope was Warcraft, which was largely based on Warhammer; but I don't know whether Warhammer dwarves have an accent.

[danielxcutter]

How many of those paladins still had paladin levels after that fight? And no they don’t actually need sentient races on the whole to be in constant conflict, between individual bad actors like Xykon and actual monsters like own bears there are plenty ways to get conflict and exp without nations warring on each other.

Technically you keep the Paladin levels, it’s just you lose most of your powers until you get an Atonement.


Yeah, even if the gods didn't actively do it, I appreciate how Thor recognizes that they let it happen.

One thing that I'm really liking more and more about this conversation with Thor, after the negotiations with Redcloak, are how Durkon debated both of them. He took Redcloak to task about his behavior, and pretty clearly poked at his arguments and flimsy justifications. Originally I expected that was just Durkon's natural bias against Evil seeping through, but then he turned around and did the same thing to his own god, which has to take a lot of guts!

Agreed. Heck, Durkon is a friggin’ cleric! Arguably he’s lucky that Thor is so chill.


Nope. What he actually said was along the lines of "I chose not to make it clear because that wasn't the point of the scene". However, ever since then, everyone and his dog has misquoted the line as saying "Yes, they definitely did fall, I just didn't show it", but that's not what he actually said.

Honestly I don’t think it even matters at this point, because it doesn’t change that Redcloak suffered a grievous injustice and the people who did it weren’t punished as much as they should have been.

[Fyraltari]

Yeah, even if the gods didn't actively do it, I appreciate how Thor recognizes that they let it happen.

One thing that I'm really liking more and more about this conversation with Thor, after the negotiations with Redcloak, are how Durkon debated both of them. He took Redcloak to task about his behavior, and pretty clearly poked at his arguments and flimsy justifications. Originally I expected that was just Durkon's natural bias against Evil seeping through, but then he turned around and did the same thing to his own god, which has to take a lot of guts!
Not the first time he's been willing to call Thor out (last panel) (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1140.html).

[Ionathus]

On Fenric as the god of monsters... I wonder if it's more like a god of knowledge, or god of vigilance situation. Fenrix as the god of monster status, which all races have, but not every individual is interested in having as a religious focus.

In other words, he's a god whose teachings focus very much on the "we're part of a dog eat dog ecosystem" view, pretty much exactly like TDO's teachings except Fenrib would say it as something to be embraced.

I'm not sure Fernis has all that much insight. His statement at the Godsmoot and Thor's depiction of him here feels more like someone who just embraces chaos and bloodshed, very similar to Yeenoghu in D&D mythos. He has the base animal cunning to recognize the potential of short-lifespan, quick-breeding creatures, but not the forethought or intelligence to plan ahead.


Except for the part about goblins being targeted specifically, and therefore it being something to hate other gods for, TDO's teachings do sound like a fairly typical set of Evil god teachings. You're here to get stronger or to be the fodder for someone else to get strong, so strike first and fight dirty.

Though thinking about it I wonder if the TDO actually teaches that goblins were targeted specifically? Or did he just say "This happened to goblins," and not mention any other race because they aren't important to him. But then his followers are like "Oh, that explains the difference between us and everyone else." Or, maybe it was Loki who misleadingly didn't mention that this is a universal condition.

In Start of Darkness, Redcloak tells TDO's version of "the Crayons of Time" and it features the other monstrous races (orcs, kobolds, lizardfolk, gnolls) being created in the same way as goblins.

From Redcloak's comments about Gobbotopia, I can see TDO becoming a god of monstrous humanoids in general. But I think Redcloak is maybe mostly paying lip service to that concept, and I doubt TDO has really considered it much at all -- he seems fixated on getting revenge/justice for the goblinoids, specifically.

ninja edit:

Not the first time he's been willing to call Thor out (last panel) (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1140.html).

That one was also a more lighthearted jokey-joke, with less of a moral accusation, but yeah -- Thor is pretty (well, relatively) chill about criticism.

[B. Dandelion]

Sometimes a strip comes along and it's just the most perfectly satisfying thing. I feel like I have been waiting for this exact moment for a long time. A surprisingly long time. George W. Bush was still the president at the time when I first got invested in this plotline. To finally have that itch scratched is really something else.

Durkon's responses to all this are perfect and incredibly endearing. It's exactly how I want to see an objectively good person react to all of this. Well, I'm sorry he's depressed about it, but it affirms my belief that the story isn't going to end with some minor tweaks to the system but a fundamental transformation.

It didn't seem to me like the SOD story was discredited like I'm seeing some people say. (Durkon's "I really dinnae like how much that were na a firm, "Na."" is so great.) So the gods were more indifferent than hostile toward the goblins, that's really so much better. The system is unjust, because the goblins are given less to start, and that injustice perpetuates itself. The gods are reaping the rewards of that fundamental injustice. It's a legitimate grievance, and Durkon sees it too.

It is a complicated problem since the gods actually do need that "profit" to survive, and I don't think "well let's just kill all the gods" is going to be a solution. (Though a part of me would have enjoyed that plot.) But Thor's plan by itself is clearly not going to cut it as far as dismantling the injustice built into the system from the ground up.

(I'm speculating that the final resolution is going to be something like the people of the world who actually have to live on it coming together to re-write the rules for how things should work.)

Some details being wrong tells us the Dark One was either misinformed about the whole process that he wasn't around for, or more likely he intentionally took liberties with the truth. I'd guess the idea in creating the lore of the Crimson Mantle was to inflame the passions of the person wearing it as much as possible. It's tough to keep people motivated on a Plan that could potentially eradicate the souls of everyone on the planet. "The world is unjust and I could make it better" is OK, but it could be a lot better if you punched it up. Like "literally everyone is plotting against us and only by seizing the upper hand can we possibly have a chance to make things right".

[locksmith of lo]

just because you have had a billion false starts, does not make you an expert on what happens when you actually succeed and make it out of the starter area. being gods does not mean that there are no unforeseen consequences. the goblin races can be victims and that was not intentional act. it is just that it was not addressed and fixed, and now it has become enough of a problem that a god has actually been elevated to address this exact problem. :smallsmile:

[Shale]

How many of those paladins still had paladin levels after that fight? And no they don’t actually need sentient races on the whole to be in constant conflict, between individual bad actors like Xykon and actual monsters like own bears there are plenty ways to get conflict and exp without nations warring on each other.

They don't need constant war of all against all, but they need some level of conflict so sentient beings can keep gaining XP. Whether that's large-scale war or monster-slaying or quests to defeat individual but high-powered villains, the system requires ongoing strife. They could have set things up so none of the sentient races would be in position to genocide the others, but they didn't so that emerged as a valid option with intelligent "monsters" as the targets.

[hroþila]

I'm going to call him Fensir and you can't stop me.
Real disrespectful to Phensiʀ if you ask me.

[CountDVB]

The problem is that deities are flawed like their creations, the mortals. They still bicker among themselves, they are not on the same side like everyone thinks except if it’s in the case of survival and it requires compromise to try and get the basics done.

Hell, the deities are also stuck in their ways because of mortal faith. Loki as god of lies can only really lie, not even able to tell a large truth to his own daughter because of that shape of belief.

The goblins are getting screwed, but problem is how it fix it. The gods are actively involved in creating the world, but then met it run mostly on its own besides the prayers of their worshippers or that shenanigans of one god or two, in this world, Hel.

Like, yes, we recognize a problem, but what exactly can be done to fix it, and that’s the hard part, especially since you have to convince Neutral and Evil gods to go along with it, and well, fat chance.

[Lethologica]

Real disrespectful to Phensiʀ if you ask me.
Yeah, this just isn't right. Pencil deserves better.

[Wraithfighter]

Here's the two main things that I took from this:

1: That while Redcloak is wrong that the gods were malicious with their actions towards the goblins, he isn't wrong that his people were placed in a disadvantaged state where they would be taken advantage of. Its just more "ignorance and indifference" instead, which tracks closely to a lot of, well, real-world aspects of systemic racism. Yes, systemic racism has plenty of malicious factors in it, absolutely, but its the twin demons of ignorance and indifference that can really have a huge impact on things.

So, yeah, Redcloak still has plenty of right to have a beef with the gods for this whole mess, but it's just a more common and (for lack of a better term) human sort of issue on the Gods' ends.

2: That, whatever solution does come up from this, there will be no Deus Ex Machina (or, well, Deus Ex Deus) solution to this problem. This is a problem. It needs to be sorted out for a non-hammer-y solution to the crisis. And the solution won't come from the gods, they are impotent with regards to sorting out the mess that they created (just like they are regarding the Snarl, for the most part).

Which really is the important part. Look, when you start having casual conversations with your Gods, it's important to they story that they can't solve things for your characters.

...oh, uh right. Also:

3: Minrah is a treasure, her double-act with Durkon is just delightful, and I'd love to know when Rich realized that he had a new major character for the comic :D.

[Good Coyote]

Another random thought. "They die early compared to other races (such as elves) but breed fast and that's why they are the dominant race" Isn't that the reason often given for why humans are the default race in many fantasy worlds? Though it's coupled with stuff like "adaptability" which is presumably the edge that Fenriq forgot.


I also think it's interesting that so far the discussion of "unfairness" is confined to unfairness between communities (and only fantasy racial communities). If one group of humans is in the wastes and another group of humans is in a lush forest, that isn't less unfair on the part of the gods than if the first group is goblins. If you're just individually poor because your parents were poor and you can trace that all the way back to your ancestors' starting conditions, then are you just as much a victim to the gods' need for conflict?

All of the starting populations must have been seeded with diversity, and that means some people are guaranteed to not do as well as other people in their own group, even if you don't know for sure which ones beforehand.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

To be honest, I don't think most of what Thor says is meant to be some kind of big reveal. I mean, I at least didn't really expect that the truth was going to be "yes, we gods specifically created the goblins as XP fodder". The truth is still something that Redcloak and goblinoids everywhere should feel angry about: that the world is designed as a zero-sum game where those who start out in more favorable positions are likely to do better than those who do not and through neglect that's where the goblins started out. So, in terms of how this changes things overall, I don't think Redcloak will really care that his version is less "charitable", even though I am glad to know that the gods aren't actively designing specific races to get beat up.

On the other hand, what is big is that the gods cannot make major changes to the world after it's been made. That means that even if the Plan does succeed, it's not like the gods can just divinely make everything right, although I imagine they can work in more subtle ways, like telling their followers to stop their treatment of the goblinoids.

[Dragonus45]

Another random thought. "They die early compared to other races (such as elves) but breed fast and that's why they are the dominant race" Isn't that the reason often given for why humans are the default race in many fantasy worlds? Though it's coupled with stuff like "adaptability" which is presumably the edge that Fenriq forgot.


I'm assuming Phensiʀs saw how humans worked out and said "Huh, those guys are managing to keep up with the elves and dwarves even though they don't live nearly as long. Guess the drive from knowing you don't have a hundred years to work out what you want to do with life and being able to have kids more often worked out for them... I JUST HAD A GREAT IDEA."

[Ekim One-Eye]

Clearly, the right answer is Fenri. He's Fenri the 8th after 7 previous monster-gods didn't get enough worship.


I hate you. /s

[Windscion]

Y'all are forgetting that in TDO's version, the gods realized that the "monster" races were numerous, and then gave them crappy lands to confirm their second rate status. This isn't addressed because Durkon hasn't heard that part (yet). To what extent that part is based on actual pantheonic history is not at all clear.

Thor might say "Okay, yeah, we made a few tweaks for balance." Or he might deny it. But his dismissive attitude towards Fenrir's approach weighs (if only slightly) against it being true.

[CountDVB]

On the other hand, what is big is that the gods cannot make major changes to the world after it's been made. That means that even if the Plan does succeed, it's not like the gods can just divinely make everything right, although I imagine they can work in more subtle ways, like telling their followers to stop their treatment of the goblinoids.

I mean, we kinda knew that given how Thor and Odin made it explicitly clear. After all, if everyone could play in the sandbox at the same time, all the sandcastles would keep getting kicked down quickly.

[Ekim One-Eye]

Eh, anyone who's played a modern game knows that publication is no longer the end of the matter, however firmly it once was*.

*And that still didn't stop, e.g., Tolkien from rewriting a whole chapter of The Hobbit years after original to fit with his Lord of the Rings retcons...


Really? I'd never heard that before.

[Ginasius]

I think you should start a thread about Fenrtanylr or whatever it is called.... :smallbiggrin:

[danielxcutter]

Y'all are forgetting that in TDO's version, the gods realized that the "monster" races were numerous, and then gave them crappy lands to confirm their second rate status. This isn't addressed because Durkon hasn't heard that part (yet). To what extent that part is based on actual pantheonic history is not at all clear.

Thor might say "Okay, yeah, we made a few tweaks for balance." Or he might deny it. But his dismissive attitude towards Fenrir's approach weights (albiet slightly) against it being true.

As has been said though, that really doesn't matter at this point. The goblins did get a pretty short end of the stick one way or another and the PC races largely treat them as XP fodder.

[Ginasius]

Really? I'd never heard that before.

That's true. In the original The Hobbit, Gollum actually gave the ring to Bilbo willingly because of the latter's victory in the riddle game. Or he tried to, but did not know that he had already lost the ring and that it was in Bilbo's pocket.

This fact was not compatible with the absolutely evil essence of the Ring, as subsequently established.

[hroþila]

Really? I'd never heard that before.
Originally, Gollum willingly offered the ring as a prize if Bilbo won the game, he apologized for having lost it (since Bilbo had found it earlier) and as compensation he showed Bilbo the exit. That made no sense in light of what Tolkien wanted the ring to be like in LotR, so he rewrote it, he reframed the original chapter as the version Bilbo told at first, and discussed it in the intro to LotR. In-universe, Bilbo lied about how he got the ring, probably already under the effect of the ring and wanting to appear more as its legitimate owner, and his lie made it into some of the manuscripts The Hobbit and LotR were based on, but Frodo wrote the true version of the story at some point.

edit: Fenzir'd

[faustin]

It seems Durkon didn't have much thought to the implications of D&D afterlife being a glorified albeit complex digestive tract; at least until now.

[Breccia]

Literal world building.

[Windscion]

As has been said though, that really doesn't matter at this point. The goblins did get a pretty short end of the stick one way or another and the PC races largely treat them as XP fodder.
It affects the question of malice. That the goblins are screwed is understood. It is, however, relevant to negotiations between the goblins and the gods. If the gods were in fact malicious, they cannot be expected to negotiate in good faith. This is TDO's viewpoint, and he has reason to think that way. If it was pantheonic indifference, negotiations are potentially easier. Basically, I think it has relevance to the eventual outcome of the story line.

[CountDVB]

As has been said though, that really doesn't matter at this point. The goblins did get a pretty short end of the stick one way or another and the PC races largely treat them as XP fodder.

Yeah, though the question is now what? The gods can tell their worshippers not to slay goblins anymore (least, as XP fodder, self-defense still applies), but that would require getting most of the gods on board, including the ones that actually run the land, environment, winds and so on. And that's a process in it of itself. The mortals, by and large, have to be the one to solve this one for this world.

Then again, they are the ones who ultimately made goblins "XP fodder". The gods just didn't tell them no. That's the thing with free will and self-determination... cleaning up your mess and having to clean up other peoples' messes when they get too big and or too numerous and or too stinky to tolerate.

[CountDVB]

It seems Durkon didn't have much thought to the implications of D&D afterlife being a glorified albeit complex digestive tract; at least until now.

I mean, the deities still hang out with their mortals sorta. I think it's more like taking care of dairy cows for the milk sort of thing.

[Ionathus]

I also think it's interesting that so far the discussion of "unfairness" is confined to unfairness between communities (and only fantasy racial communities). If one group of humans is in the wastes and another group of humans is in a lush forest, that isn't less unfair on the part of the gods than if the first group is goblins. If you're just individually poor because your parents were poor and you can trace that all the way back to your ancestors' starting conditions, then are you just as much a victim to the gods' need for conflict?

I think one thing we've seen in abundance in OotS, for good or ill, is multiple largely-homogenous communities. Goblins tend to stick with other goblins. Elves stick with elves. Dwarves live up near the North Pole, and only a few venture forth. Remember how Laurin hates elves because they have the top lush portion of the Western Continent locked down, and everybody else has to "fight for scraps"? Humans intermingle, but that may be the exception more than the rule.


All of the starting populations must have been seeded with diversity

[Citation needed]

[bunsen_h]

Yes, historically they've both been used in various translations/contexts. I didn't go back to check which one I had previously picked. Maybe I'll fix it but it's not really wrong per se.

Clearly it's a grammatical-mode thing. Other-god speaking to a mortal uses one form, god's own avatar speaking to other gods' avatars uses a different one. :smallbiggrin:

(I'm re-reading The Curse of Chalion (https://www.amazon.ca/Curse-Chalion-Lois-McMaster-Bujold/dp/0061134244/), and recently went through the bit which mentions the various grammatical forms of Roknari: master to warrior, master to servant, slave to master, servant to lesser servant, slave to scholar... all distinguishable in just a few words.)


I mean, we can and do eat worms. (http://www.eattheweeds.com/cooking-with-earthworms-2/) Not generally going out and eating them out of the ground says more about our feelings about sanitary conditions and our ability to be choosy, than it does about whether they work as food. I mean, just because we generally don't eat wizened dirty apples, doesn't mean we don't eat apples. :smallwink:

Don't forget How To Eat Fried Worms (https://www.amazon.ca/How-Fried-Worms-Thomas-Rockwell/dp/1338565893/).


That's true. In the original The Hobbit, Gollum actually gave the ring to Bilbo willingly because of the latter's victory in the riddle game. Or he tried to, but did not know that he had already lost the ring and that it was in Bilbo's pocket.

This fact was not compatible with the absolutely evil essence of the Ring, as subsequently established.

Another factor in the rewrite was the need to regain copyright status after Ace printed unauthorized editions (https://law.marquette.edu/facultyblog/2011/10/one-public-domain-to-rule-them-all/) of the books without paying royalties.

[CountDVB]

I think one thing we've seen in abundance in OotS, for good or ill, is multiple largely-homogenous communities. Goblins tend to stick with other goblins. Elves stick with elves. Dwarves live up near the North Pole, and only a few venture forth. Remember how Laurin hates elves because they have the top lush portion of the Western Continent locked down, and everybody else has to "fight for scraps"? Humans intermingle, but that may be the exception more than the rule.

There's also fighting within the subgroups. Remember the Monster in the Darkness' observations over the pan-goblinoid narrative?

[Good Coyote]

I think one thing we've seen in abundance in OotS, for good or ill, is multiple largely-homogenous communities. Goblins tend to stick with other goblins. Elves stick with elves. Dwarves live up near the North Pole, and only a few venture forth. Remember how Laurin hates elves because they have the top lush portion of the Western Continent locked down, and everybody else has to "fight for scraps"? Humans intermingle, but that may be the exception more than the rule.

Humans do seem to be exceptionally diverse, but it's not just intermingling with others. They have multiple distinct communities and many of them seem to have class differences within them. Not everyone's a noble. Some people are dirt farmers. The dirt farmers may have a claim of injustice.




[Citation needed]

The diverse communities we've seen could have all descended from identical clones having kids with each other? I suppose. Kind of gross to think about though.

[danielxcutter]

There's also fighting within the subgroups. Remember the Monster in the Darkness' observations over the pan-goblinoid narrative?

I don't think there's been much fighting with each other, if only because the bugbears are holed up in the ass end of the arctic.

[pendell]

It was about time that Thor debunked The Dark One's victimization narrative.

It's a dark day for Goblin Justice Warriors.

A much needed strip, Giant. Thank you.

I don't fully agree.

It IS a much needed strip, yes, and very interesting. It also sheds additional light on the matter of the creation of the world when, previously, we only had the Dark One's word on everything.

What this confirms to me is that:
1) The goblins' plight goes to the heart of what we currently call 'privilege'. While ostensibly being equal and held to the same standard, in point of fact it is far easier due to circumstance for the under-privileged monster races to be pushed into being weak fodder for other species than it is for dwarves or humans or elves. The other races were special to one god or another. The goblins had Fenrir. Whatever he thought of them, it was evidently so dis-satisfactory that, in my view, the goblins fired him as god and turned to worshipping one of their own in his place. It's possible Fenrir never revealed himself to them or made worshippers of them, viewing them indeed as mere cattle.

2) We cannot wholly blame the good deities in the pantheon for this. This is not Middle-Earth, where all the world is fashioned to a Good design by Eru Illuvatar, and evil only exists because rebellious lesser spirits pervert his creation. No, this world was created by a mixture of good and evil gods from the start. Because of this, good has input into the process but they only get their way so long as they can persuade enough of the neutral gods to go along. As a result, there's a big section of creation that is evil by design, and the lot of the creatures so-created is thoroughly miserable. The system is unjust and broken from the start due to the presence of evil beings at its creation.

3) Because of this, while we cannot blame the good gods entirely we can certainly blame the three collective pantheons as a whole for setting up a rotten world. Unfortunately, this is an appeal that will only work on the good and neutral gods. The evil gods don't care -- in fact, making it a miserable place is kind of the point, as it fosters evil .

4) Thus , by the nature of good and evil which transcends the gods, the denizens of OOTS world have a legitimate grievance against their pantheons, and a legitimate pretext for war.

Making a better world will require either A) remaking it with the assistance of 'ally' deities or B) The Valkyrie Profile solution.


In the True Ending, Loki kills all the gods but himself, then Luneth kills him and ascends in his place, becoming the sole ruler and god of the world.


The downside is that even with mortal inputs or all formerly-mortal deities, there's no guarantee that the next world will be better than the current one. The gods reflect mortals, and vice versa. A new pantheon made up exclusively of former mortals would probably contains the same mixture of good and evil as the existing pantheon. Which means the new world would also be flawed.

5) This conversation gives Redcloak a pretext to pull the trigger on the snarl and end the world. You read it yourself: The gods aren't going to be making any big changes to the world now that it's been created. Which means the goblins are always going to have the rough end of the stick and Redcloak's dream of a peer civilization equal with the PC races will be forever unrealized.

Given this, Redcloak's likely solution will be to ensure the destruction of this world so that the Dark One will have a hand in making the next one ... IF he can ensure the Dark One's survival to that point, which at this point is doubtful, according to Thor.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Beni-Kujaku]

I love this kind of page, where you can analyse it from multiple perspectives. Here, there are three, maybe four ways to analyse this.

First, the in-universe way: What is the problem here? Not that goblins were created weaker. They are created different, breed faster and have almost the same intelligence and overall stats as humans. If anything, the goblin race as a whole might be stronger than humans, or any other LA+0 race. No, the problem is that the world is created with XP in mind. And that is something that really can't be undone. As long as people are expected and rewarded for killing other people ("people" being used veeeery broadly here), there will always be a rolling stone effect, with people who are better at oppressing others become even better at that with time. And that is something that is really tied to how Gods work. To survive, they need the souls they create to cultivate XP before giving it to them. And that is the point of everything. Mortals, in the OOTSverse, are really just cattle for the gods. Granted, most gods care for the races they create. They help them, give them spells.... But when a race was created with no real intent and gets abandoned by the god that created them, that's where one can question the goal of one's existence. Is it really worth living if you're only created to eventually become food for a god that doesn't even care? Wouldn't it be better to not exist at all? Or to try to topple the system? If you win, you win everything. Your race becomes more important, more well-fed, gets attention from the gods... If you lose,you cease to exist, but if life has no meaning other than as XP for people to get by killing you, and soul food for the gods, then you lose nothing. Pascal's bet, everybody.

But gods are as much impotent to change anything as mortals. They need souls to survive. And they need to survive for the universe to survive. So there is no real bad guy, here. Everything just tries to survive and live their life normally. But when you are so powerful, even a tiny error (you stop caring about one generic race when you are the god of every race in existence, since everybody is a "Monster" in D&D 3.5) makes millions of people suffer. And there is little anybody can do to change that. Increasing one race's power only means another one will get bullied into XP fodder status. Which leads to the second interpretation.

Second, the metagame: Redcloak thinks goblins as individuals are weaker than other races. That is not untrue. But fixing that would mean having every race have the same power level. What is really pointed at here is the balance of the game. What Redcloak seeks is for the game to be balanced. Not have monsters that are too much weaker or stronger than others, or than PC classes. If we go further, if it wasn't goblins, it would be kobolds, or locathahs, or any monster too weak for its ECL.
Balancing the game is hard. Gods have been at it for billions of worlds. WotC have been at it for 5 editions and countless books. They are all-powerful, in that they can create anything with any power level. But they are not all-knowing, and even when they make a conscious effort to balance things, it never turns out exactly as they predicted in the end. Monks were thought to be overpowered in the beginning of 3.5, to give you some context. And yet, they try. Goblins may have it rough, but they live, and they strive. They could even take a great paladin city. Very few classes are really unusable when well thought out. Almost no monster serves absolutely no role in the grand scheme of things. As Xykon said, "everything is oddly balanced (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0657.html)". And that point of view leads to understanding that you can't change everything in one go. That's what Tome of Battle tried. Making martials not suck all at once. What it did was create another style of casting that made previous martials even worse. In-universe, it is the point of view that the Snarl must be contained forever. You can change balance little by little. But flipping the table will only lead to another, greater imbalance.

Finally, the real-world way: I'm not going to speak of it in this post, as I'm not sure how the rules allow it in this case, so I'll switch to another post that you will be able to delete more easily.

[Good Coyote]

I don't think there's been much fighting with each other, if only because the bugbears are holed up in the ass end of the arctic.

According to Redcloak, the hobgoblins have bullied goblins, but he might have been referring to one or two specific hobgoblins who bullied him specifically.

[Fyraltari]

Real disrespectful to Phensiʀ if you ask me.
I don't plan on respecting Fnresnirs anyway.

In-universe, Bilbo lied about how he got the ring, probably already under the effect of the ring and wanting to appear more as its legitimate owner
I love how everyone who wants the Ring make excuses for wanting it:

Isildur: It's a trophy.
Déagol: I found it.
Sméagol: It's a birthday gift.
Bilbo: I won it in a game, fair and square.
Frodo: It's my burden, given by the Council.
Boromir: My people need its power.
Saruman: I could make the world just right with it. It's for the Greater Good, I promise. Also I'm Gandalf's boss, I should have a better Ring than him.
Samwise: I can share Master Frodo's burden.
Grishnàk: I want it, **** you!

[CountDVB]

I don't fully agree.

It IS a much needed strip, yes, and very interesting. It also sheds additional light on the matter of the creation of the world when, previously, we only had the Dark One's word on everything.

What this confirms to me is that:
1) The goblins' plight goes to the heart of what we currently call 'privilege'. While ostensibly being equal and held to the same standard, in point of fact it is far easier due to circumstance for the under-privileged monster races to be pushed into being weak fodder for other species than it is for dwarves or humans or elves. The other races were special to one god or another. The goblins had Fenrir. Whatever he thought of them, it was evidently so dis-satisfactory that, in my view, the goblins fired him as god and turned to worshipping one of their own in his place. It's possible Fenrir never revealed himself to them or made worshippers of them, viewing them indeed as mere cattle.

2) We cannot wholly blame the good deities in the pantheon for this. This is not Middle-Earth, where all the world is fashioned to a Good design by Eru Illuvatar, and evil only exists because rebellious lesser spirits pervert his creation. No, this world was created by a mixture of good and evil gods from the start. Because of this, good has input into the process but they only get their way so long as they can persuade enough of the neutral gods to go along. As a result, there's a big section of creation that is evil by design, and the lot of the creatures so-created is thoroughly miserable. The system is unjust and broken from the start due to the presence of evil beings at its creation.

3) Because of this, while we cannot blame the good gods entirely we can certainly blame the three collective pantheons as a whole for setting up a rotten world. Unfortunately, this is an appeal that will only work on the good and neutral gods. The evil gods don't care -- in fact, making it a miserable place is kind of the point, as it fosters evil .

4) Thus , by the nature of good and evil which transcends the gods, the denizens of OOTS world have a legitimate grievance against their pantheons, and a legitimate pretext for war.

Making a better world will require either A) remaking it with the assistance of 'ally' deities or B) The Valkyrie Profile solution.


In the True Ending, Loki kills all the gods but himself, then Luneth kills him and ascends in his place, becoming the sole ruler and god of the world.


The downside is that even with mortal inputs or all formerly-mortal deities, there's no guarantee that the next world will be better than the current one. The gods reflect mortals, and vice versa. A new pantheon made up exclusively of former mortals would probably contains the same mixture of good and evil as the existing pantheon. Which means the new world would also be flawed.

5) This conversation gives Redcloak a pretext to pull the trigger on the snarl and end the world. You read it yourself: The gods aren't going to be making any big changes to the world now that it's been created. Which means the goblins are always going to have the rough end of the stick and Redcloak's dream of a peer civilization equal with the PC races will be forever unrealized.

Given this, Redcloak's likely solution will be to ensure the destruction of this world so that the Dark One will have a hand in making the next one ... IF he can ensure the Dark One's survival to that point, which at this point is doubtful, according to Thor.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

1- Granted, he just creates the monsters. We don't know if they really worship Fenris. Creator deities that otherwise remain inactive in their followers lives is not uncommon. Heck, now I'm reminded of how Crom from Conan the Barbarian is with the Cimmerians.

2- Yeah, which is why they had to put in so many rules to prevent direct intervention. Odin's sand castle metaphor comes back into play here. I imagine the evil gods' agreed if because they know they'll also fight with each other and having a neutral playing field compromise preferrable to endless arguing and presumably starving.

3- Depends which neutral gods. I suspect a large portion of them would be the gods who make wind or fire or whatnot, the elements and aspects of natural. Amoral, but not immoral. The good gods can only do so much to convince their peers and that's after they've all decided to work together. Different deities of good can still disagree. Miko was "Lawful Good", but got on everyone's nerves regardless of alignment.

4- World is gonna be flawed regardless. Entropy demands everything be broken down and faults exposed, when hy we gotta keep pushing.

5- Forever unrealized because of Redcloak's fault. The one who screwed up his brother's work with the goblin/human community and the one who refused what was pretty much the best shot he had with his goals regarding the deal with Durkon, all because at his core's he's a frightened and angry teenager who's way in over his head and while hardened by experience, still too irresponsible to own up to his failures.

[gatemansgc]

Woo, new comic!

Although, in 999 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0999.html), it seemed you called the god of monsters Fenrir rather than Fenris. I assume theyre intended to be the same?

whenever someone does this i always end up reading old comics from that point for like 20 minutes.

OOTS is just such an amazing comic it never gets old <3

[Beni-Kujaku]

So, the real world way: Imbalances due to being born in some place instead of another, from some parents, with some amount of money. Inequalities are everywhere. And the same way as in the comic, it really is nobody's direct fault. Everyone tries to live as happily as they can, helping other people only if it doesn't make them too unhappy in the process. But there are efforts made to reduce inequalities, or at least help people with less opportunities due to their environment to live a decent life anyway. And that is the take-away from the "we gods can't change big things all at once". In real life, there isn't a Pantheon of Gods that can fix anything by snapping (depends on your religion, but nothing that sudden has been observed at least for a millenium). The "gods", that is to say, governments and big companies and organisation, cannot change things easily without getting overthrown or having unintended consequences. Religious terrorism and violent wars such as Vietnam haven't helped their cause that much, and often the exact opposite. But there is something we can do. Actions we can take without simply destroying the system. And that is the little laws, the multiple small changes that, in the end, make mentalities change. Nowadays is the part of history when the least proportion of people live in extreme poverty, die of illnesses or hunger, and are uneducated.
That is also one message that I found important in this strip. You have to understand the situation in a world to understand what is bad in it, and to be able to change it, even little by little.

OOTS has always had a message of acceptation and equality, but having a good character really try to understand what others have been through, and above all the source of it and find a way to help them is a great step forward. Thank you for continuing to give use this webcomic for so long.

[Psyren]

"You'll think of something."
Really helpful, Thor :smallsigh:

And I definitely love Durkon directly calling him out on the systemic inequity. Yeah sure, any race can succeed, but the ones with the pre-existing advantages generally do. And the gods did nothing to prevent that, and are still doing nothing.

[Teioh]

Interestingly enough, one could see this entire situation as an example of the importance of good parenting.

The gods didn't intentionally create the world as one where goblins would be on the lower totem pole. They created a world where, much like our own, survival of the fittest is a thing, and those that are either individually strong or willing to work together naturally rise to the top. However, most of the Good Aligned Gods actually invested time and effort into their creations, were available to them to help them out, and put the work in to render what aid they could within the limits of the rules of the setting. The goblins, meanwhile, were created by a god that grew bored with them and moved on to other things.

The disadvantage the goblins have isn't that the world isn't unfair to them. They're at a disadvantage because the Good gods actually took the time to raise their kids right, while the goblins were basically left to their own devices. At the same time, that adversity was enough that they created a god for themselves, basically a case of the oldest sibling stepping up to take care of everyone because their deadbeat dad/mom ran off and abandoned them. Only now they want to take out their grievances, not on the god that abandoned them, but on everyone else.

It kind of reminds me of a quote from Babylon 5:

I agree with this take. It looks like parallel for being born in a rich nation with parents who care, VS someone born in a poor nation with parents who abandoned them. Dwarves had good land and plenty of God's who looked out for them, the goblins were born in a poor place with their creator just abandoning them. Note that more than one God supports the dwarves, not just their creator. So it doesn't absolve the non Fenrir gods. They could have looked out for anothers creations just like they do for the dwarves. It would have been free worshipping, an untapped share of the market!

Why didn't they do that?

[Ionathus]

Humans do seem to be exceptionally diverse, but it's not just intermingling with others. They have multiple distinct communities and many of them seem to have class differences within them. Not everyone's a noble. Some people are dirt farmers. The dirt farmers may have a claim of injustice.

The diverse communities we've seen could have all descended from identical clones having kids with each other? I suppose. Kind of gross to think about though.

Noble/dirt farmer injustice can also happen. They're not mutually exclusive. But if, as Redcloak says, goblins can't walk into a human/elf/dwarf settlement without getting slaughtered on the spot, that prevents them from joining any alliances or cooperating to become stronger and more resilient. The fact that they are in a weaker positioning has the potential to keep them in a weaker positioning, effectively.

As for the "diverse communities" thing, I probably misunderstood you. I thought you were saying that the communities were created with a mixture of completely diverse humanoid races, with goblins and elves and humans and dwarves and orcs all living alongside each other. My mistake.

[CountDVB]

I agree with this take. It looks like parallel for being born in a rich nation with parents who care, VS someone born in a poor nation with parents who abandoned them. Dwarves had good land and plenty of God's who looked out for them, the goblins were born in a poor place with their creator just abandoning them. Note that more than one God supports the dwarves, not just their creator. So it doesn't absolve the non Fenrir gods. They could have looked out for anothers creations just like they do for the dwarves. It would have been free worshipping, an untapped share of the market!

Why didn't they do that?

Either non-interference clauses or given how many billions of worlds there likely have been, it's possible they just seem to lack the numbers to keep up to do so.


"You'll think of something."
Really helpful, Thor :smallsigh:

And I definitely love Durkon directly calling him out on the systemic inequity. Yeah sure, any race can succeed, but the ones with the pre-existing advantages generally do. And the gods did nothing to prevent that, and are still doing nothing.

Probably because they didn't know what would happen and by now that they can, it's gonna be very difficult to do something. The gods are not one homogenous blob, but a wide and diverse faction, like mortals, and even mroe convoluted because they cannot stray from their core nature as we saw with Loki.

Though also, it is ultimately the mortals who have to stop the killing and be the ones who get along with the mortals and so on. Gods have try to instruct and motivate them, but mortals have ultimately listen and make the decisions.

[DavidSh]

Clearly it's a grammatical-mode thing. Other-god speaking to a mortal uses one form, god's own avatar speaking to other gods' avatars uses a different one. :smallbiggrin:

In the real world it was also a grammatical (case) difference. Fenrir is nominative case, Fenris genitive, as part of the phrase Fenrisulfr, that is, Fenris Wolf.

[Squire Doodad]

Noble/dirt farmer injustice can also happen. They're not mutually exclusive. But if, as Redcloak says, goblins can't walk into a human/elf/dwarf settlement without getting slaughtered on the spot, that prevents them from joining any alliances or cooperating to become stronger and more resilient. The fact that they are in a weaker positioning has the potential to keep them in a weaker positioning, effectively.

As for the "diverse communities" thing, I probably misunderstood you. I thought you were saying that the communities were created with a mixture of completely diverse humanoid races, with goblins and elves and humans and dwarves and orcs all living alongside each other. My mistake.

I'd like to add to that - the Western Continent is mostly made of BOTH Lizardfolk and humans (plus elves way up top). Plus we've seen what appear to be Kobold communities that interact with other groups (at least something in Cliffport if we assume Mr. You Killed My Father was recruited there like Pompey), and I believe some other monsters interacting with humans/demihumans positively. It isn't just goblinoids, Trolls in particular seem to not interact with humans much based on Serini's conversation with Lien, but goblins having a lack of other races to interact with is a big issue for their own equity.

[Ornithologist]

I don't plan on respecting Fnresnirs anyway.

I love how everyone who wants the Ring make excuses for wanting it:

-snip-

Samwise: I can share Master Frodo's burden.


of all the people who interact with it, Samwise who might not be saying that as an excuse. But this is still an interesting list of descriptions.

[Ionathus]

Probably because they didn't know what would happen and by now that they can, it's gonna be very difficult to do something. The gods are not one homogenous blob, but a wide and diverse faction, like mortals, and even mroe convoluted because they cannot stray from their core nature as we saw with Loki.

Though also, it is ultimately the mortals who have to stop the killing and be the ones who get along with the mortals and so on. Gods have try to instruct and motivate them, but mortals have ultimately listen and make the decisions.

Fair enough. These are the same gods who all collectively forgot about the dwarves all going to Hel -- they're certainly not all-knowing or perfectly intelligent.

[137beth]

I'd been assuming for years, without realizing it, that either Redcloak was right that the gods deliberately gave the goblins a terrible starting condition, or that he was completely wrong and the goblins didn't really have a divinely-created bad starting position.

The possibility that the goblins' bad fortunes were created by the gods by accident was not something I considered. But it does fit with the story.

[CountDVB]

Fair enough. These are the same gods who all collectively forgot about the dwarves all going to Hel -- they're certainly not all-knowing or perfectly intelligent.

I guess they'd figure having Hel have one world of inanity would be not as bad as losing souls to the Snarl and plus, it would mean more deities would stand against her and try to defy her through their various peoples. That or she herself not knowing what would happen if she won regarding the "deific paperwork" if you will.

[Good Coyote]

Noble/dirt farmer injustice can also happen. They're not mutually exclusive. But if, as Redcloak says, goblins can't walk into a human/elf/dwarf settlement without getting slaughtered on the spot, that prevents them from joining any alliances or cooperating to become stronger and more resilient. The fact that they are in a weaker positioning has the potential to keep them in a weaker positioning, effectively.

As for the "diverse communities" thing, I probably misunderstood you. I thought you were saying that the communities were created with a mixture of completely diverse humanoid races, with goblins and elves and humans and dwarves and orcs all living alongside each other. My mistake.

Ahh, I understand. No, I was shifting the focus entirely to within-community situations there. It does seem that starting populations were "this group of elves starts here, this group of dwarves starts here," etc, and that intermingled communities are a result of the descendants of those starter groups choosing to become intermingled.

My point was that if the starting group of humans chooses, say, the physically strongest member to be their chieftain, then that chieftain's descendants are potentially advantaged by a genetic predisposition to strength, which was given to them by the gods (and can also be seen as everybody else being hampered as weaker by the gods).

It's also possible that your stats are rolled at random at birth and you cannot genetically inherit anything in ootsworld. However, the chieftain's descendants are now also advantaged by being the children of the chief. The beginning of inherited wealth. Maybe their line is more likely to have the opportunity to produce a hero who has a very high quality weapon which becomes an ancestral blade.

In addition, the people in power are able to make choices in disadvantaging other people in order to keep themselves in power within their own community (as the Azure City aristocracy does), just as the humans/elves/etc have the ability to collectively keep the goblins out of the circle if they choose to.

[Psyren]

Probably because they didn't know what would happen and by now that they can, it's gonna be very difficult to do something. The gods are not one homogenous blob, but a wide and diverse faction, like mortals, and even mroe convoluted because they cannot stray from their core nature as we saw with Loki.

Though also, it is ultimately the mortals who have to stop the killing and be the ones who get along with the mortals and so on. Gods have try to instruct and motivate them, but mortals have ultimately listen and make the decisions.

The gods as an institution still have culpability here. As Durkon rightly pointed out, the general inequity of their origins and living situations is fostering and exacerbating that very conflict, so expecting mortals to do all the work needed to remediate it is neither fair nor reasonable. And not only do some races (e.g. Dwarves) have better land, food, equipment etc, they even have their own gods specifically to look out for their interests. Until The Dark One, the goblins didn't.

[Xihirli]

The problem the goblins are facing is a death spiral. Once they start losing, they begin losing FASTER. The game needs a blue shell.

[CountDVB]

I'd been assuming for years, without realizing it, that either Redcloak was right that the gods deliberately gave the goblins a terrible starting condition, or that he was completely wrong and the goblins didn't really have a divinely-created bad starting position.

The possibility that the goblins' bad fortunes were created by the gods by accident was not something I considered. But it does fit with the story.

Hanlon's Razor- "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

I guess this would be a corollary or variant as instead of stupidity, it's neglect, unless you consider passive neglect a form of stupidity (which, I guess one could in the sense of oversight).


The gods as an institution still have culpability here. As Durkon rightly pointed out, the general inequity of their origins and living situations is fostering and exacerbating that very conflict, so expecting mortals to do all the work needed to remediate it is neither fair nor reasonable. And not only do some races (e.g. Dwarves) have better land, food, equipment etc, they even have their own gods specifically to look out for their interests. Until The Dark One, the goblins didn't.

True though we have to remember that moral alignment is still in play. Neutral and Evil gods exist and the latter would likely want to maintain terrible conditions. After all, terrible conditions leads to crime and thus leads to them having more power.

Smart crime lords know that they maintain their hold as long as society does not provide sufficiently for everyone, they can collect the left-behinds for their own agendas and powerplays. They also exploit what people want. The mob rose in large power because of the ban on alcohol and subsequent bootlegging of alcohol.

As such, malefic forces have a motivation for keeping things unfair so they end up benefitting. Fostering and exacerbating conflict could very well be the goal of certain gods or similar power, especially for their own purposes.

[Teioh]

The gods as an institution still have culpability here. As Durkon rightly pointed out, the general inequity of their origins and living situations is fostering and exacerbating that very conflict, so expecting mortals to do all the work needed to remediate it is neither fair nor reasonable. And not only do some races (e.g. Dwarves) have better land, food, equipment etc, they even have their own gods specifically to look out for their interests. Until The Dark One, the goblins didn't.

I wonder why? Clearly you can be a God of a race you didn't create. Why would a God turn down a competiton free market? You think some lesser God would have moved in and set up shop

[Psyren]

True though we have to remember that moral alignment is still in play. Neutral and Evil gods exist and the latter would likely want to maintain terrible conditions. After all, terrible conditions leads to crime and thus leads to them having more power.

Smart crime lords know that they maintain their hold as long as society does not provide sufficiently for everyone, they can collect the left-behinds for their own agendas and powerplays. They also exploit what people want. The mob rose in large power because of the ban on alcohol and subsequent bootlegging of alcohol.

As such, malefic forces have a motivation for keeping things unfair so they end up benefitting. Fostering and exacerbating conflict could very well be the goal of certain gods or similar power, especially for their own purposes.

In which case the Goblins are right to want to blow up the entire system and start over, and keep blowing it up until the chips fall more their way. I doubt even the evil gods want that, so they'll be more amenable to compromise.


I wonder why? Clearly you can be a God of a race you didn't create. Why would a God turn down a competiton free market? You think some lesser God would have moved in and set up shop

I don't know... but clearly when the vacuum is big enough, you can end up with spontaneous ascension.

[CountDVB]

I wonder why? Clearly you can be a God of a race you didn't create. Why would a God turn down a competiton free market? You think some lesser God would have moved in and set up shop

Probably some sort of arrangement with Fenris I suspect. It's like how some media companies will sit on ideas for years or decades and don't do anything with them, but will still go on copyright strikes with them.

That and well, fantasy isn't just the key thing the deities do for this. They do all sorts of things. I mean, with the world of movie theater snacks, who goes with which pantheon?

[Lord Torath]

Publishing to stop fiddling hits very hard on today, the deadline of my thesis.Good luck, MoonCat! Knock 'em dead!

[Fyraltari]

I wonder why? Clearly you can be a God of a race you didn't create. Why would a God turn down a competiton free market? You think some lesser God would have moved in and set up shop

Maybe they were afraid that associating with "the ennemy" would result in them losing more worshippers from their established base than they woild gain from the goblins.

Like how in The Elder Scrolls the elven god Stendarr isn't really popular among the traditionnal High Elves because he is "an apologist of Man" (and they don't like humans. At all).

[CountDVB]

Good luck, MoonCat! Knock 'em dead!

Good luck, MoonCat! We believe in you.


In which case the Goblins are right to want to blow up the entire system and start over, and keep blowing it up until the chips fall more their way. I doubt even the evil gods want that, so they'll be more amenable to compromise.

Blow up to threaten an imperfect system is not gonna get the results you want. Especially if not all the goblins are in board at all with this.

[Psyren]

Blow up to threaten an imperfect system is not gonna get the results you want. Especially if not all the goblins are in board at all with this.

Won't it? Thor wouldn't even be considering goblin welfare right now if it weren't for the Plan. None of them would.

I'm not saying the comic will (or should) end with the Dark One pulling off his plot, but I understand.

[The Pilgrim]

I don't fully agree.

It IS a much needed strip, yes, and very interesting. It also sheds additional light on the matter of the creation of the world when, previously, we only had the Dark One's word on everything.

What this confirms to me is that:
1) The goblins' plight goes to the heart of what we currently call 'privilege'. While ostensibly being equal and held to the same standard, in point of fact it is far easier due to circumstance for the under-privileged monster races to be pushed into being weak fodder for other species than it is for dwarves or humans or elves. The other races were special to one god or another. The goblins had Fenrir. Whatever he thought of them, it was evidently so dis-satisfactory that, in my view, the goblins fired him as god and turned to worshipping one of their own in his place. It's possible Fenrir never revealed himself to them or made worshippers of them, viewing them indeed as mere cattle.

2) We cannot wholly blame the good deities in the pantheon for this. This is not Middle-Earth, where all the world is fashioned to a Good design by Eru Illuvatar, and evil only exists because rebellious lesser spirits pervert his creation. No, this world was created by a mixture of good and evil gods from the start. Because of this, good has input into the process but they only get their way so long as they can persuade enough of the neutral gods to go along. As a result, there's a big section of creation that is evil by design, and the lot of the creatures so-created is thoroughly miserable. The system is unjust and broken from the start due to the presence of evil beings at its creation.

3) Because of this, while we cannot blame the good gods entirely we can certainly blame the three collective pantheons as a whole for setting up a rotten world. Unfortunately, this is an appeal that will only work on the good and neutral gods. The evil gods don't care -- in fact, making it a miserable place is kind of the point, as it fosters evil .

4) Thus , by the nature of good and evil which transcends the gods, the denizens of OOTS world have a legitimate grievance against their pantheons, and a legitimate pretext for war.

Making a better world will require either A) remaking it with the assistance of 'ally' deities or B) The Valkyrie Profile solution.


In the True Ending, Loki kills all the gods but himself, then Luneth kills him and ascends in his place, becoming the sole ruler and god of the world.


The downside is that even with mortal inputs or all formerly-mortal deities, there's no guarantee that the next world will be better than the current one. The gods reflect mortals, and vice versa. A new pantheon made up exclusively of former mortals would probably contains the same mixture of good and evil as the existing pantheon. Which means the new world would also be flawed.

5) This conversation gives Redcloak a pretext to pull the trigger on the snarl and end the world. You read it yourself: The gods aren't going to be making any big changes to the world now that it's been created. Which means the goblins are always going to have the rough end of the stick and Redcloak's dream of a peer civilization equal with the PC races will be forever unrealized.

Given this, Redcloak's likely solution will be to ensure the destruction of this world so that the Dark One will have a hand in making the next one ... IF he can ensure the Dark One's survival to that point, which at this point is doubtful, according to Thor.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Hi Brian. My thoughts right now on the matter of the "goblin question" are:

1) We have confirmation that the goblinoids weren't created as fodder. They were not designed to be on a disadvantage. Their creator intended them to be able to overcome all other races. They were designed to pull a zergling rush. As the zergling rush failed, their creator lost interest in them. They became broken toys.

2) The Gods aren't the solution for mortal problems. They don't care all that much, and even those who care, are bound by rules and stuff. It's up to mortals to solve their problems, learn to work together, and build a better world.

3) Redcloak expects that his God will solve everything for the goblins. But the Dark One won't. It's up to the goblins to improve their condition. Like Right-Eye attempted. Like the former hobgoblin leader did.

4) Destroying the World will solve nothing for the Goblins. Because the goblins aren't in their current condition due to any betrayal from the Keepers of the Status Quo, but as a consequence of being designed as a zergling-rush plot. And The Dark One being there in the next world's creation changes nothing: You make a new world, the goblins face the same problem when the zergling-rush fails. Unless they are created as something else. And if they are created as something else, then Redcloak wouldn't be sacrificing real goblins for imaginary ones, but for imaginary whatever else.

All in all, the point is: It's up to the mortal races to solve their co-existence problems. Gods won't solve the problems for them. If someone relies on the Gods to patch things up, they are more likely to end up blowing up the World instead.

[Ionathus]

The problem the goblins are facing is a death spiral. Once they start losing, they begin losing FASTER. The game needs a blue shell.

TDO and Redcloak have a blue shell, or at least are trying to get one. It's just that the heroes & gods are throwing a hissy fit about it.

They're certainly not justified in doing so, but when you're looking at the inequality your race suffers like it's a death spiral, The Snarl starts to look more and more appealing. You're less likely to try the traditional routes if you believe they're rigged against you, and gradual change is a lot less appealing than a big outlandish scheme to "stick it to The Man".

[georgie_leech]

of all the people who interact with it, Samwise who might not be saying that as an excuse.

Evidence in favor: He took it up only as a last resort; the Ring utterly failed in tempting him to have the Best Garden Ever™; he had no trouble giving it up when Frodo asked for it back.

[CountDVB]

TDO and Redcloak have a blue shell, or at least are trying to get one. It's just that the heroes & gods are throwing a hissy fit about it.

They're certainly not justified in doing so, but when you're looking at the inequality your race suffers like it's a death spiral, The Snarl starts to look more and more appealing. You're less likely to try the traditional routes if you believe they're rigged against you, and gradual change is a lot less appealing than a big outlandish scheme to "stick it to The Man".

That's less a blue shell and more a giant nuke. One being handled by people who don't know how it works and aren't considering how bad they could screw up.

And appealing doesn't mean practical nor logicial. Hence why Righteye said that he was still the same angry teenager he was back all those years.

[Ionathus]

All in all, the point is: It's up to the mortal races to solve their co-existence problems. Gods won't solve the problems for them. If someone relies on the Gods to patch things up, they are more likely to end up blowing up the World instead.

None of your responses address the fact that the goblinoids definitely started out at a disadvantage, even if it wasn't an intentional one. Durkon says it. Thor admits it. This is proof that the gods allowed it to happen.


That's less a blue shell and more a giant nuke. One being handled by people who don't know how it works and aren't considering how bad they could screw up.

And appealing doesn't mean practical nor logicial. Hence why Righteye said that he was still the same angry teenager he was back all those years.

I agree wholeheartedly. TDO's plan is terrible and it won't work. Redcloak is deluded about his situation, his own motives, and his prospects. I'm just pointing out that, if Redcloak thinks the deck is stacked against him, it's not really surprising that he's refusing to sit down at the table and play.

[masamune1]

When did it become traditional for dwarves to have a Scottish accent in the first place? Does Gimli have a Scottish speech in the books? I think my introduction to the trope was Warcraft, which was largely based on Warhammer; but I don't know whether Warhammer dwarves have an accent.

In the DVD commentary for LotR, John Rhys-Davies (who plays Gimli) said that he felt he had to come up with an accent for Gimli and was playing around with the voice, and what came out was a Scottish accent.

He didn't put too much thought into it; he just thought it fit.

So, that's where it came from. The whim of an actor.

[Dragonus45]

5- Forever unrealized because of Redcloak's fault. The one who screwed up his brother's work with the goblin/human community and the one who refused what was pretty much the best shot he had with his goals regarding the deal with Durkon, all because at his core's he's a frightened and angry teenager who's way in over his head and while hardened by experience, still too irresponsible to own up to his failures.

This really sums it up, if there is going to be a solution it can't and we now see never could come from the Gods. Their hands are tied more ways then one, and while they made the best functioning world they could under the circumstanced... I kind of don't think it was this one. This was the self aware stick figure parody, the bottom of the barrel for a few pantheons long into a cycle that none of them genuinely thought could ever be broken that ends with every world ultimately being a waste. Whatever the best of possible worlds they could make was is long gone before this one, and Durkon's offer was best chance Redcloak will ever have to undo the failure of destroying his brothers work. Because this is it, this is the one chance to end the cycle and create real system change at the highest of all possible levels by removing the existential threat to the gods.


The gods as an institution still have culpability here. As Durkon rightly pointed out, the general inequity of their origins and living situations is fostering and exacerbating that very conflict, so expecting mortals to do all the work needed to remediate it is neither fair nor reasonable. And not only do some races (e.g. Dwarves) have better land, food, equipment etc, they even have their own gods specifically to look out for their interests. Until The Dark One, the goblins didn't.

You might not think it's fair but it's eminently reasonable in the context we have and the only workable plan left, because the gods tier their own hands for very good very Snarl looking reasons, and also because frankly just doing nothing and hoping the gods can just fix all your problems is kind of silly. Yes, I consider spending all your time trying to work out the best way to extort the gods into what you want when you could put that same effort into actually fixing things sitting around doing nothing. Charitably I might add, considering pursuing those plans tanked a legitimately successful example of goblinoid/humanoid relations in a violent and tragic way.

[faustin]

I think one thing we've seen in abundance in OotS, for good or ill, is multiple largely-homogenous communities. Goblins tend to stick with other goblins. Elves stick with elves. Dwarves live up near the North Pole, and only a few venture forth. Remember how Laurin hates elves because they have the top lush portion of the Western Continent locked down, and everybody else has to "fight for scraps"? Humans intermingle, but that may be the exception more than the rule.

[Citation needed]

I wonder if the secret of human success, besides having an extra feat, is just the ability (and inclination) to interbreed. We are the "anything that moves" race, at least as long as the others are concerned.

Hence why bards are overpowered :)

[gatemansgc]

The problem the goblins are facing is a death spiral. Once they start losing, they begin losing FASTER. The game needs a blue shell.

blue shell XD

[Ionathus]

I wonder if the secret of human success, besides having an extra feat, is just the ability (and inclination) to interbreed. We are the "anything that moves" race, at least as long as the others are concerned.

Therefore why bards are overpowered :)

No joke, I've seen a similar thought in plenty of settings and even some written fantasy series. Humans are quite often the rats of fantasy humanoids: not the strongest, not the smartest, not the longest-lived, but still insanely adaptable and frickin' everywhere. Living in all the nooks and crannies of the world. We're goshdarned survivors, baby.

[bunsen_h]

In the real world it was also a grammatical (case) difference. Fenrir is nominative case, Fenris genitive, as part of the phrase Fenrisulfr, that is, Fenris Wolf.

Really? Huh. Thanks for explaining.


My point was that if the starting group of humans chooses, say, the physically strongest member to be their chieftain, then that chieftain's descendants are potentially advantaged by a genetic predisposition to strength, which was given to them by the gods (and can also be seen as everybody else being hampered as weaker by the gods).

It's also possible that your stats are rolled at random at birth and you cannot genetically inherit anything in ootsworld. However, the chieftain's descendants are now also advantaged by being the children of the chief. The beginning of inherited wealth. Maybe their line is more likely to have the opportunity to produce a hero who has a very high quality weapon which becomes an ancestral blade.

Is there anything in the rules which addresses this? -- whether children of characters with certain stats tend to have stats which resemble their parents'? In-comic, the chosen professions of Horace, Eugene, and Roy tend to suggest otherwise, though clearly Roy is no dunce.


Publishing to stop fiddling hits very hard on today, the deadline of my thesis.

Good luck! And a bit of advice from someone who watched an acquaintance flail: try to allow for Murphy's law. Don't assume that, for example, printers will never fail, computers never crash, etc. Leave yourself a bit of slack. (My acquaintance waited until the last possible time to get her thesis wrapped up, then had a printer failure.)

EDIT:

No joke, I've seen a similar thought in plenty of settings and even some written fantasy series. Humans are quite often the rats of fantasy humanoids: not the strongest, not the smartest, not the longest-lived, but still insanely adaptable and frickin' everywhere. Living in all the nooks and crannies of the world. We're goshdarned survivors, baby.

In Babylon 5, it was proposed that humans are uniquely good at forging communities from disparate groups of people. In the real world, of course... we aren't all that great about it, in many cases.

[Ionathus]

Is there anything in the rules which addresses this? -- whether children of characters with certain stats tend to have stats which resemble their parents'? In-comic, the chosen professions of Horace, Eugene, and Roy tend to suggest otherwise, though clearly Roy is no dunce.

I don't know about the rules, but from the parent/child dynamics we've seen, genetics does seem to influence stats to some degree. Roy, despite being a fighter, is still very smart like Eugene. Haley and Ian are both dextrous rogues. Tarquin and Elan/Nale are all, canonically, devilishly handsome.


In Babylon 5, it was proposed that humans are uniquely good at forging communities from disparate groups of people. In the real world, of course... we aren't all that great about it, in many cases.

Maybe it's a comforting thought, if you're creating alien/fantasy races, to imagine an idealistic world where humans handle diversity well.

For believability, sometimes it's an end result: "here in the 51st century, we've finally learned the lessons of the past and are so anti-racist that we're even the best anti-racists in a galaxy of alien races."

[Dragonus45]

I wonder if the secret of human success, besides having an extra feat, is just the ability (and inclination) to interbreed. We are the "anything that moves" race, at least as long as the others are concerned.

Hence why bards are overpowered :)

According to Redcloak it's the reason he doesn't consider Orcs to properly oppressed.

[Roselily2006]

I think you should start a thread about Fenrtanylr or whatever it is called.... :smallbiggrin:

At this point, we could make an entire Chain of Corrections (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChainOfCorrections) about Fentanyl's name.

[Good Coyote]

Is there anything in the rules which addresses this? -- whether children of characters with certain stats tend to have stats which resemble their parents'? In-comic, the chosen professions of Horace, Eugene, and Roy tend to suggest otherwise, though clearly Roy is no dunce.


I don't think there are rules for stats of kids specifically (there might be an obscure published article somewhere but it never comes up in actual games, so). I don't see Eugene as a particular example against such heritability though, and as said by Ionathus, there are some clear lines of things being passed down.



In general and just thinking about this more, the old age rules do suggest that heritability and early childhood experiences don't affect life expectancy (and neither does diet or literally anything else).

It's possible that humans are just so completely different from us in ootsworld that they lack not only genetics (yet can still inherit appearance) but also stuff like "the effects of your mother being malnourished while she was pregnant with you," and "the effects of being malnourished and understimulated yourself in early life," to the point that there's just no actual disadvantage to being born impoverished at all.*

But all of that does seem kind of aligned with the stuff that Elan brought up about Nale's upbringing. For that matter, that storyline did seem to suggest that traits like dramatic flair and penchant for complicated scheming are inheritable. It's also suggested that being hit in one's soft undeveloped baby skull can affect your future outcome. I think the story we're told about heritability and individual starting positions in ootsworld (within the Human race) is that there are effects and they can disadvantage you for life, you're just still responsible for your own moral choices and unlearning what you've been taught in adulthood.



*Personally I'm not a fan of this kind of thing. I don't see the goblins in oots used as an actual stand-in for disadvantaged humans. Rather it seems like the story is saying "this broad principle of fairness and inherited inequality is true, and in our story it applies to goblins, though it also applies elsewhere." So I don't have a problem with that.

But generally I dislike when stories take things like oppression based on the experiences of actual humans, and apply it to an inhuman group, and then completely bar it from applying to humans within the world. In itself it's not bad for a single fantasy world to do this. But it's something of a trend, and I dislike "human" becoming equated with "majority group, privileged, etc." in an entire genre. Because it isn't true that "privileged person from the majority group" equals "having humanity."

[Torben Raibeart]

So Thor says that the goblinoids weren't intentionally created to lose/as xp-fodder... But some god clearly had it out for them when they created the world.

Whoever created the dwarfs and the gnomes gave them an attack bonus vs. goblinoids. Knowing you have a bonus when fighting specific races is an incentive to fight these races rather than other races as you'll have an extra edge if you fight goblinoids rather than f.ex. humans or elves.

So it would seem that some god desired conflict between the gnomes/dwarves and the goblinoids and wanted to gnomes/dwarves to be more likely to win such conflicts.

[The Pilgrim]

None of your responses address the fact that the goblinoids definitely started out at a disadvantage.

No, they didn't start at a disadvantage. They were created by Fenris to actually prevail. But the scheme failed.

[Ionathus]

At this point, we could make an entire Chain of Corrections (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChainOfCorrections) about Fentanyl's name.

Why have a chain of corrections? We all know his proper name is FernGullyr.


No, they didn't start at a disadvantage. They were created by Fenris to actually prevail. But the scheme failed.

According to today's comic, second page, panels 2-3:

Durkon: "But tha goblins start'd out wit less, so tha's na usu'lly wha happens. Wha happens, tha dwarf wins cuz 'e's gotta better axe an' better armor an's been eatin' better food 'is whole life!...it's na 'xactly fair fer tha goblin.

Thor: "I mean...yes, that's true. We didn't really plan it that way on purpose...but I guess we didn't really prevent it, either.

[masamune1]

I wonder how Redcloak or the Dark One would feel if they knew that the goblins were intended by Fenris not only to not be victims but to actually dominate the entire world and he just miscalculated?

[Ionathus]

I wonder how Redcloak or the Dark One would feel if they knew that the goblins were intended by Fenris not only to not be victims but to actually dominate the entire world and he just miscalculated?

Blame Fresni for abandoning them, or shift blame to the other gods for not "adopting" them after his abandonment. Or probably both. I can't imagine the revelation of their failed supremacy would be very comforting, though.

[Good Coyote]

Thinking about it still (my apologies for having such messy thoughts today), the fact that Commoner and Aristocrat are NPC classes definitely suggests that you can end up with mechanically different things depending on your birth station.

According to Google, the aristocrat not only has more skill points and proficiencies, but also a larger hit die (d8 v d6), so literally better health and harder to kill.

[Akrasiel]

Like the addition of Gleipnir

[Verappo]

Oh wow, when I first started reading this comic I so didn't expect "Durkon learns about systemic inequality and exploitation" to be a plot point , but then again I personally didn't know about any of it back then either. Always nice to see something I grew up with develop and examine itself as I do it too.

[Dion]

I can't imagine the revelation of their failed supremacy would be very comforting, though.

No, but you see, now Durkon just has to explain “Oh, no, it was an accident. The gods that created you got bored and left you to fend for yourself. Yeah... uh... the other gods did know it would happen. No, they did nothing to stop it. No, they did nothing after to fix it.”

“No, no. It’s an ACCIDENT! It’s like when you drive your car through a playground while wearing a blindfold. It’s not your fault if someone dies because you can’t see them, and more important, it’s not your fault because you don’t care.”

“Well yes, of course all the gods knew it would happen. They’re not stupid. It’s happened lots of times before. But I do t see how that makes them responsible?”

[faustin]

No joke, I've seen a similar thought in plenty of settings and even some written fantasy series. Humans are quite often the rats of fantasy humanoids: not the strongest, not the smartest, not the longest-lived, but still insanely adaptable and frickin' everywhere. Living in all the nooks and crannies of the world. We're goshdarned survivors, baby.


I was thinking in terms of making alliances and having family everywhere.
Any experienced enough adventurer can enter the lair of Dragon Lord Enixtryx to steal his treasure. Only a human adventure will ever say "Hey uncle En, mind if I borrow a bit for my birthday?"

[Psyren]

You might not think it's fair but it's eminently reasonable in the context we have and the only workable plan left, because the gods tier their own hands for very good very Snarl looking reasons, and also because frankly just doing nothing and hoping the gods can just fix all your problems is kind of silly. Yes, I consider spending all your time trying to work out the best way to extort the gods into what you want when you could put that same effort into actually fixing things sitting around doing nothing. Charitably I might add, considering pursuing those plans tanked a legitimately successful example of goblinoid/humanoid relations in a violent and tragic way.

The goblins are not "doing nothing and hoping the gods fix all their problems", quite the opposite actually.

[Shale]

No, they didn't start at a disadvantage. They were created by Fenris to actually prevail. But the scheme failed.

The fact that Fenrirsirisir is a poor tactician who's not interested in learning from his mistakes doesn't undo the goblins' geopolitical and economic disadvantages. It's not even their own scheme -- if they'd squandered a perfectly good starting position that'd be something, but this is more like a very bad pet owner who gives his dog an entire field of grass to eat and then wonders why it's so sickly compared to his friends' pets. Maybe the guy really thought dogs could thrive on an all-grass diet, but it doesn't improve his dog's health any.

[Lord Raziere]

Well.

This will be an important comic for my analysis. it certainly clarifies a few things that I think we all wanted for a while and what it reveals isn't that surprising to me. I already had suspicions that the whole setup was more systemic than intentional anyways, given that the gods don't intentionally command anyone to kill this or that race in their scriptures. its just a lot of tensions rising naturally and Fenrir being neglectful....which isn't surprising. he doesn't seem like the brightest guy in the world and seems like someone trying to play aggro in a card game or rush strategy in an RTS: defeated by anyone who builds to shut it down and win in the long game.

[CountDVB]

The goblins are not "doing nothing and hoping the gods fix all their problems", quite the opposite actually.

Redcloak is basically helping the Dark One out for his scheme and basically ignored any others, such as his brother's idea or Durkon's proposal.

[BaronOfHell]

It really reminds me of a simulation. You set the environment and the starting perimeters, then you observe, but you don't interfere.
Or if you want to save various species of non-human animals, you may find a huge plot of land where they can roam free from human interaction, and then you mainly observe and only intervene if something on a very high impact level is about to hit.
Groups of non-human animals hunting down other groups? No interference, I believe. Not even if they don't do it for eating.

In a way it reminds me of Malack's plans of slaughtering thousands in the name of Nergal, which could be described as cows being brought to the butcher / slaughterhouse, and to me it seems obvious while Malack only cared for his gods approval of his plan and cared nothing of the cattle, the gods themselves seem to try to interfere as little as possible and do care about their followers, and this is how they show it. I wouldn't be surprised if by interfering it would only make things worse, at least in the long run, even if the gods themselves weren't predominately evil.

[Yirggzmb]

Maybe it's a comforting thought, if you're creating alien/fantasy races, to imagine an idealistic world where humans handle diversity well.

For believability, sometimes it's an end result: "here in the 51st century, we've finally learned the lessons of the past and are so anti-racist that we're even the best anti-racists in a galaxy of alien races."

On the other hand, on the small scale humans are good at bonding with just about anything. Small animals, plants, rocks, cars, small toys that beep at you because they're "hungry". So yeah, as a large group we've done pretty badly with the diversity thing. But it's not terribly far fetched from the small scale pov to extrapolate from individuals being good at bonding with anyone and anything.

[Fyraltari]

Won't it? Thor wouldn't even be considering goblin welfare right now if it weren't for the Plan. None of them would.
Yay they would. Thor's plan is not a response to The Dark One's. If anything the Plan just hastened the possible destruction of the world and lowered the Dark One's odds of survival.

of all the people who interact with it, Samwise who might not be saying that as an excuse. But this is still an interesting list of descriptions.
Meh. Samwise was tempted to. Sure he's mostly honest about why he wants it but he's no Manwë, the Ring is acting on his mind same as everyone else.

In Babylon 5, it was proposed that humans are uniquely good at forging communities from disparate groups of people. In the real world, of course... we aren't all that great about it, in many cases.

They say that but they don't really show it in the show. The humans are the only one divided by religion for example, and a significant chunk of the plot is dealing with xenophobic humans.

But really, as far as we can tell, humans are the best at forging communities in the real world. Chimpanzee tribes number in the dozens of members. Ours number in millions.

[The Pilgrim]

According to today's comic, second page, panels 2-3:

Durkon: "But tha goblins start'd out wit less, so tha's na usu'lly wha happens. Wha happens, tha dwarf wins cuz 'e's gotta better axe an' better armor an's been eatin' better food 'is whole life!...it's na 'xactly fair fer tha goblin.

Thor: "I mean...yes, that's true. We didn't really plan it that way on purpose...but I guess we didn't really prevent it, either.

Which means they are at a disadvantage now. Not at creation.

The goblins are at a disadvantage now because of how the world developed, not as an intended feature by design.

The Dark One's goblin victimization narrative loses a lot of punch when it doesn't begins with "goblins are at a disadvantage because they were created to lose by design", but rather with "goblins are at a disadvantage because they were created to achieve an early win, but failed".

Now the question is whether TDO has been feed false information or, on the other hand, TDO has always been aware of the truth, and has been feeding his followers with a big load of horse hockey on purpose.

[Patterned_Pike]

Something I'm really surprised about in these 2 pages is the fact that Durkon knows what Redcloak wants specifically and didn't bring it up. The last thing that was mentioned by Redcloak before Durkon's failed last appeal is deific recognition of goblinoids having the same innate rights as others. Redcloak specifically mentioned that this was the problem far more than lack of access to arable land and mountains with good ore (which the goblins have already accomplished on their own via conquest). So why isn't the beginning of Durkon's report about the negotiations the fact that the biggest thing Redcloak wants is for the gods to just collectively tell their followers "Hey everyone killing goblinoids for fun/profit/convenience is just as wrong as killing elves, humans, or lizard folk for those same reasons." Even just getting all the *good* gods to say this would be a great head start on the problem. Why isn't Durkon asking Thor to start gathering god signatures on the matter right now?

[JSSheridan]

Thanks Giant!

[CountDVB]

Something I'm really surprised about in these 2 pages is the fact that Durkon knows what Redcloak wants specifically and didn't bring it up. The last thing that was mentioned by Redcloak before Durkon's failed last appeal is deific recognition of goblinoids having the same innate rights as others. Redcloak specifically mentioned that this was the problem far more than lack of access to arable land and mountains with good ore (which the goblins have already accomplished on their own via conquest). So why isn't the beginning of Durkon's report about the negotiations the fact that the biggest thing Redcloak wants is for the gods to just collectively tell their followers "Hey everyone killing goblinoids for fun/profit/convenience is just as wrong as killing elves, humans, or lizard folk for those same reasons." Even just getting all the *good* gods to say this would be a great head start on the problem. Why isn't Durkon asking Thor to start gathering god signatures on the matter right now?

Durkon focused more on appealing with Redcloak on wh tthe goblins want before it turned to violence. I suspect he thinks that Redcloak won't listen unless he's in a position of disadvantage. The problem is that I don't know if anything will ne ebough for Redcloak. His righteous outrage is becoming more and more mixed with just a desire to burn things down out of spite and vengeance. He is between a well-intentioned extremist and just a spite-filled force of destruction not unlike Xykon.

[Fyraltari]

the gods don't intentionally command anyone to kill this or that race in their scriptures.

I recall only to bit of quoted scripture in the comic actually:

Loki: Lo the undead are such gross, icky things. (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1107.html)

And

Thor: You should totally smash the followers of Loki. (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1150.html)

[masamune1]

Something I'm really surprised about in these 2 pages is the fact that Durkon knows what Redcloak wants specifically and didn't bring it up. The last thing that was mentioned by Redcloak before Durkon's failed last appeal is deific recognition of goblinoids having the same innate rights as others. Redcloak specifically mentioned that this was the problem far more than lack of access to arable land and mountains with good ore (which the goblins have already accomplished on their own via conquest). So why isn't the beginning of Durkon's report about the negotiations the fact that the biggest thing Redcloak wants is for the gods to just collectively tell their followers "Hey everyone killing goblinoids for fun/profit/convenience is just as wrong as killing elves, humans, or lizard folk for those same reasons." Even just getting all the *good* gods to say this would be a great head start on the problem. Why isn't Durkon asking Thor to start gathering god signatures on the matter right now?

It's easy for us to think that since we've been with Redcloak for meta-years now, but for Durkon this is all new information and he isn't really a professional diplomat. He's a very devout Cleric who has had a very rough few days starting with being possessed by an evil vampire spirit, learning he has a son, dying heroically, meeting his god, finding out the terrible truth about the nature of the cosmos, getting resurrected, being murdered by his ex and resurrected again, and is now tasked with negotiating with the genocidal religious fanatic he'd spent the last several weeks trying to kill, only to learn that the guy has some legitimate beefs but is also probably just too stubborn to see the big picture. Oh, and in the middle of all of this he discovered the cause of the exile that has been haunting him for years.

Basically, Durkons' heart is in the right place, but he isn't the best guy for the job, and he's got a LOT going on right now.

[Shale]

The Dark One's goblin victimization narrative loses a lot of punch when it doesn't begins with "goblins are at a disadvantage because they were created to lose by design", but rather with "goblins are at a disadvantage because they were created to achieve an early win, but failed".

Again, if the disadvantage comes from how a god chose to make them rather than anything they or their ancestors did, I don't see what difference it makes. You think if Redcloak were watching this conversation, he'd say "Oh, I've been wrong all along! The gods didn't want us to be XP fodder, it was just one idiot who thought he was making a cool toy and didn't care about what happened to us after he lost interest! That's so much better!"

[The Pilgrim]

Again, if the disadvantage comes from how a god chose to make them rather than anything they or their ancestors did, I don't see what difference it makes. You think if Redcloak were watching this conversation, he'd say "Oh, I've been wrong all along! The gods didn't want us to be XP fodder, it was just one idiot who thought he was making a cool toy and didn't care about what happened to us after he lost interest! That's so much better!"

Actually yes, it's better. And you should be able to see why.

It's better to know that there is no Greater Divine Boot oppressing your people's heads, and therefore in order to improve the living conditions of your species you don't need to scheme against the Greater Order of Things.

[Fyraltari]

Actually, yes, it's better. And you should be able to see why.

"I don't see why my client should be charged with assault, you honor, he did not kick the victim, he merely punched him."

[Sebastian]

So Fenris made the goblins, but they don't worship him any longer? Does Fenris have any opinions on this? Does it make him weaker?

Also, why do the goblins live outside the Northern Pantheon's demesne if a NP god created them?


My guess would be they stopped worshiping him when he stopped answering their calls. (He got bored and moved to more 'fun' monsters)

[Ionathus]

Actually yes, it's better. And you should be able to see why.

It's better to know that there is no Greater Divine Boot oppressing your people's heads, and therefore in order to improve the living conditions of your species you don't need to scheme against the Greater Order of Things.

I don't mean to sound accusatory, but that's a very privileged perspective on the situation.

For lots of oppressed people, injustice born from apathy can feel worse than injustice born from malice. If the only problem is just the Sapphire Guard hunting down goblins and killing them, hey, that's an easy fix: destroy the Sapphire Guard. Clear target, clear end-goal.

But if the problem is thinly spread across the way the entire world was unintentionally structured -- if your axe is weaker, your armor thinner, and your food less nourishing -- then everywhere you turn, there's something to fix. Who is "responsible?"

You can't fight everyone who's better off than you. You don't have the energy or the resources. And that's because everywhere you turn, the terrain was designed with someone else's advantage in mind. Everyone else has more than you, and even if it's nobody's singular "fault," nobody wants to give anything up to help you up to the same level. It is what people call systemic injustice. And a system is far, far harder to fix than a single bad actor or group.

[The Pilgrim]

I don't mean to sound accusatory, but that's a very privileged perspective on the situation.

For lots of oppressed people, injustice born from apathy can feel worse than injustice born from malice. If the only problem is just the Sapphire Guard hunting down goblins and killing them, hey, that's an easy fix: destroy the Sapphire Guard. Clear target, clear end-goal.

But if the problem is thinly spread across the way the entire world was unintentionally structured -- if your axe is weaker, your armor thinner, and your food less nourishing -- then everywhere you turn, there's something to fix. Everywhere you turn, the terrain was designed with someone else's advantage in mind. It is what people call systemic injustice. And a system is far, far harder to fix than a single bad actor or group.

You mean it's harder for the Goblins to improve their living conditions if they just need to fight against other species, rather than having to fight against other species and also against the Gods?


You can't fight everyone who's better off than you.

You can't and you shouldn't. You should work with them. Like Right-Eye did. Like the former hobgoblin leader did.

[Oddstar]

I don't think Thor being truthful about the gods' motives/methods makes Redcloak wrong in any way that really matters. Whether or not they specifically created goblinoids as fodder races, the pantheons still made a universe whose fundamental laws provide material incentives for sapient beings to kill each other, and didn't see structural inequities as a problem worth balancing for. Somebody was almost assuredly going to get the short end of that stick, and whoever it was would have a valid grievance against the gods who set it up so that would happen, even if they left the exact outcome up to chance.
You say that they did not balance for structural inequities, but, to the extent that that is true, that is not necessarily an argument in Redcloak's favor. The goblins may have been dealt a bad hand (or perhaps they simply played a good hand badly--we don't know for a fact that Durkon's interpretation of history is right), but their creator was sincerely attempting to deal them a winning hand. Consider how Thor described Fenris' actions: "He has this dumb idea that if he makes people that age fast and breed a lot, they're going to outcompete all the other groups." (Emphasis added.) Leaving aside that Thor thinks that Fenris' theory is foolish, it is clear that Fenris created goblins to be a if not the dominant race by giving them what Fenris thought were critical advantages. Perhaps Fenris was foolish to think that those were advantages; perhaps Thor is wrong and they are advantages, but the goblins simply failed to exploit them. One of them is wrong, but we cannot know which. The critical thing, though, is that, according to Thor's account, the goblins were created to rule, not to be fodder for the other races.

To put it another way, the way the gods here seem to have balanced for inequities is not by coming to a consensus on what a balanced, equitable world would look like (about which, of course, they could be wrong, since we know that they can be wrong, since either Thor is wrong or Fenris is wrong), but rather by each putting his own individual theories of what would make a particular group successful into practice with the groups they create and letting those groups compete. You might say that it is a free-market theory of equity rather than a hierarchical theory of equity.

[Shale]

Also, I don't think Redcloak ever gave the indication that he thought the gods were actively enforcing the pecking order, as opposed to allowing the system to continue as it was designed. If that were the case, surely he'd have expected some kind of divine intervention to prevent the takeover of Azure City, or to push the goblins out of their new territory. And the ultimatum he planned to deliver was "the world you designed sucks for us, fix it or I'll have the Snarl kill you," rather than "stop repressing us or I'll have the Snarl kill you."

[arimareiji]

I think it's less "the Goblins' grievances are wrong" and more "Hanlon's razor applies to the goblins' grievances." It wasn't malice, it was neglect, and Thor acknowledges that.

Bingo. And while I'm a big believer in Hanlon's Razor, the blade has two edges:

The reason Hanlon's Razor is needed is that sufficiently-advanced incompetence/ignorance/neglect/stupidity is really hard to distinguish from malicious intent. Almost impossible, if all you have to judge by are the results.


And it’s nice to see they are absolutely 100% screwed over, and TDO is 100% absolutely positively correct even if wasn’t technically “deliberate”.

So now we’re done with the debate forever and ever. The goblins were intentionally designed as XP fodder. They got the worse lands because literally none of the gods cared about them. The gods gave them a short brutal life intentionally. Word of god. Done.

Ha ha ha ha. No, just kidding. We should argue.

I think we might agree on this, but regardless I hereby nominate "now we're done with the debate forever and ever" (and all related assertions) as the OotS's version of "No offense". (^_~)

A statement which may be sincere in intent, but generally exists only to contradict itself.

[mjasghar]

The gods as an institution still have culpability here. As Durkon rightly pointed out, the general inequity of their origins and living situations is fostering and exacerbating that very conflict, so expecting mortals to do all the work needed to remediate it is neither fair nor reasonable. And not only do some races (e.g. Dwarves) have better land, food, equipment etc, they even have their own gods specifically to look out for their interests. Until The Dark One, the goblins didn't.

Are you expecting 2/3 of the gods who aren’t Good to behave Good?

[Ruck]

At this point, we could make an entire Chain of Corrections (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChainOfCorrections) about Fentanyl's name.

Dang, I was hoping to be the first one to get to Fentanyl.

Well, anyway, this made me think of one of the crayon panels in Start of Darkness, where The Dark One is actually physically shepherding goblins and encouraging them to go forth, which stands in marked contrast to Feng Shui's treatment of them.

I'm also in hindsight a little more surprised I (or anyone as far as I know) didn't figure out the specifics of how Redcloak's account of the goblins' creation was wrong, given that we've had the story for a long time about how the gods take turns creating elements for their new world.

[faustin]

Isn´t anybody going to comment the part where Thor tells Durkon there is an incoming Implosion (I guess courtesy of RC) addressed to Minrah?

Hope the team have still some diamonds around.

[Skull the Troll]

Which means they are at a disadvantage now. Not at creation.

The goblins are at a disadvantage now because of how the world developed, not as an intended feature by design.

The Dark One's goblin victimization narrative loses a lot of punch when it doesn't begins with "goblins are at a disadvantage because they were created to lose by design", but rather with "goblins are at a disadvantage because they were created to achieve an early win, but failed".

Now the question is whether TDO has been feed false information or, on the other hand, TDO has always been aware of the truth, and has been feeding his followers with a big load of horse hockey on purpose.

Just their short lives has a lot to do with it. The first and last 15 years of a humans life are not as productive as the rest and they tend to live about 75 years. If you extrapolated that out to goblins then they only have a couple decades in which to amass knowledge and wealth and pass it down to their children. They also start out at the disadvantage of a race that is usually evil. Presumably they cooperate less and are less concerned with the society as a whole. Yes I know Redcloak cares but he's not goblin society as a whole. Those two things are going to give them a bad start and it isn't their fault, it's completely Fenrir's. That said Fenrir is "those other gods" as far as Redcloak and any goblin that thinks about it is concerned. The goblinoids don't answer to Fenrir anymore hes exactly who they are talking about when they say the gods screwed us.


Isn´t anybody going to comment the part where Thor tells Durkon there is an incoming Implosion (I guess courtesy of RC) addressed to Minrah?

Hope the team have still some diamonds around.

Thor isnt talking about one arriving this very second, hes saying that if Redcloak did it before he may do it again when Durkon sees him next.

[Lemarc]

So Thor says that the goblinoids weren't intentionally created to lose/as xp-fodder... But some god clearly had it out for them when they created the world.

Whoever created the dwarfs and the gnomes gave them an attack bonus vs. goblinoids. Knowing you have a bonus when fighting specific races is an incentive to fight these races rather than other races as you'll have an extra edge if you fight goblinoids rather than f.ex. humans or elves.

So it would seem that some god desired conflict between the gnomes/dwarves and the goblinoids and wanted to gnomes/dwarves to be more likely to win such conflicts.

Fenris apparently did. A charitable read would be that the god or gods who added those bonuses did so to prevent their chosen people from being overwhelmed in the initial rush, before they can get properly settled and before Fenris gets bored, and didn't give much thought to afterwards.

[Mariele]

It seems I lost my whole post but this:


Clearly, the right answer is Fenri. He's Fenri the 8th after 7 previous monster-gods didn't get enough worship.
Iiii'm Fenri the 8th I am, Fenri the 8th I am I am...


I'm glad the most important part survived.

Interesting comic that makes the situation more muddied and realistic. I'm really looking forward to seeing how this can be resolved now that we know it can't be solved with the gods instantly giving the goblins (and what about the other monsters?) better land.

[Ionathus]

Dang, I was hoping to be the first one to get to Fentanyl.

Well, anyway, this made me think of one of the crayon panels in Start of Darkness, where The Dark One is actually physically shepherding goblins and encouraging them to go forth, which stands in marked contrast to Feng Shui's treatment of them.

I'm also in hindsight a little more surprised I (or anyone as far as I know) didn't figure out the specifics of how Redcloak's account of the goblins' creation was wrong, given that we've had the story for a long time about how the gods take turns creating elements for their new world.

Don't feel bad, we all wanted to be the one who picked Fentanyl.

I can see how it'd be hard to figure out: when presented with Redcloak's stark accusation ("goblinoids were maliciously created to die as XP for clerics") and no other context for it, a person's natural reaction is much more likely to either accept it as truth or dismiss it completely, rather than think "oh, maybe it has a kernel of truth but is also colored by his personal lived experience."

That was my initial reaction until today's comic: I thought "huh, that sounds plausible, and Redcloak already experienced one injustice at the start of this prequel book, so it fits the theme. I will believe this story until proven otherwise."

[Temotei]

In D&D goblins are generally Small, but Redcloak and the other goblins are taller than Durkon, even though Dwarves are generally Medium sized. This panel was poking fun at the fact that the strip doesn't quite follow D&D rules. Or at least not the more well known versions.

Dwarves have always been shorter than other Medium races. They're just so stout that they're Medium.

[Oddstar]

I can see this. It's still true that the goblins were thrown into a disadvantageous position by the twin factors of being created with access to fewer resources and then not receiving the same guidance and help as the other races of their intelligence level.

And it's true that Goblins were created explicitly as monsters, as Fenris is the god of monsters. And as part of the mechanics of this world, monsters do exist for heroes to kill and gain xp. That's accurate.

It's also true that at least some of the gods hate goblins. Don't have the strip number memorized, but one of Thor's illustrative flashbacks has a god dismissively calling the Dark One "that goblin" in a context suggesting that him being a goblin makes negotiating with him beneath that god's dignity.

Redcloak believes


The goblins were created as monsters
Monsters exist as xp farms for the "heroes"
The gods have a bias against goblins
All of these are contributing factors to the goblins' state as less fortunate in general than other humanoids.


And all of those, as we've just learned, are correct.
I do not agree that we have just learned that they are all correct.


They were created by Fenris, the god of monsters, but as Vaarsuvius put it in 640 (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0640.html), "we are all in the Monster Manual somewhere, are we not?" A monster is as a monster does. To put it another way, to say that they are monsters because they were created by the god of monsters would mean that any race created by Thor, the god of storms, must therefore be storms, or that any race created by Sunna, the god of the sun, must be suns, etc.
Yes, but only because everything exists as an XP farm for everything else. We were just reminded that Belkar once tried to harvest XP from Elan, who is quite human. And as Thor pointed out, if a goblin kills a human or a dwarf, the goblin gets the XP.
One god might have a bias against goblins, depending on how you interpret his use of the phrase "that goblin", which could be pejorative, but which could also be entirely neutral. It might be worth considering that, at the godsmoot, that same god's high priest was an orc (I know OotS draws mainly from 3rd edition, but in 2nd edition, orcs were characterized as goblinoids, at least in some sources).
They can only be contributing factors if they are true, which I do not think that they are. And the current state of the goblins is far more advantaged than many other humanoids--the humanoids of Azure City, certainly, but probably the humanoids of the Western Continent as well, who have to struggle to get by in a desert at least as barren as anywhere the goblins have ever had to live.

[The Pilgrim]

Just their short lives has a lot to do with it. The first and last 15 years of a humans life are not as productive as the rest and they tend to live about 75 years. If you extrapolated that out to goblins then they only have a couple decades in which to amass knowledge and wealth and pass it down to their children. They also start out at the disadvantage of a race that is usually evil. Presumably they cooperate less and are less concerned with the society as a whole. Yes I know Redcloak cares but he's not goblin society as a whole. Those two things are going to give them a bad start and it isn't their fault, it's completely Fenrir's. That said Fenrir is "those other gods" as far as Redcloak and any goblin that thinks about it is concerned. The goblinoids don't answer to Fenrir anymore hes exactly who they are talking about when they say the gods screwed us.

And giving the goblins better land fixes those supposed drawbacks, how exactly?

Give them better land, they still live shorter lives, they are still usually evil. They will end up back at the bottom in a few generations.

If you were right, that would mean the goblinoids are racially inferior, and the only real way to improve their lot would be to remake their species for the better, resorting to genetic engineering magic.

I don't see that kind of theme going on in this webcomic. I think the goblins are perfectly fit as they are.

[Wizard_Lizard]

Well that was insightful.. how do you think RC would react upon learning that they did have a god, he just.. didn't care about them when he got bored.. probably badly.

[Rrmcklin]

I don't think this information is supposed to make you reevaluate anything about what we've been told in a serious manner. You can make the academic argument that there's a difference between active malice and indifferent negligence, but the character of Durkon doesn't seem particularly interested in making that distinction, which makes me think we the audience aren't supposed to be making it either. The goblinoids have a horrible lot in life and the gods are directly responsible. That it wasn't specifically "screw over the goblins" from inception isn't that important given everything that's happened.

With that in mind, I'm surprised to see people taking this as Redcloak/the Dark One being "wrong" (outside of methods, obviously).

[Oddstar]

Just their short lives has a lot to do with it. The first and last 15 years of a humans life are not as productive as the rest and they tend to live about 75 years. If you extrapolated that out to goblins then they only have a couple decades in which to amass knowledge and wealth and pass it down to their children. They also start out at the disadvantage of a race that is usually evil. Presumably they cooperate less and are less concerned with the society as a whole. Yes I know Redcloak cares but he's not goblin society as a whole. Those two things are going to give them a bad start and it isn't their fault, it's completely Fenrir's. That said Fenrir is "those other gods" as far as Redcloak and any goblin that thinks about it is concerned. The goblinoids don't answer to Fenrir anymore hes exactly who they are talking about when they say the gods screwed us.
You compare goblins to humans, but that cuts both ways, and maybe more the other way. I have long thought that humans are a lot more like goblins than they are like elves or dwarves. That is, humans resemble goblins in longevity and fecundity far more than they (I guess I should say we) resemble elves or dwarves. And yet humans are one of the dominant races, maybe the dominant race, in much of Stick-world. Maybe Fenris' theory is not as foolish as Thor claims. If so, then the goblins were not disadvantaged by the gods. They just failed to exploit the advantages they had. And as for goblins being usually evil and not cooperating with each other, if true (it seems to me that a critical theme of this comic is that no mortal race should be characterized as "usually evil") is that because they were made that way, or because they have chosen to act that way? Do they have free will or not? If they have chosen to act that way, and that is the cause of their disadvantages as a people, then their suffering would be both self-inflicted and deserved.

[Ionathus]

You mean it's harder for the Goblins to improve their living conditions if they just need to fight against other species, rather than having to fight against other species and also against the Gods?

You can't and you shouldn't. You should work with them. Like Right-Eye did. Like the former hobgoblin leader did.

Well that one's on me, I guess, for thinking I was safe using "fight" in its broader sense of "struggle." I apologize for the miscommunication.


And giving the goblins better land fixes those supposed drawbacks, how exactly?

Give them better land, they still live shorter lives, they are still usually evil, they will end up in back at the bottom in a few generations.

I think you're fixating too closely on the particulars and not looking at the big picture.

We've had several comparisons to the gods as family units, so let's use that. Thor, Odin, & co. see their brother Frirner creating his children, the goblinoids. They think "ugh here he goes again" and then watch him, predictably, neglect those goblinoids, who are conceptually their nieces & nephews. But they're focused on raising their own kids, and they don't really think that hard about the nieces and nephews.

Sure, the goblinoids aren't *their* children in the literal sense of the world, and they weren't being outright abused, but they're still family, right? They knew that Ferrari would do this, because he's done it before, right? Wouldn't you agree that, if the other gods had the ability to take those nieces and nephews under their wings, or at least check up on them from time to time, it could set those nieces & nephews up for a better life?

Disclaimer: In no way, shape, or form do I intend to pass any judgments on anybody's real-world family dynamics or decisions. I recognize every situation is different and hard and not everyone gets the support they need.

[Oddstar]

The fact that Fenrirsirisir is a poor tactician who's not interested in learning from his mistakes doesn't undo the goblins' geopolitical and economic disadvantages. It's not even their own scheme -- if they'd squandered a perfectly good starting position that'd be something, but this is more like a very bad pet owner who gives his dog an entire field of grass to eat and then wonders why it's so sickly compared to his friends' pets. Maybe the guy really thought dogs could thrive on an all-grass diet, but it doesn't improve his dog's health any.
But was he a poor tactician? Why do you assume that Thor was right? Humans are also short-lived and highly fecund compared to say, elves, dwarves, or gnomes. Indeed, humans resemble goblins in longevity and fecundity far more than we do elves or dwarves, and yet humans seem to have done just fine in Stick-world. Maybe Thor is wrong, and Fenris' theory is right, but the goblins simply failed to exploit the advantages they were given? I would also point out that the human civilization on the Western Continent has to survive in a desert at least as barren as anywhere the goblins have had to live, yet seems to be thriving, relatively speaking.

[Rrmcklin]

If so, then the goblins were not disadvantaged by the gods. They just failed to exploit the advantages they had. And as for goblins being usually evil and not cooperating with each other, if true (it seems to me that a critical theme of this comic is that no mortal race should be characterized as "usually evil") is that because they were made that way, or because they have chosen to act that way? Do they have free will or not? If they have chosen to act that way, and that is the cause of their disadvantages as a people, then their suffering would be both self-inflicted and deserved.

I honestly don't see how you could read this story and this other's views on things, and think that's going to be the ultimate moral here.

[Ionathus]

With that in mind, I'm surprised to see people taking this as Redcloak/the Dark One being "wrong" (outside of methods, obviously).

Ironically (given who we're talking about), I think it's at least partially a sunk cost fallacy. Some readers have spent this long being opposed to Redcloak, and therefore assuming that his beliefs and goals MUST be complete falsehoods, invented to justify his actions, that they can't stand the idea of somebody being right about a problem but wrong about the solution.

Even though a Villain Who Has A Point offers a wealth of character and story possibilities, some people want their Bad Guys to be BAD, end of story.


I honestly don't see how you could read this story and this other's views on things, and think that's going to be the ultimate moral here.

Absolutely. I was only mostly convinced before, but after this page and the confirmations it gave in Durkon's reactions, I am now legitimately 100% convinced this story will not end with the moral of "TDO and Redcloak were wrong about the problem," even if (when) they're proven wrong about the solution.

[Oddstar]

I honestly don't see how you could read this story and this other's views on things, and think that's going to be the ultimate moral here.
I don't think that is going to be the ultimate moral. I was using rhetorical irony, in a way that I thought was clear but apparently was not. My point was that I think it does not work to say that the goblins' disadvantaged state is due to their being "usually evil" and thus unable to cooperate with one another, precisely because I do not think that any mortal race within Stick-verse can be characterized as "usually evil" or "usually good".

[arimareiji]

Ironically (given who we're talking about), I think it's at least partially a sunk cost fallacy. Some readers have spent this long being opposed to Redcloak, and therefore assuming that his beliefs and goals MUST be complete falsehoods, invented to justify his actions, that they can't stand the idea of somebody being right about a problem but wrong about the solution.

Even though a Villain Who Has A Point offers a wealth of character and story possibilities, some people want their Bad Guys to be BAD, end of story.

Fortunately, real life is rarely that boring in fact.

Unfortunately, it often seems like that's a very-well-kept secret.

[Rrmcklin]

Besides, Thor doesn't even say the Dark One's interpretation of things is wrong he calls it uncharitable. Thor does not deny what the gods did or the results of those actions (or inactiions), he just says the reasons for it weren't exactly as the Dark One and Redcloak think they are.

[Shale]

But was he a poor tactician? Why do you assume that Thor was right? Humans are also short-lived and highly fecund compared to say, elves, dwarves, or gnomes. Indeed, humans resemble goblins in longevity and fecundity far more than we do elves or dwarves, and yet humans seem to have done just fine in Stick-world. Maybe Thor is wrong, and Fenris' theory is right, but the goblins simply failed to exploit the advantages they were given? I would also point out that the human civilization on the Western Continent has to survive in a desert at least as barren as anywhere the goblins have had to live, yet seems to be thriving, relatively speaking.

I'm taking Thor at his word that there is a long-running cycle where Fenri* creates species in the mold of OOTS goblins, they don't dominate the ecosystem, and he tries again anyway.

[Good Coyote]

Just noticed that Tyr (the one determined not to give in to "that goblin") appears to have a "generally considered monstrous" representative (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0999.html) speaking for him. Maybe "only a half" orc, but still interesting on the idea of whether and to what extent the gods continue to be biased.

Also the hook... cute.

[Oddstar]

I'm taking Thor at his word that there is a long-running cycle where Fenri* creates species in the mold of OOTS goblins, they don't dominate the ecosystem, and he tries again anyway.
Okay, but why do you take him at his word, when we have countervailing evidence in humans? Perhaps Thor simply has his own theories of how to make a successful species and cannot see the merit in Fenris' competing theory, and so tends to ignore all the evidence in favor of Fenris' theory and all the evidence against his own, while noticing all the successes for his theory and all the failures of Fenris'. That is a very typical cognitive bias: we tend to notice the evidence that fits our theories and disregard the evidence that does not, and there is no reason I can think of to conclude that OotS gods are not just as vulnerable to that bias.

[Quizatzhaderac]

My two cents is that the gods, or at least the good one, have a responsibility to sometime tell their followers, "hey, that's not cool". Even if they have a very limited ability to control them, that commandment will be (literally?) written in stone, people will be exposed to the idea, and genuinely good people will entertain it.

Let's suppose at the start some neutral or evil god (let's say, Tyr, god of war and tacos) wanted to stop Fen-Fen's scheme and told the mortals to be sure to keep the goblins in their place. The PC races did and generally didn't pay good attention to where goblins' places were and how fair the grand scheme was.

Evil people used the command as an excuse to take anything good the goblins' happened to have. As the goblins have less and less, they become more desperate and try more often to leave their "place"

The good gods (or any moral authority) should recognize this viscous cycle and try to break it. The old sapphire guard servers as as an excellent example of where the good gods paid more attention. Presumable those gynocidal paladins will have to pay when their judged in the afterlife or maybe as soon as the next day when their spells don't refresh.

While these people and gods are nominally "good" in the setting, I would say their flaw is (as O'Chul said) settling for 'good' and "never considering what's best"). Thor seems to actually understand that he could have been better (even if he hasn't ben the worst) which IMHO is what makes him more than nominal good.




Is there anything in the rules which addresses this? -- whether children of characters with certain stats tend to have stats which resemble their parents'? In-comic, the chosen professions of Horace, Eugene, and Roy tend to suggest otherwise, though clearly Roy is no dunce.
Randal Monore (of XKCD) did something in his what if book has something approximate. But it was more as a way to illustrate some actual scientific point.


In Babylon 5, it was proposed that humans are uniquely good at forging communities from disparate groups of people. In the real world, of course... we aren't all that great about it, in many cases.Just because we're the worst at it, doesn't take away from the fact that we're the fact that we're best at it.

I don't think this information is supposed to make you reevaluate anything about what we've been told in a serious manner. I think that entire depends on the 'you". I see the purposes of this page as (1) more exposition, (2) jokes, and (3) to get the audience more 'on page" with the moral of the story. Some of us are pretty close to being "on page" and see little surprising; for some it introduces depth not considered before; for some it seems like a sharp turn.

[Aristocles22]

A lot of ink has been spilled on this, so if I say something which has already been said, I apologize.

While I won't mention any real-world situations, I can say that the core of the problem isn't really what it seems to be. Giving the goblins less fertile land than the humans and other civilized races (however you choose to define the term) isn't really a disadvantage, although I can see why it might superficially be seen as one. A predominantly agricultural world would see having more fertile soil as an advantage and less fertile soil as a disadvantage, which is likely what is meant by "the goblins got worse land than the humans", which was then allegedly to blame for the goblins' lack of success in the world.

The problem is, that's not how it works. At all. Even in-universe. As per the rules, I won't mention any real-life countries and I acknowledge that the situation in a fantasy world isn't going to be a perfect 1-1 analogue to real life, but even from what we've seen so far, other races with infertile land and hostile environments have done quite well for themselves. Humans and lizards in the desert have done well as seen in-story, humans have been seen working on marginal farmland, and humans as a whole appear to be adaptable to different environments. Plus, there are disadvantages to having good soil. For one thing, the same qualities which make land good to farm make it hard to defend. Flat plains aren't shielded from invasion, they tend to lack mineral deposits for making metal weapons and armor, and they make for a tempting target for outsiders. Furthermore, cultures which can't count on a fertile harvest often develop thriftier ways and methods of squeezing out more from the land, tend to be less wasteful, and may be more industrious than people who have had less incentive to be that way. It's better to state that having "worse" land gives one a different set of circumstances than a worse one, and the qualities which make a land harder to farm may make it easier to defend, have more minerals, or at least be less of a target than more fertile lands if nothing else. Or to put it simply, the toughest warrior races in fantasy games usually come from the toughest lands.

Then there's the matter of equity, or fairness. Yes, the goblins were on the losing side of things in this world for the most part. When they were on the winning side, they acted at least as badly if not worse to the Azurites than they themselves were treated. Were both sides in that struggle treated unfairly by each other at different points in their fight? Yes. Does this mean one side is morally superior to the other? By itself, no. It does seem like the only reason the goblins (or at least Redcloak) seem to think they were treated unfairly is that they were losers for the longest time. That doesn't by itself imply an unfair start, although Redcloak seems to think so. He's a self-identified victim, and those are the most dangerous sort of people, as they think the world owes them something and that being a victim excuses or ennobles any action ones takes to "correct" their victimhood. The more I see, the more I'm convinced the "bad land" bit is really something of an excuse for bad behavior, or a justification for a land grab at other's expense. It's a flimsy argument, but in this world, it's just about the only inherent "disadvantage" the goblins have apart from their patron god(s), which I'll get to later: they're not weaker or smaller than humans, they're not any less intelligent here from what we've seen, they aren't cursed by anything, and their land situation hasn't stopped them from developing at least the basics of metalworking and other crafts- we even see a hobgoblin with enough skills to make a perfect replica of a fancy phylactery.

Simply not having something someone else has doesn't entitle someone to that thing; that's just jealousy and/or greed. There's the greater issue that allegedly "goblins were created by the gods as XP fodder", but Thor shot that one down; if a goblin kills a non-goblin, they get the XP just the same. There's also no restriction on classes or levels, no rule which states that goblins can't have class levels or use the same sort of equipment humans can use. More to the point, the goblins and hobgoblins (especially the latter) were able to raise armies large enough, powerful enough, and sophisticated enough (catapults, use of stealth to infiltrate cities, magic/clerical spells, etc) to conquer a major human city with strong defenses. If there's a disadvantage based on material problems, it isn't enough to make a real difference when it comes to warfare, which is arguably the most important sphere of all. One can develop materially and culturally in a million ways and none of it means a thing if one can't keep invaders at bay.

If goblins are the victim- and I'm not convinced that they are- the fault would lie with their gods and with themselves, not the gods as a whole, not the humans, and not some sort of divine system. It's not a problem of the system being inherently unjust; other races with the same geographic situation do just fine. It's not a problem of humans and similar races all being terrible to goblins; we've seen examples going both ways. If there IS a problem, it would be with the gods specific to the goblins themselves. Bluntly, they've been bad parents. There's nothing that can be done to fix that on a mortal level, and if the gods responsible for the goblins won't treat them well, there's not much the other gods can do to fix that. It's not so much a "social justice" issue as it is a bad parenting one, and that can't be solved by changing (divine) laws, changing the fertility of the soil, or any one simple fix. Even if the goblins were to be given all the good soil they could ever need, that wouldn't change their violent culture, it wouldn't make their patron god(s) any more caring towards them, and it wouldn't treat the root of the problem. Getting angry at the gods is like wanting to abolish parenting because one had bad parents.

It would seem like the goblins would be the victim of at least some of the gods because of the "bad parenting" bit, but once again, I'm not convinced. There are plenty of evil gods whose followers have done quite well for themselves, including followers of Loki, many of the gods on the Western continent (said followers live in a desert on top of that), and probably some others that I missed. We see the same situation; bad patron gods, infertile land, yet we see a different outcome. In other words, having "bad" land and neglectful or abusive patron gods doesn't automatically or even probably condemn a group to marginal status. Remember, it's not "blaming the victim" if the alleged victim actually isn't one, and even if they were, that doesn't excuse bad behavior on their part. The ability to field armies, work metal, be no less strong or intelligent than humans, and even be able to take down major human settlements all militates strongly against goblinoids being victims. They were just losers. They fought, lost, and blamed others for their losses until the day they could gain supremacy over at least one human nation, and when they did, they acted like hideous tyrants over said humans. They were never put in a no-win situation (we even see them win in a very big way), and while it is true that they were not given an optimal situation like many of the humans and dwarves, that doesn't imply victimhood. They could have made something of their situation but they didn't until recently. Not privileged doesn't mean "victim". There's a lot of space between the two extremes.

I'm also not buying the "gods treat people like crops and this is bad" bit. If your food went to heaven and enjoyed itself for all eternity after living a virtuous life, that would seem to be a very good deal for the food. At worst, it's a sort of symbiosis with most of the benefits going to the mortals once their short lives come to an end, assuming one followed the good gods (as defined in universe) or at least the neutral ones. If anything, the gods are the ones holding the short end of the stick, having to build the world over and over, populate it over and over, grant mortals their power every day, intervene directly at times, keep the Snarl at bay, and provide for the afterlife, whatever that would entail. The good mortals (for the most part) simply need to have faith, do good to other mortals, and maybe build a temple or two, which they can themselves enjoy as well. If we go by the crops analogy, the only time the farmer would benefit is the point of harvest, and even then, said wheat would enjoy an eternity of happiness which the farmer had to provide for it, so the idea of mortals being exploited the way a farmer would exploit the life cycle of his crops just doesn't hold up, given that the benefits of following the good and neutral gods extend forever.

Adding moral complexity to a villain and a story is no easy task. People can and will have a million different views on a matter and in many ways, that's a good thing. As things stand now, more information could be revealed which might redefine the situation, so it's best to keep an open mind. I can say a few things about how it appears and how things stand now, given what we've been shown:

- The goblins aren't victims. If anything, that is just a ploy or an excuse to justify conquest. Victims aren't able to field gigantic armies, mages, siege equipment, etc.
- There were some injustices against the goblins at points, but the same could be said of most of the races, if not all of them. That doesn't mean they're victims.
- Victimhood is no excuse for bad behavior in any event.
- No one in the world is inherently XP fodder. If they were supposed to be, they wouldn't be able to earn XP themselves.
- Having "poor land" isn't really a disadvantage and can actually be an advantage in many ways, as explained above.
- Neglectful or abusive patron gods don't necessarily or even likely place a group at a disadvantage.
- If the goblins ever had or sought the moral high ground, they lost it when they acted just as bad or considerably worse to the humans when they conquered Azure city.

I get that there's a "social justice" theme being made here, but it doesn't really work out as we've seen. Case in point, there have to be a ton of arbitrary points just to make things more difficult to resolve the matter when gods are involved and a bunch of points taken as given to make it work, such as "infertile land gave us a disadvantage" (not really the case), or arbitrary rules like "the gods can't just change the geography once the land is set." It's also hard to depict the good gods as anything but good when they reward virtue, punish vice, do all they can to help mortals, keep the world together under dire circumstances, and reward the good people of the world infinitely after death. I don't envy the task of making that look bad. Also keep in mind that the good gods are NOT omnipotent and they actively have to work with the less-than-good gods (who are also not omnipotent), so there are situations here where they legitimately might have their hands tied or be unable to help. It's not like more traditional problems of evil.

[Ginasius]

Fenris apparently did.

Fenris? Probably you intended to write Fentanyl. :smallwink:

[Dragonus45]

The goblins are not "doing nothing and hoping the gods fix all their problems", quite the opposite actually.

Red cloak IS though, and he’s also the one who did quite the opposite really when he ruined his brothers village, and arguably when he put a giant target on the goblins who conquered Azure City and then refused an honest, good faith deal to get the nation of Gobotopia officially recognized and legitimized for the sake of his ever so precious Plan.

[understatement]

Adding moral complexity to a villain and a story is no easy task. People can and will have a million different views on a matter and in many ways, that's a good thing. As things stand now, more information could be revealed which might redefine the situation, so it's best to keep an open mind. I can say a few things about how it appears and how things stand now, given what we've been shown:

- The goblins aren't victims. If anything, that is just a ploy or an excuse to justify conquest. Victims aren't able to field gigantic armies, mages, siege equipment, etc.

The specific military hobgoblin settlement is an exception, not a norm.


- There were some injustices against the goblins at points, but the same could be said of most of the races, if not all of them. That doesn't mean they're victims.

"Well, Group A has it bad, but Group B also has it bad, so Group A should quit complaining" is a strange, baffling train of thought.


- Victimhood is no excuse for bad behavior in any event.

Of course it's not. But do you really expect someone whose family gets massacred right in front of them to be like, "oh, wow, understandable mistake, let's move on?" The only surprise is that this conflict between goblins and humans in the Southern Continent didn't happen sooner.


- No one in the world is inherently XP fodder. If they were supposed to be, they wouldn't be able to earn XP themselves.

The inequality doesn't come from XP, it comes from placing certain people in certain locations.


- Having "poor land" isn't really a disadvantage and can actually be an advantage in many ways, as explained above.

...


- Neglectful or abusive patron gods don't necessarily or even likely place a group at a disadvantage.

...what?


- If the goblins ever had or sought the moral high ground, they lost it when they acted just as bad or considerably worse to the humans when they conquered Azure city.

The concept of "the reason a race deserves to live because they were on their best behavior" is just weird at best, and pretty appalling at worst.

[Ruck]

By and large I agree with understatement's post, but I also wanted to add this:


- Neglectful or abusive patron gods don't necessarily or even likely place a group at a disadvantage.

So what? We have word from Thor, more or less, that Fenris' neglect did place the goblins at a disadvantage. Hypothetical possibilities otherwise (which you have not supported, aside) don't change that.

Aside, as a writer who often overly obsesses over little choices in a piece if it has a long enough lead time before I publish it, Odin's comments definitely resonated with me.

[Phhase]

Oof. If Redcloak ever learns that his race's historical problems aren't even an act of deliberate divine malice, but of divine indifference, he is going to be LIVID. Designated bad guy is one thing, actual divine cast-off is just insulting. Amazing comic.

[Aristocles22]

The specific military hobgoblin settlement is an exception, not a norm.



"Well, Group A has it bad, but Group B also has it bad, so Group A should quit complaining" is a strange, baffling train of thought.



Of course it's not. But do you really expect someone whose family gets massacred right in front of them to be like, "oh, wow, understandable mistake, let's move on?" The only surprise is that this conflict between goblins and humans in the Southern Continent didn't happen sooner.



The inequality doesn't come from XP, it comes from placing certain people in certain locations.



...



...what?



The concept of "the reason a race deserves to live because they were on their best behavior" is just weird at best, and pretty appalling at worst.

That's not what I'm saying, but I suppose I should clarify and bring up a few points in more detail.

First, we don't really know that the hobgoblin military is "the exception", but even if it was, it shows that goblinoids are capable of fielding those sort of armies. Moreover, there was nothing inherent about their race which prevented them from being able to do so, even if they didn't do it in other cases that we've seen. For what it is worth, hobgoblins were mentioned as being disciplined and militarily skilled by Redcloak before he even knew how strong this particular army was, so they developed a reputation for that sort of prowess, which would be impossible if they were just a helpless group of permanently disadvantaged people. For what it's worth, the goblins (green-skinned ones) also appear to be quite capable of violence, they just aren't as good at it as their hobgoblin peers.

I never said that a group shouldn't complain, only that they shouldn't act badly because they have it bad themselves. There's a big difference between complaining and killing, conquering, and enslaving. Self-defense is one thing, but counter-massacres only lead to cycles of revenge and far greater injustice.

No one expects him to understand, but the logical conclusion to said event isn't to hate all humans. If anything, it's a bit of stereotypical supervillian origin story. It would have made more sense for him to want to deal with those particular humans, not hate the whole human race.

As for "certain locations", I've already explained how that isn't really a problem. People of all stripes can and do adapt to their conditions. Poor soil might lead people to take up industry instead, lack of natural defenses in the terrain might encourage fort-building, isolation from the coastline might lead to a greater emphasis on overland and river trade as opposed to oceangoing shipping. Humans in OOTS often live in some pretty terrible places yet they mostly seem to do just fine regardless of the climate.

And I never said that they deserve to live by being on their "best behavior." I'm not sure where you got that idea from.

[Ionathus]

Red cloak IS though, and he’s also the one who did quite the opposite really when he ruined his brothers village, and arguably when he put a giant target on the goblins who conquered Azure City and then refused an honest, good faith deal to get the nation of Gobotopia officially recognized and legitimized for the sake of his ever so precious Plan.

Point of order: Redcloak is responsible for many of those things, but not for ruining Right-Eye's village. He actually wanted to join the village and give up The Plan, until Xykon tracked Redcloak down and forced The Plan back on the rails.

You could argue that this is still RC's fault for his earlier sin of making Xykon into a lich, but ruining the village wasn't a conscious decision in the moment.

[t209]

So I am curious how Orcs, Kobolds, and Lizardfolks doesn’t seem to have xp fodder status even with Fenris’ concepts?

[Aristocles22]

By and large I agree with understatement's post, but I also wanted to add this:



So what? We have word from Thor, more or less, that Fenris' neglect did place the goblins at a disadvantage. Hypothetical possibilities otherwise (which you have not supported, aside) don't change that.

Aside, as a writer who often overly obsesses over little choices in a piece if it has a long enough lead time before I publish it, Odin's comments definitely resonated with me.

I don't see where that's a disadvantage. It may be a "dumb idea", and Thor may be right for characterizing it as such, but it's not a disadvantage. It's like a game of Stellaris (a 4X space colony game, a bit like Civilization) where you can choose to have a race breed quickly but have a planet with little food. That forces you to make different choices, but the game isn't necessarily made harder as a result. It might encourage the goblins to get clever with their food sources, trade crafted items for food, find ways to limit population growth, etc.

It's a dumb idea in that it doesn't confer an advantage when it was intended to. Remember, there's a huge space on the spectrum between advantaged and disadvantaged. It's not a black and white case.

[Dion]

So I am curious how Orcs, Kobolds, and Lizardfolks doesn’t seem to have xp fodder status

Thor explained that in the comic. The gods created the goblins and then grew bored and stopped paying attention to them.

[Ionathus]

So I am curious how Orcs, Kobolds, and Lizardfolks doesn’t seem to have xp fodder status even with Fenris’ concepts?

Some people (myself included) believe that we've received hints about this, peppered throughout the comic. Roy's original party that wanted to kill orcs instead of negotiate with them; the Something-Good kobold that wanted to Inigo Montoya Belkar, but got massacred by adventurers; Lizardfolk having to scrape by in the desert, fighting for scraps and neglected by Tiamat; Sir Francois criticizing the adventurers who committed a home invasion on some orcs; things like this are admittedly up to interpretation a bit, but they're there if you look for them.

[hungrycrow]

I don't see where that's a disadvantage. It may be a "dumb idea", and Thor may be right for characterizing it as such, but it's not a disadvantage. It's like a game of Stellaris (a 4X space colony game, a bit like Civilization) where you can choose to have a race breed quickly but have a planet with little food. That forces you to make different choices, but the game isn't necessarily made harder as a result. It might encourage the goblins to get clever with their food sources, trade crafted items for food, find ways to limit population growth, etc.

It's a dumb idea in that it doesn't confer an advantage when it was intended to. Remember, there's a huge space on the spectrum between advantaged and disadvantaged. It's not a black and white case.

Remember how much Thor was able to shape dwarven society. Fenris probably had the same chance to shape early goblin society, and if Thor's characterization is accurate, he probably pushed them to make really terrible "opening moves".

[Dion]

Remember how much Thor was able to shape dwarven society. Fenris probably had the same chance to shape early goblin society, and if Thor's characterization is accurate, he probably pushed them to make really terrible "opening moves".

And ALL the gods, individually and collectively, didn’t bother to step in once Fenris got bored and stopped paying attention.

It might be tempting to look at the making of the goblins and say #NotAllGods, but it really was all of them that shared in the neglect.

[ziproot]

I don't see where that's a disadvantage. It may be a "dumb idea", and Thor may be right for characterizing it as such, but it's not a disadvantage. It's like a game of Stellaris (a 4X space colony game, a bit like Civilization) where you can choose to have a race breed quickly but have a planet with little food. That forces you to make different choices, but the game isn't necessarily made harder as a result. It might encourage the goblins to get clever with their food sources, trade crafted items for food, find ways to limit population growth, etc.

It's a dumb idea in that it doesn't confer an advantage when it was intended to. Remember, there's a huge space on the spectrum between advantaged and disadvantaged. It's not a black and white case.

Fenri(r|s) actually has a point, though. They just keep missing the one key thing that allows humans to pull it off: adaptability. Hence why humans get extra skill points and a bonus language: this lets them adapt to their surroundings. In order for their strategy to work, Fenri(r|s) has to not only give goblinoids quick breeding patterns, but also versatility.

[Aristocles22]

Remember how much Thor was able to shape dwarven society. Fenris probably had the same chance to shape early goblin society, and if Thor's characterization is accurate, he probably pushed them to make really terrible "opening moves".

Perhaps, but we don't know that. If anything, Fenris seems to have left them alone and didn't guide them much at all. That neglect may be bad, but it's nothing compared to the horror which we've seen from some of the gods like Tiamat or Nergal. Life in the desert as we've seen was hellish, huge amount of human sacrifice were apparently the norm, and warfare was endemic. None of these wars and downright evil gods did anything to stop the humans and lizards living there from developing a civilization, one stable enough to build large cities and huge monuments at that.

[Ruck]

I don't see where that's a disadvantage.

I mean, I dunno what to say to this. In a world where gods verifiably exist, can give their followers powerful spells, and shape their creations' early societies so they can go forth and thrive, a species' creator getting bored with them and neglecting them, or not giving them the tools they need to thrive, is something I certainly see as a disadvantage.

[Personification]

I don't see where that's a disadvantage. It may be a "dumb idea", and Thor may be right for characterizing it as such, but it's not a disadvantage. It's like a game of Stellaris (a 4X space colony game, a bit like Civilization) where you can choose to have a race breed quickly but have a planet with little food. That forces you to make different choices, but the game isn't necessarily made harder as a result. It might encourage the goblins to get clever with their food sources, trade crafted items for food, find ways to limit population growth, etc.

It's a dumb idea in that it doesn't confer an advantage when it was intended to. Remember, there's a huge space on the spectrum between advantaged and disadvantaged. It's not a black and white case.

The thing is, as others have pointed out, part of the balance of those games is that the whole set of circumstances is balanced so that the disadvantages don't outweigh the advantages. I don't actually see the issue being Pleasantville trying something and it failing, as some have put it, but as him starting something and not finishing it. Presumably, the assumption is that a god will spend more than one round on a species, especially if they want to champion it. So all of the classic PC species get several turns of attention from one or more gods, including some gods who add nerfs as well, creating a semblance of balance. With the goblinoids, however, Pleasantville spends a round having them exist, but by the time it gets back to him he gets bored, so when everyone expects him to spend a turn on giving the goblinoids natural resources or a predisposition towards a certain class or whatever, he instead takes the opportunity to make owlbears.

The issue is that nobody cared enough to put in the work finishing the balance on goblinoids, and none of the gods cared about them enough to act as an obvious sponsor for clerics or to tell PCs not to kill them.

To go back to your game example, while the game is balanced with the starting world for the fast-breeding faction having fewer resources, it most likely wouldn't be balanced if its numbers were much smaller, and the implication from the comic is that the goblins started with few enough resources that it DID matter. The fact that they happened to overcome this after over a millennium of struggle (in a small area, due in part to most of the well-leveled PCs in the area being unable to fight in the main battle because they were either paladins and had to guard the throne room or among the noble retinues that fled) with the help of a powerful outside ally doesn't really change the fact that they started off worse. What they did in Azure city was obviously terrible, but in the same way that being a victim doesn't excuse bad behavior, behaving badly doesn't stop one from being a victim.

[Aristocles22]

And ALL the gods, individually and collectively, didn’t bother to step in once Fenris got bored and stopped paying attention.

It might be tempting to look at the making of the goblins and say #NotAllGods, but it really was all of them that shared in the neglect.

That's where the arbitrary rules part comes in. I'm sure there could be a metaphyiscal or energy-related reason for it, some binding oath they took or a lack of power to take on another god's work, but it really is arbitrary why they couldn't/didn't help. That said, if we go by the parenting analogy, each god is like a father or mother to their own race each time they make one for each world. One isn't a bad parent or a bad person if one doesn't raise someone else's children when said children were neglected by their parents. Of course, there are issues involving this analogy too, but the point is, not all the gods are responsible for the neglect of just one of their number. Or even several of their number. No more so than good parents would be responsible for the misdeeds of bad parents.

[Aristocles22]

I mean, I dunno what to say to this. In a world where gods verifiably exist, can give their followers powerful spells, and shape their creations' early societies so they can go forth and thrive, a species' creator getting bored with them and neglecting them, or not giving them the tools they need to thrive, is something I certainly see as a disadvantage.

Even ignoring Redcloak and some other goblin clerics, we see hobgoblin clerics too, including some with Redcloak in Azure city. He wasn't the only goblinoid cleric. Fenris did a bad job, but it's not like the gods have forsaken them entirely. The tools mortals are given by the gods primarily come in the form of clerics and their spells, and the goblinoids clearly don't lack for those. It's just a fact.

[GregTD]

I don't think Thor being truthful about the gods' motives/methods makes Redcloak wrong in any way that really matters. Whether or not they specifically created goblinoids as fodder races, the pantheons still made a universe whose fundamental laws provide material incentives for sapient beings to kill each other, and didn't see structural inequities as a problem worth balancing for. Somebody was almost assuredly going to get the short end of that stick, and whoever it was would have a valid grievance against the gods who set it up so that would happen, even if they left the exact outcome up to chance.

No

The God who created them had a design strategy that he thinks will work. They can say "hey Fenris, your ideas suck!" And not worship him.

But it is not the other God's fault that they did a better job making their creatures than Fenris did making his.

Your failure to do a good job does not impose a burden on me to do a bad one.

One better armed and armored dwarf is likely to beat one worse armed and armored Goblin. But the point of Fenris' strategy is that it won't be one on one, it will be one on two, or maybe three.

And sometimes quantity does have a quality all its own

Would I rather be the creation of a K strategy God than an R strategy God? Yes

but that doesn't mean that R strategy never works. Heck, it worked when taking Azure City.

So no, Redcloak does not have a legitimate beef with any God, other than the God who created goblins, and the Goblin God who's lying to him