Hobgoblins

What do you do with these guys in your settings, Veeky Forums? Are they related to Orcs and Goblins? Do they even exist? What are some interesting hobgoblin types?

They're just bigger goblins, but there are fewer of them than small goblins. It's sort of the inverse of Humans and Halflings.

If goblins are the shitty children, hobgoblins are the shitty teenagers.

I'm a big Eberron Fag, so I tend to make Orcs more of a neutral race, if I include them at all, and put Hobgoblins, Bugbears, and Goblins in their place as the generic tribal horde. All three can interbreed, and the offspring will be one of the three possible races, though Goblins are most Dominant, Bugbears secondary, and Hobgoblins being the most rare.
Breakdown is something like 2 in every 10 births is a hobgoblin, 3 in every 10 is a bugbear, and 5 in every 10 is a goblin.
Bloodlines have gotten so mixed up though that it is entirely possible for two goblins to produce a Hobgoblin child.
Besides that, it follows traditional goblin lore: Goblins are the grunts, Bugbears are the brutes, and Hobgoblins tend to be the leaders.

Brutally imperialistic warmongers with a shocking respect for high art, culture and the sciences. Destructive and evil? Perhaps, but damn classy, smart and well-organized about it.

I really wish Games Workshop had used the Ogre Kingdoms to expand on the Hob Goblins instead of creating fucking Gnoblars.

I still wouldn't have been a fan of the aesthetic used on the Ogres themselves but at least it would have added something interesting and tied them into the world a bit better.

I use them like the first baldurs gate. They waylay the party anytime they travel anywhere. No matter what.

I have them as an alchemically created subspecies of goblins. Stronger and easier to train as troops, but overly aggressive with some having the tendency to berserk out.

>You have been waylayed, and must defend yourself!
>rhaaaaaa!
>forward march!
>doooohhhh!
Ive played that game thru 100s of times it feels

In my Eberron-esque dieselpunk setting, hobgoblins are a Kaiserreich-themed empire that've conquered their own homeland far to the East and intermittently try to invade. They can't do it too often, because there's a perpetually storm-wracked sea full of monsters between the two continents. Fluff-wise, they're a lot like the 4e "Winning Races: Hobgoblins" depiction of them.

Hobgoblins. Hobgoblins.
What do you do with those hobgoblins?
They're over here, They're over there.
Those darn Hobgoblins are everywhere.