#d&d goblins

[jamiebluewind]

Not a theory but...

While working on A Flame In The Dark,

Chapter 2 is up now! I'll try to link it here when I get the chance ^_^ Fandom: Dimension 20, Fantasy High Word Count: 3594 Perspective: Ri

I started researching different animals to base goblin biology off of (with alterations to fit them of course). I looked into dogs and cats, but those didn't fit. After a few other species, I started looking into rodents and low and behold, I found that they worked fairly well! I decided that I wanted one that was mostly carnivorous if I could find it because of their teeth. After a lot of digging, I found the Grasshopper Mouse. And guys? This little dude is NUTS!

Grasshopper Mice are tiny bad asses whose main diet is scorpions, but they also eat insects (including deadly centipedes), lizards, and other mice! They throw their head back and howl a high pitched yell before a kill, after a kill, or just to proclaim their territory (thus their nickname of werewolf mouse). They are able to turn their pain receptors off when fighting scorpions due to their body being able to use scorpion venom as an analgesic instead of it being deadly (for comparison, these scorpions send hundreds of humans to the hospital every year). They attack and fall back with lighting speed while sometimes BEING STUNG IN THE FACE. Their fighting tactic is also how they fight deadly centipedes, being nimble and fast enough to dodge a venomous bite that would otherwise kill.

Looking at these tiny fearsome guys, it's hard to not see Riz's fighting style and goblins in general. I altered it of course to suit my needs and better fit goblins, but this little guy helped me by giving me a solid base to work from instead of having to create everything from scratch.

Here are two short videos if anybody wants to see a Grasshopper Mouse in action. The first is about them in general, but also has a scene of one eating another mouse. The second is a southern grasshopper mouse (there are 3 types) attacking a scorpion. I just put links instead of embedding so that they won't auto play for people who would feel uncomfortable with it. ^_^

https://youtu.be/1K9mO5QzOIQ

https://youtu.be/w-K_YtWqMro

[goblinsareawesome]

Some doodles of Krodzen from a recent DnD session

Our party ran into a magical door that influenced us to walk inside despite it obviously being dangerous. Krodzen was the only one to resist it, and managed to get the others to snap out of it, but he was then volunteered to be blindfolded, tied up, and sent through the door to see if the mental manipulation would last after he walked in. It did. He nearly died. It was pretty fun!

~Thistlepath

[thegoblinmenace]

Game Master Tips on how to best utilize Goblins in your D&D campaign

[virovac]

Salvaging Norkers as a concept

I had some inspiration concerning the old  budgie-nosed caveman goblins

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Norkers, oddly enough are most clearly related to hobgoblins. If hobgoblins are an attempt to create a “civilized goblin” by some precursor race , Norkers appear to have been a failed or sabotaged part of that effort, or even possibly created from an attempt to undo the changes. They are claimed to most chaotic of social goblin species, and many misconceptions surrounding them are only recently being corrected.

The typical propaganda that goblinoids "steal everything and make nothing" is more true for norkers than it is compared to other goblinoids, but still not the whole story.The truth is norkers do make crafts, but generally only those a particular Norker take special interests in it.

Norker technological development is hindered due to most of their specialists being self taught and jealously guarding their secrets. Norkers who bother to keep track of which children their own may be more willing to share secrets with offspring. Still most skills in Norker culture are learned by observation and reverse engineering.

Whatever magic they have is generally divine rather than arcane. [proposal: an idea of random divine magic that spell list changes day to day based on who decides to answer their prayers.] Most of it is focused on elemental earth magic though.

In regards to them stealing everything, trade has now  been recently observed with orcs and goblins . What norkers offer tends to be varieties of fungus they cultivate (sometimes deliberately on their own bodies…). Honestly  given that they are generally fluent in the language of these other races, this is embarrassingly obvious in hindsight.  (How the goblins are gaining enough respect from the norkers to engage in trade is something that boggles the mind though…)

Another claimed trait that deserves a disclaimer they are the most violent amongst their kin compared to other golbinoid. While they often show a clear "might makes right mindset" It should be remembered that norkers have armored hides and their frequent quarreling with eachother rarely leads to injuries. In many cases it may actually be play behavior.

Recent studies even show the hatred between different tribes of norkers is less serious than thought as well. Turns out when a norker said "and then I totally killed him" it was often a figure of speech referring to the act of tearing out another norker's fangs. (which can grow back, but until then the norker's social status plummets)

Their internal politics is also more complicated than previously thought, with often the self proclaimed leader being humored and real decision making going on elsewhere.

Of course the chief may still be an actual supported leader.  Contrary to belief, Norkers can be devote protectors. Norker bodyguards questioned on loyalty often stated they protected their charge simply because they "liked them".

Norkers prefer scavenging to hunting, and frequently use their numbers to chase larger predators away from their kills.

It is well known Norkers have a gender discrepancy massively in favor of the females (3 to 1), yet strangely few of the women are full-time raiders. It seems almost as if the concept had not occurred to them rather than actively discouraged, and some suggest it may be from them being descended from earlier populations of hobgolgins who archeological evidence point to as having more gender essentialist societies .  [not sure about this one honestly]

Norkers problems with other races tends to come down to the other races being "soft skins". This is either seen a sign of weakness to be seized upon, or leads to issues when Norkers forget the lesser durability of other races and try to initiate what should be a non-serious scuffle.

Overall, norkers are a race hindered by a mixture of superiority complex and free-spiritedness.

[goblinsareawesome]

this is Fredrick, one of my DnD characters!

~thistlepath

he was the assistant and nurse of a powerful cultist. she’d been cursed, and was infected with quite a few horrible diseases. his job was to follow her around, cleaning anything she touched and providing immune-boosting medicines to anyone who interacted with her.  he’s adventuring only because she is, and he can’t just stop doing his job. he’s Lawful Neutral, valuing the rules and orders of the cult over all else. he takes great pride in his work, especially since he gets to work so closely with someone so important. he’s pretty overworked, and usually very tired. he gets very little time off, so he tends to spend the time he does have drinking, eating and partying to a pretty unhealthy level of excess, then doing his best to recover from that in time to get back to work. he’s also a goblin. obviously. he was raised more among the humans, tieflings, elves and other “civilized” races than goblins, but he’s still a greedy, shiny-loving, aggressive little gremlin deep down.

[thegoblinmenace]

Goblin Evolution, Explained - Monsters, Misguided #2