Home Artists Posts Import Register

Downloads

Content

Patreon backer William brings you this bonus episode, all about your favourite little jerks and mine, goblins!

Thanks to Ray Otus for our thumbnail image. The intro music is a clip from "Solve the Damn Mystery" by Jesse Spillane, used under a Creative Commons Attribution License.   

Comments

Robert

Well done! I think this was your second-best special episode so far, after the one on Unicorns.

Robert

The thing I like best about goblins is their utter lack of care for their own kind. Humans-- like most real animals-- have a pretty strong concern for the wellbeing of their own kind, and will often act instinctively to help others, or protect them from harm. I figure that goblins-- being the crappiest kind of little monster you can have, are the exact opposite, right? I always look for opportunities to portray this inversion, when goblins are on the stage... of course they don't take risks to save their wounded companions or defect their weaker members, of course they'll shove one of their kind towards danger if that'll give them the distraction they need to escape, of course they'll crowd from behind to cram enough goblins onto the rickety bridge to make it collapse along with the adventurers (heck, the ones getting crammed forward will even turn around and fight the ones behind them, to try to prevent this). I usually try to introduce goblins into an area by showing signs of goblin-on-goblin violence. I've used spot checks to hear the distant signs of goblins wrestling in a pit, I've had a trail of blood leading from the goblin camp to the spot where a goblin, beaten by its companions and mostly unconscious, is hiding in the bushes and trying to recover (a valuable source of information if the PCs find it before they find the camp). I've had goblins parlay to try to avoid being slaughtered in combat by offering up some of their number as slaves or food. Since goblins are so system-wise weak, you can really pile on massive numbers and use them as expendable moments to show the difference between "human evil" and "monster evil". You're not dropping massive amounts of XP into PC hands for the opportunity, and you're giving (after PC level 5 or so) yourself the chance to go just buck wild with the evil shenanigans without a real risk of unexpected TPK. Basically, goblins are expendable to you, the DM, but they're also expendable to each other, and that makes them one of the most enjoyable encounters in the game.