How are your goblins? Humansized, Tolkien Orcs, useless comedy relief gremlins?

Depends on the subspecies.
Arctic goblins are fairly tribal and isolationist. They attack anyone in their territories but dont push out to raid other settlements.

Jungle goblins are the most religious and savage of the bunch, sacrificing captives and raiding other jungle inhabitants fairly often. The one group of jungle goblins pertinent to my group's story is led by a huge marid descended goblin genasi.

The common goblins are generally tribal, nomadic, and hostile, but also theyre the only ones who band together with other creatures like hobgoblins and ogres. In recent times, the common tribes have united into one massive horde thats pushing out in all directions, and approaching the arctic tribes in an attempt to rally them to join the horde. The party has recently encountered several groups of these goblins that have had goblinoid warforged among their ranks, and its been discovered that a large dwarven organization that manufactures weaponry and mining equipment has secretly captured a warforged creation forge and managed to modify it to birth goblinoid warforged for the horde..

So yea, as a whole the goblins tend to be treated seriously, ranging from actual threats to proper denizens of the lands they live in. Some individual goblins are more comic relief however

Unironically sex goblins. Through the power of selective breeding and good financial sense they've become a kind of celebrity race in my setting.

Is it at least voluntary?

Oh yeah, they did it to themselves.

They don't exist. Humans wiped out every other sapient humanoid race.

Okay, I gotta ask: Why is this a thing?

In that case, cool.

Because reasons

Useless comedy relief led by a single intelligent goblin that hates them to death but also puts in an effort to reform their civilization and make them worthwhile members of society but has so far made very little progress.

There was one goblin one time in the very first adventure I ran for the party, other than that they haven't seen them.

Non-humanoid races are rare and scary. By the time they've ventured far enough out from the land of men to encounter goblins every once in a while, goblins won't pose much of a threat and will be a non-factor.

Reluctance on culling subhumans from the planet

A mix of Tolkien and comedy relief.

Goblins are essentially hairless moogles. They were "uplifted" along with harpies and were bred for mechnical aptitude as well as certain more humanizing physical features while harpies became couriers and scouts.

After about 400 years of breeding they were giving status as persons and have rights and freedoms (in some places).

Kinda Tolkien like.

Honestly based entirely off pic related, although I'm unsure if it's from something, just the way it looks.

Creepy little subterranean monster folk concentrated in the central desert, but pop up in other places up north, making some question how badly eroded the interior of the world is. They're not a 'race' or civilization in my setting, more or less usual fodder, but not a horde creature to be killed in droves, they're more magical, and just creepier than normal because they live deep down in the dark, and dark is bad. They're tricky, obtuse, seemingly intelligent. Maybe they're organic dark lifeforms, some lesser material demon. Maybe Pygmies changed by dark. No one knows. Goblins just are. No one knows where they get their ornate weaponry and jewelry from, either, it doesn't quite suit them, they seem stolen or pilfered from someone else, maybe Pygmies, but Pygmies don't have that kind of stuff.

Harry Potter like or rather /pol/ like

>Tolkien orcs
>not just using them as pretty based Tolkien goblins

I need this artist but forgot his name, help an user out?

Dead.

InCase. Their stuff ranges from being God-tier to being God-tier Trap and Futa-faggotry.

Both are pretty good.

>>not just using them as pretty based Tolkien goblins
OP here, I don't get it. Tolkien Orcs and Tolkien Goblins are the same thing. Unless you mean the Uruk-Hai

>are the same
on the outside maybe, but their inspiring ideas do differentiate them quite a bit. Tolkien orcs are corrupted elves, they're the product of evil, and like the evil that made them, cannot create, but only destroy.

His goblins are creators of their own. Excellent creators in a way, and only caring about making bigger and more violent, inventive ways to kill. In the hobbit they're sorta a commentary on industrialization of England and war production.

Group of dumb green fuckheads being pointed wherever by an unhinged amoral Nilbog.

I mean, I've read both the hobbit and LOTR.

LOTR has no Goblins, and the Hobbit has no orcs. You don't think it's just a name?

The degenerated descendants of giant brutes, sculpted from clay long ago to sculpt the earth in turn. They mostly live underground and rarely come into contact with humans. When they do, they are usually friendly but single-minded.

Well, considering the revised Hobbit didn't change the characterization of goblins to be more in line with the LOTR orcs, I'd say he did intend for them to be 2 different races. If not then that'd just have been edited to fall together, like how the "one ring" only became that way in the revised hobbit to match the LOTR story, but was just a magic ring in the original Hobbit.

She started OFF as a frantic unhinged engie who was evil and cruel.
Then she became a gremline that would turn back if you ever feed her after midnight.

The ones my player groups are interacting with currently however are a mixed bag.

Due to being cut off from the larger hordes of Goblin tribes outside of their lands, they're a fairly stationary, savanna dwelling conglomerate of hunter gatherers that live in reinforced adobe homes. They are as weak as normal Goblins physically, but are so numerous that they can swarm over something and subdue it like a horde of ants.

They've also managed to gain the subservience of a splinter faction of Hobgoblins who earned the ire of their current deity and are being protected by the power of the Goblin's fertility goddess and her clergy, working as their handmaids and guards against things they cannot defeat with number alone in return for it.

My players generally seem to still view them sort of comedically, given their interactions with them were done without turning them hostile and involved ingratiating themselves by performing tribework and becoming honorary members of the tribe in the process. They've also seen how scary they can be after leading the majority of the Goblin army in an assault against a malfunctioning artificer factory with the aid of the nearby Kobold encampment, leading the face of my first group to attempt to get them to industrialize and become a more congenial version of the WoW kind. They also kinda look like the middle bottom version of pic related, because a thread here got me hooked on the whole bat-nosed concept.

I'm a shameless fan of Night Goblins. There's jut something about Goblins who make OTHER Goblins look normal that I find endlessly endearing.

They've been left to their own devices, and are really rare, which helps mask my blatant plagiarism. Combats with these guys take a more "Tucker's Kobolds" approach--in this case, they only ever fight when the deck is stacked dramatically in their favour.

I remember that thread.

Plantigrade boston terriers with opposable thumbs who speak welsh.

I just use standard d&d races for everything even when I'm not playing D&D

because fuck it

I can get behind most of the classic monsters but D&D's insistence on making orcs and goblins two entirely different families of evil humanoid species is weird abd heretical to a brain that was raised on tolkien and warhammer.

Goblins are hook-nosed jews that aren't on your side. They may or may not be technologically advanced for the setting but they're always cunning bastards (because they have to be)

D&D actually does something similar to warhammer though

warhammer does goblins+orcs= greenskins
D&D does goblins+hobgoblins+bugbears= goblinoids

In my setting goblins are part of a philogenic clade called Blinidea which is distinct from mammals and reptiles in that they have scales and cold-blood but also have more developed brains and give live birth.

Other than that, they're short green/brown humanoids with giant mouths full of sharp teeth that love murder and produce way too many offspring. So basically just goblins. Though in recent years of the setting, some of them are starting to move into cities and take part in civilization.

>They don't exist. Humans wiped out every other sapient humanoid race.
how boring and edgy

>a philogenic clade called Blinidea which is distinct from mammals and reptiles in that they have scales and cold-blood but also have more developed brains and give live birth
So basically the exact opposite of monotremes? I might argue that should put them as an order of Reptilia, rather than a distinct clade, much as Monotremata is an order of Mammalia.

Xenophobic, tricky raiders who fight extremely dirty.

Basically carnivorous chimps living in small tribes/packs and barely smart enough to use human tools they might loot.

Kinda like rats.

In small numbers they are not much of a threath. Kind of adorable in a sense and fun to watch. They trip a lot.

In tribal numbers they are more dangerous, organized and intelligent, using scraps and tools that they can't make themselves. They scavenge most everything.

They are terrifying in hordes, stripping the countryside of almost everything until they're either killed or starved. When If faced with (and outnumbering) a peasant militia they kill, eat and loot them right then and there. In no particular order.

And if they form an army you really want to be somewhere else.

It depends on type. Thoughts of the small green ones most commonly associated with the concept brings thoughts of the Mins While generally civilized, they have a penchant for alchemy, interests in gunsmithing and a troublesome habit of trying to take their inventions a bit too far. They are skilled though, and effective at crafting potions, tonics and elixirs. Some Mins use their talents for trouble, but most take to roles of tinkers and healers. The particularly clever ones can make a living as gunsmiths, or as gunmen themselves.

Goblins proper are similar creatures, if a bit more feral, and usually of red skin. They have a similar mind for alchemy, but less so for the complex crafts Mins involve themselves in. Goblins also have horns making some think they were a result of some fell ritual. Their regular subservience to Hobgoblins, and a similar shape makes some thing they were the ones who made them. Goblins themselves aren't sure of their origin, and they're more likely to rob you blind and leave you beaten in a ditch than pontificate on the matter. Most engage in cannibalism. Hungry goblins go for the kill on a target with obvious intent. A very scarce few free goblins are Shamans and Druids, connecting with the wilds of the planet through magic than simply living like savages.

Henson. All the way.

Philosophical Zombie Hive Mind easily programmed with memes that are used in some cities as drudge workers whose interactions with the population are carefully controlled especially regarding the ability to read or speak anything other than a stylized and obtuse command system to prevent memetic contamination and aberrant behaviour.

Wild goblin colonies are very strange and often hostile and are essentially "Green Goo" scenarios that can expand into huge dangerous events that require carefully planned memetic interventions to create a closed terminal scenario that prevents spreading the contamination further by escaped groups that a military action might result in, not to mention the cost.

Hence "Adventurers" being sent on specific "Quests" within the hives.

The Goblins themselves have a basic "goblinoid" form but if allowed to build more complex memetic structures they can differentiate into more specific or complex sub-types with their own unique memetic interactions.

They're best when they're "organized". Makes you question your sanity.

Halflin sized, vicious, but not NECESSARILY unrredamable. Pretty standard, I guess. Maybe a tiny bit lees idiotical, at least they do care about self-preservation.

In general they're not really "evil", more like incompatible with good races' ways of living. Strategy r organisms.

Monarch skills:
>playing with his (crystal) balls
>impossible hair
>liking 16 yo humans

45 Tons, give or take...

Goblins are fey that were cast out long ago because of their forbidden love for the artifice of man, in particular fire and iron. Now they fetishize both - their leaders are hammer-bearing blacksmith-priests who worship a fiery spirit of the forge, while their artisans don't really produce anything of much value unless it's made of iron (and their iron is really good, although not very aesthetically pleasing). Their settlements are dismal, smoky warrens that echo with the sound of ringing hammers and clattering chains. They practice ritual scarification with knives and branding irons.

Goblins are militaristic and hard-hearted, but they aren't irrational killers. Their relationship with humans is mixed; they have some respect for those societies which exhibit strength, but envy humans for being those first given the secrets of iron and consider them unworthy of the gifts bestowed to them. As a general rule, the only creatures they're cruel towards as a matter of course are other fey, whom they have never forgiven for driving them out (and trying to kill them all). Goblins and the other fey have waged mutually genocidal wars against each other for pretty much all of recorded history, and the tortures goblins will gladly inflict on captured fey would make even a kobold think "damn, that's sick shit."

Not the worst race to deal with (as long as you're not a fey), but fucking with them is ill-advised. They don't take jokes very well. Good people to buy a knife from.

Goblins are tiny, brown, goat-eyed creatures with seriously large pointed ears (like a bat) and four digits on each limb. They have incredibly flexible tongues that are two feet long, and have a lattice of tissue around their lungs that makes them resistant to collapsing or being pierced by blunt trauma.

Most of these adaptations are because they used to be middle-upper predators in an arboreal environment. Most people think they're magical, because "A wizard did it" is a far more logical explanation in this universe than the more true "Alien Goblins fell through an Alien God Warp Portal Thingy, sending them back through time and making them crash-land on Earth before it was Earth, where they lost access to their old knowledge and had to build a kingdom of raiders just to survive in the frigid environment they found themselves woefully unadapted for, and now they ride horses and shoot bows good."

Other than that, they're basically Mongols, and they're the reason Dwarves ever live underground where it's dark and hard to grow Potatoes/Wheat/Oats. Because Horses don't do well in holes.

Can it take a 3L ER salvo up the butt?

I prefer dog goblins, but bat goblins are good too.

A once powerful race who fought back elven magic with artifice and alchemy. All their beautiful kingdoms were overtaken in a great war, leaving nothing but the inbred innawoods hillbilly goblins to tell the tale. They still have a nack for invention but centuries of ancient goblin technology has been wiped from the planet. Most people don't even remember the war now, and probably assume goblins have always been this savage.

Spastic little subterranean tribal gremlins that can smell (and eat) metal and have an uncanny knack for stealing and rigging things they aughtn't, especially knowledge. Most just dredge up old crossbows or jars full of vermin for creative weapons, but gods help whatever civilization is plagued by one who successfully observed an alchemist make something caustic or sat in at a mage's college. Assuming the individual isn't derisive to their own community and forced out, maybe to die alone, or to find their way with a wandering group of freaks or vagabonds. Mostly occupy abandoned (or invaded) mines for the metal content, or burrow themselves. A desert dwelling group is relatively benign and capable of scavenging and half-repairing great deals of artefacts from the sand, but their trade often leaves the short (and still smoking) end of the stick to the other party. Their biggest mark on civilization otherwise is Kabosh, their first city- that is, it was built for them by a human empire grateful for their stake in a war effort. It's a nightmare of slums, unchecked debauchery, and dangerous magic.
My setting doesn't have goblins, I've just described kobolds which I rolled up goblin and gnome roles into

Two, yes.
Three, no.

...

MTG has always done Goblins right

...

>Take Fremen from Dune.
>Keep their Zen Buddhist philosophy.
>Make them 3 ft tall and give them a thrill seeking streak.

That's how I do Desert-Goblins in my setting.

"He who beat you in digging, beat with hammer!"

Those are some odd looking dogs user. Though that last one looks like hes been through Nirvana.

Jazz Jackrabbit, what are you doing here?

>Goblinoids
The separate goblinoid creatures are not in fact different species, instead they form a greater single species. In this case goblins are infertile males, hobgoblins fertile males, and bugbears females. Their clans end up strictly matriarchal with a bugbear at its head. When giving birth to a litter generally one child will grow to a hobgoblin, if two do so both hobgoblins will likely be runts among their kind. Hobgoblins practice rampant homosexuality due to their pathological need to mate where as bugbears only become fertile at certain times of the year, this varies from bugbear to bugbear and depends on when they were born. Bugbears can actually choose when to give birth to a new female, and will often send one with several hobgoblins and goblins to be established as a sister clan. This creates vast networks of allied clans stemming from single Bugbears. Bugbears, opposed to goblins and hobgoblins are far longer lived, some reaching as old as two hundred. Goblins, the infertile males, are generally subservient to their larger fertile brothers, but only to a point. However both hobgoblins and goblins will religiously follow the orders of their Bugbear mother or current clan head, this is due to pheromones the bugbear produces. She will often cut portions of her hair off and give it to her servants, these hair soaked in pheromone oil she excretes, and will keep them subservient while away. Goblinoids away from a bugbear for a long periods of time, without such baubles, will grow to realize their subservience.

goblins are as tall as a manlet dwarf, belligerant or not, weirdly smart and inventive, be it for scavenged magic relics that may or may not have an use in combat or for creating odd things that seem to work solely on luck.

hobgoblins are as tall as a dwarf, dumb as a rock

bugbears are taller than a tall dwarf, and smart only for things such as warfare

Goblins were a docile woodland animal before being awakened and disfigured by hobgoblin magic. They comprehend little outside cruelty and subservience. Sometimes, after an attack, hobgoblins will release a pack of goblins to wreak havoc in the surrounding area. These wild goblins are considered vermin by most. Sometimes, the wild goblins are taken in by a new master. This is generally the only way a non-hobgoblin would assume control over a pack of goblins as most hobgoblin clans are unwilling to sell their own goblins. (Hobgoblins also find it highly insulting that the Common name for the race they created is so similar to the Common name of their own race.) There have been a few documented cases of goblins attempting to set up their own community, usually a group of wild goblins inhabiting a village that was ransacked by their former masters. All such attempts have been spectacular failures, however.

You know how some conspiracy nuts will say that there aren't enough souls to go around for all the people that are born?
Well that's actually a thing for these goblin. But because of this when a Goblin with a soul dies they end up hijacking the body of a Goblin who doesn't have a soul. Much to the annoyance of adventurers who have killed "Morchuck the Relentless" no less than five times now.
However no one seems to be able to tell how many times a Goblin can do this before their 'extra lives' are used up.

A tribe of these Goblins also rebelled against their Orc masters, using the notes and spellbook of a captured inventor/wizard to kickstart a fledgling industrial revolution to power their actual revolution. The Displaced Orcs are rampaging into the Elven lands which pisses them off, Goblins from other parts of the world are flocking to the new Goblin Kingdom which is somewhat unsettling the bordering Human kingdoms with the exception of the smallest one who feel inspired by these little green shits and want to trade with them.

I drew from the Maasai , the Tuaregs, and the Zulu.

They are pastoralist nomads that herd their Archaeotherium around the savannas and deserts at the edges of the greater sedentary Elvish (totally not Persian and Songhai expys) and Human (totally not Russians) civilizations. They occasionally raid the Elves and Humans which has given them a pretty bad reputation among the more sedentary races, but but they aren't particularly warlike. The main armament of Goblin Braves is a short spear and a Archaeotherium hide shield. They venerate their Archaeotherium and even believe that their one god is a great Archaeotherium in the sky. They drink Archaeotherium milk and blood, they eat the meat of the giant pig like animals, they use their hide, and they use them to find tubers to supplement their horticulture.

What do your Goblins usually ride Veeky Forums?

Ferocious Wolfs?
Tasty Pigs?
Terrifying Spiders?
Humans?

Goblins being so small means they have a lot more animals to choose from. I'm quite fond of oversized vermin myself.

>What do your Goblins usually ride Veeky Forums?

big old Archaeotherium hogs, but they don't really ride them that much (they don't make good mounts). Mostly they just herd them like cattle.

Tree-swinging critters that resemble hairless cimpanzees with clawed fingers and the head of a predatory bat. About as clever as chimps too.
Dangerous to pets, children, lost drunkards and overconfident twats. Harmless alone, deadly when they gang up on you.

During winter they crawl inside underground dens beneath the trees to hibernate, like actual bats. That's when most goblin hunters deal with them; use hounds to sniff out the dens and then clobber/smoke the little shits while they sleep.

>Hobgoblins practice rampant homosexuality due to their pathological need to mate where as bugbears only become fertile at certain times of the year
Seems like a design flaw, user.

Nice to see people appreciate bat-goblins.

Giant Rats, Boars, Yaks, but also crocodiles.

Also ogres.

I know this feel, I used to be in love with warcraft goblins, but warhammer has altered my dying need for cunning retards with pointy hats.

Dead

Turks.

They're basically hairless silver back gorillas.

Most goblins are typical dumb, greedy, cowardly, and mob minded creatures, but due to a recent cataclysmic event...

Devious goblins with higher intelligence, ambition, and cunning like this guy start showing up organizing and leading bands of goblins.

The freakish inverse of elves. Generally shorter than humans, mostly do to spinal abnormalities.

The god of elves stole their beauty. They're universally ugly, but each one in it's own twisted unique way. Some are small and hideously shriveled, others are monstrously bloated and large.

They are well aware of their own ugliness and tend to wear masks and cover themselves in flowing robes. Despite their appearance, they're unnaturally fecund. Only a systemic self loathing and depression keeps their population in check.

The Goblin King is remarkable handsome, in a slightly asymmetrical way. It's unknown if this is due to freak chance or a powerful glamor.

>There are no mirrors in the Goblin City.

>Goblins
All sorts of goblins, kobolds, gremlins and other short annoyances. Often have features of rodents, bats, toads or fungus.

>Orcs
Mostly just larger goblins, tend to have features of bigger animals like boar, bears or apes.

>Hobgoblins
Towering monsters that look more like lanky ogres than goblins, with no features from animals other than claws and fangs. Surprisingly stealthy for their size, until they attack.

Its a play on the "redneck" "fool", or "peasant" trope. For reasons not completely understood, trashy girls can inspire intense sexual desire without having most the traits one usually associates with desireablility (ie healthy, status, average face, ect). See "Cash me outside" girl

They're evil, greedy, perfidious imperialists who live from colonial exploitation and war profiteering. They're still comic relief, but the humour is deep black if you realise how immensely powerful these buffoons actually are. Elves underestimated them; elven empire doesn't exist anymore.

They also come in two variations: monarchist goblins who don't need a better justification for fucking people over than "they're inferior, who cares if they suffer"; and republican (actually plutocratic) goblins who obsess over randist bullshit, but end up acting just the same as their cousins across the sea.

On the slightly brighter side, they're genuinely driven, entrepreneurial and inventive.

Gross little grey people, made by a witch to prove a point. They are inherently subservient, and were used as slaves and treated like animals for thousands of years, until someone noticed they had feelings and everyone decided it would be best to stop tormenting them. Now they live in a sort of communist society in which everyone is basically eachother's slave and they kowtow to all their neighbors. The prevailing opinion is that they are sweet and friendly to the point of being disturbing.

did the meme train run out of steam for this series?

I'm surprised Styx doesn't get more love in TG

Short and generally nasty, but split into six wildly different subspecies based on climate, surrounding wildlife, and magic bullshit.As follows

>Mountain Goblins
Short, green, vaguely aztec-looking, and famous for being 'engineers' of the highest and most destructive caliber. Have been in a turf war with the dwarven mafia for centuries.
>Hobgoblins
Spindly, pale, weird monocolor eyes, and amish dress sense. Wildly xenophobic and violent, but excellent farmers and golemsmiths.
>Sun Goblins
Coppery, black sclera'd eyes, and rad dreads. Travel across the deserts on giant beetles on a never ending quest to find cool shit and get rich off it.
>Hobgoblins
Swamp dwelling pale emaciated freaks, who hunt down whatever shows up in their swamps, kill it, and dye their clothes in its blood. Excellent trackers, hunters, and torturers, and their chief looks like a 3 foot tall palette swapped Xanthous King Jeremiah.
>Salt Goblins
Stocky, rough skinned, and sharp toothed, these goblins are buff as hell, and partially aquatic. They sail around as hired muscle and open ocean pirates when the gorgons aren't beating them to the punch.
>Deep Goblins
Frail, nearly blind, and symbiotically bound to glowing magic fungus, these guys catalogue the secret histories of the world, and also eat underdark undead.

>For reasons not completely understood
Bullshit, it's because trashy girls are seen as easy.

More like those first few chapters were trying to figure out what the series was and being super-edgy. It's slowly become slightly more moderate.

Shit, the second hobgoblins should be Redcaps.

>I HAVE MADE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE

I read ever entry in this thread.

This is all fucking cool, I like you guys, I would read more about your Goblins.

The rest: okay to meh. Get some imagination, or at least have the decency to use the standard D&D goblins instead of producing a bland copy of them №9000.

I want to run a post-apoc-but-you-don't-know-that setting. Gobbo's are humanoid, necessary for comic relief and exp dispensing, but this mostly due to their wildly varied levels of ambition, complete lack of follow-through, and rapid rate of breeding. They run kind of the china equivalent of dwarf fortresses: built ten times faster, ten times fancier, ten times more polluting and with only half the structural integrity. Since they breed fast they don't really care if they or others die in cave-ins. Mook low-tier exp dispensers had great conquest ambition and decided being a low-tier dungeon encounter is good enough.

They were one of the parties responsible for the apocalypse (most races have something like this in the GM-eyes-only history) but they actually regretted bringing it about; therefore short green and ugly, in repentance. If they remain low-level they just live out the rest of their days in the early stages of their past selves, no care for the results of their plans or their own lives. The higher levels develop an understanding of chemistry and engineering pretty much spontaneously, along things like a conscience etc.

I didn't like the way B4Z goblins looked. Their weird head-carapaces didn't make sense to me