Goblins

“Now goblins are cruel, wicked, and bad-hearted. They make no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones. It is not unlikely that they invented some of the machines that have since troubled the world... for wheels and engines and explosions always delighted them.”

-- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit





A great wolf settles down as its master approaches; it could snap up the goblin in one bite, but it has learned to fear the whip and love the reward. Sour-skinned raiders creep into town, headed for the black market with wagons of living chattel. A vicious assassin half the height of a human lashes out with poisoned daggers, darting back between the legs of her mercenary comrades.

Vicious Little Beasts

Infamous across the world as slavers, raiders, and criminal nuisances, goblins are the smallest and weakest of the goblinoids. By necessity, they are also the most creative and cruel. Far from the disciplined martial culture of hobgoblins or the thuggish self-assurance of bugbears, the average goblin is a born opportunist, a coward willing to gamble what little it has on the chance of improving its lot.

There are few things weaker than a goblin, so the tiny terrors learn to get their kicks in wherever possible. A goblin likes nothing more than seeing a giant trip and fall, and will happily dig a traphole to help it on its way. More assertive goblins learn to bully and manipulate those stronger than them, the goblin equivalent of deft leadership.

Slave Drivers

Goblins are small and scrawny humanoids with batlike ears, greasy scrags of hair, and sharp needle teeth. Their hairless skins range in hue from burnt red through to bright green, and they sport broad noses in a variety of shapes, most commonly snouts or hooks.

All goblin possess excellent night vision, which they employ as night-raiders and cave-dwellers. They tend toward dark, tightly clustered homes, where they can more easily escape large predators and angry guards.

Incaution and brutality mean that the death rate among goblins is tremendous, matched only by their prodigious birth rate; goblin matriachs bring forth whole litters in the time it takes for a single human to enter the world.

Life is Cheap

Goblin society is brutal and indulgent, founded on the idea that every goblin is owned by another. A goblin tribe is a pyramid of slaves, growing steadily in value, with the autocratic ruler of the tribe collared only by the gods.

A goblin's caste dictates their value (in every sense), and is nigh-impossible to escape. From irreplaceable artisans and shamans to the scavengers and farmhands at the bottom of the heap, each caste relishes the opportunity to dominate its lessers, and even the lowest goblin will lord it over the tribe's tamed animals and foreign chattel.

Life is cheap and power is precious, a philosophy that has given goblins a reputation as heartless beast-tamers and slave-breakers, for whom no deal is too underhanded or cheap. It's one they relish.

Lonely at the Bottom

Goblin adventurers are rare, and are most commonly mercenaries without a tribe, willing to act as a guide or footpad for coin. Such hirelings wield their expertise like a club, anxious to ensure that they are indispensable.

Others have reasons beyond greed for leaving their tribe. Criminals who were slandered by a rival or stole a valuable item may be exiled (or flee, more likely), seeking refuge as a bottom feeder among other races.

Lower-caste goblins have little to lose by fleeing, and those who survive the world beyond can find the freedom to grow and change (or acquire slaves of their own). Similarly, those goblins who convert to a foreign god must depart the tribe before their heresy is found out.

Goblin Names

Goblins are born in such large litters that they do not receive names until adulthood, at which point they are given a name by the head of their caste. It is the only gift they are ever likely to receive, and often comes with a sarcastic meaning.

The name of a goblin's tribe is separate from its own, unlike the communal clan or family names of other races.

Male Goblin Names: Brak, Brokko, Frik, Graf, Grom, Odgit, Razdunk, Sazsel, Skarsnik, Snargit, Tekzik

Female Goblin Names: Bliztik, Grezzlik, Grikkin, Grulsik, Kosko, Pisarek, Revilgaz, Screetch, Shekka, Snagla, Tinnit

Goblin Tribe Names: Batwing, Grotag, Lavastep, Manag, Redface, Spiderbite, Tuktuk, Unkul, Wolfward