What would a joint Human and Hobgoblin empire look like? What - if anything - would bring them together?

This is my setting's origin for hobgoblins. Human empire enslaved goblins and bred them until hobgoblins arose. Hobs were treated as elite slave soldiers akin to janissaries until they decided they should be running the show. Several coups later, empire continues as normal but with hobs completely supplanting the ruling class.

So I'd say use the ottoman empire as a template.

>What could bring them together.

A loose confederation of Hobgoblin kingdons/clans slhas shared a border with a militant human kingdom for generations. After countless battles one side or the other has an epiphany and offers the olive branch to the the other with the message that by our powers combined none could stand against us. Ten years later they've steamrolled most of the other kingdoms and tensions are starting to arise within the empire now that the ancestral enemies have run out of outside forces to focus on.

Shit I completely forgot about Kingdoms of Kalamar.

It's easy to bring them together.
Hobgoblins are kinda humanlike. Just like Elves, Dwarves and Halflings desu. In fact, they are so easy to integrate, they might as well be one of the standard races. And Kalamar did exactly that.

I can see Humans and Hobs getting on pretty well, honestly. Trained militaries, disciplined regiments, etc,etc.

For you.

>I can see Germans and French getting on pretty well, honestly.

user, you need something a bit more than just military discipline to unite two different cultures, let alone two distinct RACES.

Despotic honorbound warrior clans
Meet
Extortionists, mystics and shrewd magistrates

Within a generation the continent will be theirs

Pray their breeds cannot mingle lest their children rule us all on a heap of our fathers bones

mutual geopolitical interests, shared cultural traits, hot halfbreeds

>Despotic honorbound warrior clans
>Meet
>Extortionists, mystics and shrewd magistrates
Wait, which is which

An Austro-Hungarian Empire sort of deal where one of them ruled the other, but political and social unrest led to a near-revolt that was quelled by a dual monarchy system to give the ruled group more rights and preserve the empire.

Depends on setting

>What would a joint Human and Hobgoblin empire look like?

Strictly going from what's presented in general 'D&D lore': A strict, but fair, ruling class of LE Hobgoblin totalitarians controlling a strong, but satisfied middle and lower business & labor class of Humans. Hobgoblins would essentially focus on conquering, military technology, fighting, and policing, while the Humans would operate the businesses, services, 'distractions' and entertainment, as well as resource, food, and tool production.
It would be a strict, but satisfying and personally rewarding society: you would be guaranteed work at birth, receive steady and reliable benefits and excellent job security including a serviceable pension, but there would be very little room for advancement if at all beyond the position you were born into. It'd also be a very 'prideful' society, so expect at least one holiday a month celebrating how great your war machine is: thanking the soldiers, making and gifting them presents, getting time off, feasting, drinking, and public assemblies on the latest enemy and how awful they are.
It'd be the sort of society that from the outside would seem very 'cruel' or controlling, but if you lived in it you'd understand why people were so happy with it, a kind of, "the trains run on time" situation.

>What - if anything - would bring them together?

It could be as simple as an initial alliance of convenience evolving into a mutually beneficial relationship that neither species is interested in absolving. I don't really see Humans and Hobgoblins realistically having a lot of animosity around one another- they'd most likely find themselves following into very standard feudal situations where one works and the other fights so either doesn't have to do the other's job.

Has it done anything since the OGL explosion?

...

Assuming that you go by standard modern D&D lore, I think the easiest way to do this would be to just make the humans more like hobgoblins. Hobgoblins are a well oiled war machine designed to do three things, fight, build over what they have gained, and prep to fight again. They are disciplined, honorable, efficient, brave, and rather cold blooded. They live in squads, are actually rather polite (because all insults require response, and they won't insult you unless they want a response), and that they are perfectly capable of building, farming, studying magic, and doing anything else that humans can do.

So the issue here, is not that hobgoblins are too savage for human society, but rather that most humans are not disciplined enough for hobgoblin society. This society would need some very strict, hard nosed humans to go along with their hobgoblin allies.

The hobgoblins could also be an elite military class forming the center of armies for your new kingdom. They would still need humans to fill out their army, a sort of reverse-Rome where the auxilia form the core instead of the peripherals. There be a system that stops the hobgoblins from simply seizing control and making the humans slaves, but that could be arranged. Overall, I think hobgoblins would be perfectly fine with being part of a strong human nation. I bet they get pissed about having to work with other goblins who are dumber and less disciplined.

I can think of at least one society that has a military that originated from outside the local population. The Circassians are from the northern Caucus Mountains and were known as good fighters, but eventually were driven out by Russians who purged the area. The Circassians moved to many other areas, including Jordan where they defended the king and were granted land. Now they are the most important group aside from the king's family itself and they are a large chunk of the military and upper administration as well as the king's guards.

So they're kind of like Roman foederati?

Sea Peoples.

The answer is always Sea Peoples

Stop being retared OP.

Humans are the Hobgoblins of the Elf-Dwarf world. Hobgoblins really are just goblinoid humans.

Sounds like feudal Japan.

Mutual hatred of Elves.

/thread

Some people just hate paper user, we can't blame him.
A human/hobgoblin empire making use of /po/wered armor sounds nice though.

Elven supremacists waged war on them to try and exterminate them. Hobgoblins were native to the country humans came to settle, and were treated as second class citizens until the war brought them together.

To be fair in DnD and similar settings races=cultures=races.

Rome.

Ha ha time for best Yugoslavia

>reverse image search returns half-orc

Where can I find more pics of Hobgoblins like OP’s?
Official art like Just doesn’t look good to me

...

Orc, Goblin, Hobgoblin, Bugbear same fucking difference.

Hobgobbos are the despots
humies are the extortionists.

So they form an authoritarian soviet state? I can dig it.

I've sort of taken the idea of asian hobgoblins, from the aesthetic of their entry in the monster manual, and applied it to my setting.
There is a hobgoblin empire of nomads, sort of !not!Mongols, with infrastructure and mail largely maintained by Wyvern-riders transporting messages and VIPs.

A number of the conquered peoples they now rule, are human empires, although generally the nearer you get to their homelands, the more hobgoblins predominate as the "default"-race.

Like the mongols, they are quite practical, and gladly employ human companies of soldiers, or human scholars, bureucrats and cartographers.
On the other hand, they aren't exactly evil, as far as administration goes. Probably less evil than the real Mongols were, to be honest.
But they are all about that manifest destiny-stuff, like all expansionist empires.

That sounds kinda like [REDACTED: INFORMATION DEEMED /POL/ISH IN NATURE]

Op pic is a half orc, so just look for that and lie about what it is

Jokes are /pol/ and this triggers me

...

Fun fact; there have been stats for half-goblinoids in Dragonlance 3e, and half-hobgoblins in Kingdoms of Kalamar 3e.

In my generic setting Hobgoblins are considered Vermin and you can sell their heads for gold as a constant imperial bounty on the race. The players didn’t realize this was kinda harsh until much later when their steadfast rival used the dark lord to make a kingdom for his hobgobbo people, only reason Hobgobbos are evil in setting is cause they’re treated like rats

Assuming Hobgoblins are capable of being very civilized, and are not just another monster race, it could very easily happen just by both races living in the same area.

Loot. If you have to ask, the answer is always loot.

>What would a joint Human and Hobgoblin empire look like?
The Angevin Empire [laughs in French]

On a more serious note, there could be a few reasons. Let's exclude the most obvious and say humans and hobgoblins are sexually incompatible, meaning inheritance and fusion of thrones isn't an option. A possibility is that one race was displaced and the other offered them a new residence within their realm, where they can live segregated and with relative autonomy. For example the humans were chased out of their realm in some grand war against some unspeakable evil, and the goblins offer them some shitty, barely fertile part of their realm to live on under the condition that none of their leaders calls themselves king (their former king would probably assume some meme title like Archduke instead), their nobles swear fealty to the goblin king and they pay their taxes and provide troops.

Another reason could be something I may or may not be attempting in my own setting: human settlers establish a colony in distant lands, but the native hobgoblins aren't too fond of this. They fiercely attack the settlement but the humans bravely defend themselves. Due to reasons the human colony effectively is cut off from the homeland and the humans realize that they can't keep up this war for long without outside help. They surrender to the hobgoblins under favorable circumstances, where they can retain some autonomy and all their settled territories. The humans realize this is better that fighting until extermination, and the hobgoblins think this is a much easier victory that'll be more profitable in the long run (loot is nice, but dead humans don't pay taxes).

Finally it could be a merger of convenience due to paranoia about some grander enemy neither of them can overcome individually. Think about European Federalists and Russia, except less retarded.

an expansionist empire ruled by a almost all powerful authority

I'm running a game in the Kingdoms of Kalamar setting and that has two pretty interesting Hobgoblin kingdoms in this setting. My campaign focuses on a different part of the world (one with more wilderness and exploration rather than clash of nations) so I haven't read too much about the Hobgoblins. I'm not sure how pro human they are, considering one is almost constantly at war with a human neighbor.

I do recall reading that Hobbo mercs are quite valued in the large !byzantium human empire due to their strength of arm and agility of body and their huge emphasis on personal honor which ensures they always fulfill their end of any contract or bargain they make.

Through a complex web of surrogate alliances and marriage. It isn't like the union of human houses where its based on whoever spits out brats. Hobgoblin marriages are done exclusively through Deed, where the two to be joined have to complete a difficult task together. Once done, they're united in hardship and earn a Family name or can join into an existing one. This way, all inheritance is done through written contract, verbal agreement, and social standing. Brats are irrelevant, as the water of the womb is weaker than the blood of the covenant and both groups hold tight to that.

The shared history of rivalry interspersed with vigorous joint defense by necessity has led to the union of these two nations. Families with blood feuds were ordered to solve them by merger, and the practice sort of stuck. The beginning was rocky, but as the generations passed what was once rare became common-place. The drastic increase in political, financial, and military prowess wielded by properly joined families meant everyone was soon rushing to do the same and the practice filtered down. The most common peasants of each race may not practice it, but more and more villages are starting to turn into massive Families of their own as they move further away from the urban centers of power and the control of the noble family lines. The Child Auctions are some of the most hotly contested and attended events in the Empire, with children and young adults being brought in from all over the Empire and beyond to compete to be adopted.

>huge emphasis on personal honor which ensures they always fulfill their end of any contract or bargain they make

Lawful evil done right.

Back in third edition one of my settings had a strong hobgoblin theocracy led by The Grand Prophet. Actually just a brilliant strategist and artificer who pretended to be a prophet so his people would listen better. Elves tried to genocide all goblinoids during a 9-century long ice age that destroyed most of civilization. The Prophet rallied the hobgoblins and tamed several clans of bugbears and normal goblins to forge a unified combined-arms force. Now elves exist largely in slave camps (used for mining asbestos, primarily), and in one single heavily enchanted forest that is under constant siege, and has effectively been walled off from the rest of the world. The Prophetic Protectorate is a well-oiled caste-based militaristic theocracy whose leader ascended to become a minor demigod. They are now the sole holders of the knowledge of forging mithril (they can produce an artificial mithril useful only for armor on every full moon, but they need healthy elven slaves to do it). They are also the source of Hobgoblin Pain-Iron (iron that always counts as having the Bane property against all sapient humanoids, painful to touch and generally used only for arrowheads).

>lawful evil done right
>not filling all contracts with obtuse, near incomprehensible language that disproportionately rewards the hobgoblin and several claus that allow them to render the whole thing null and void on a whim without ever "going back on their word"
Do you even law school?

A multicultural mercenary band saves the continent from the threat thought apocalyptic. That band then claims the continent as theirs.

Pretty sure it's in Greyhawk. The Northern Kingdom has some sort of alliance with the Bone Marches, and those are ruled over by evil humanoid chiefs, including hobgoblins.

>Setting is getting too real

>Gnomes want to destroy the only place where they're protected from goblin hordes

Really makes me think.

Hobgoblins=turks
Humans=persians, arabs and greeks

Basically the more sofisticated but indolent human realms start to use hobgoblin bands as mercenaries and/or warrior-slaves. For a time this works and this armies bring great victories and wealth to the humans but also puts hobgoblins in a position of power. Eventually a hobgoblin warlord takes over and becomes king with his warriors being nobility of the sword (human nobles can stay as nobility of the pen). By this time both cultures and races have influenced each other hard and eventually everyone accepts that hobgoblins are here to stay, but distinct identities are kept.

If there's race mixing in your setting you could have "half-hobgoblins" who look 90% human but are considered hobgoblins. Most common the higher their rank.

Two heads of the same shekel.