Goblin thread! Gobbos gobbos gobbos!

Let's talk goblins, Veeky Forums. They're everyone's favorite adventurer fodder, right after basement rats. But what makes them tick?

They're greedy, but don't dig for gold like dwarves.
They're numerous, but don't breed like kobolds.
They're violent, but don't raise armies like orcs.
They're tinkerers, but don't invent like gnomes.

So what's their deal? What do they pride themselves on? How do they determine social status? How do they survive as, basically, the evil race equivalent of humans - jacks of all trade with no specific niche of their own?

Pic: the only setting that's unequivocally theirs.

bumping with art

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>what makes them tick?

Being absolutely, violently insane.

Also, Kobolds > Gobbos

To answer the OP: depends on the setting
To REALLY answer the op: In most settings their niche is cannon fodder and slaves. As a free race... hmmm...
Merchants. Gobbos are ruled by oligarchy. They are rcih because their stuff is more mass-produced and cheap. Goblins are glad to work for food and a copper coin, that's why their shit is cheap. Yea. Sounds right.

Gobbi by Jacques Callot.

>Merchants
Sounds right.
Kind of like italian city-states but more shitty, then?

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Uhhhh those are GNOBLARS, user, get it right or pay the price

Wicked Fantasy goblins (or "gobowins", as they shamefully call them because they decided that "goblin language doesn't have the L sound in it) are nomadic traders who survive by a combination of hyper-breeding (lots of kids in short periods of time, plus the ability to shift genders so any two goblins can guarantee baby-making) and an aura of bad luck that pretty much condemns you to a horrible death if you kill one.

So goblins as uber-libertarian, anarcho-capitalists? Fuck anyone who isn't them, unless they can make you money? I could see that.

You never see much of goblin society because it tears itself apart long before it can challenge a real organization. Rich goblins surround themselves with a retinue of bodyguards, toadies, flunkies and general hangers-on, any one of whom might be a spy hired by a rival to kill them for a piece of the wealth.

Poor goblins are eternal optimists. They hire themselves out for whatever to whomever, expecting to be shaken down regularly but still hoping to strike it big. Somehow. In the meantime they content themselves with their corner of the hovel and bowl of stewed rat.