On the eastern border of the Elf Empire, past the River Sleep, the woods grow knotted and strange. This is goblin country. There is little agreement what "goblin" truly means: does it refer to the creatures who infest this land? The process that changes them? The land itself? Some external force leaking into the land?
Whatever the truth, it is acceptable shorthand to refer to the diminutive, warped, spacetime-damaged beings native to the wood as goblins. Goblins are not born - they are changed. They have no children themselves and so are forced to kidnap the infants of other races. They heavily favor elves. This is the reason for the eternal elf-goblin war: for goblins, it is a matter of reproduction. Raids fill them with orgiastic zeal.
At the wood's heart lies a labyrinth. At the labyrinth's heart, a tower. This is the Tower of Change. Goblins, for whom navigating a maze is as natural as taking a breath, lay their captured children at the tower's door and return in a year and a day to find new goblins.
Every time you look at a goblin anew, something is a little off. Weren't its ears bigger? Its nose sharper? Goblins are never truly done changing. This impermanence of form means that goblins have a tendency to dematerialize, pass through walls, or rearrange their molecules to flow like liquid or float like gas. It also places them close to dreams. Goblin oneirists explore dreams - sometimes their own, sometimes others'.
The things goblins make often come off as parodies of the things other cultures might make. They love to buy and sell, but they place little stock in money. The Goblin Market has things for sale not found anywhere else, but expect to pay a heavy price. The greatest goblin export is spidersilk, a gift of the spider goddess Anansi and the spiders of the wood. Goblins fashion the silk into the sails of airships from which they launch their raids.
These are the tables I use to run the Great Goblin Wood, finished not a moment too soon because my players now find themselves deep in the wood. I know I sort of promised more regular posts of these region tables, but that's not going to happen. They take a long time to write. I kind of have to sit and daydream with each region for a while until I start to get a feel for what makes it tick. So, ten more regions are coming, but who knows when. Probably when my players get to them.
This also turned out to be my response to this Kotaku article about boring goblin fights, even though I was already working on it when the article was published. I'm not as down on Cecelia D'Anastasio as others have been - she does identify a real problem. My response is threefold: I give goblins Cheshire Cat powers, weirdass motivations and culture, and I make the environment of the wood itself part of the danger. Monsters without goals more defined than just "kill the PCs" will always be boring monsters. Also, the problems she has with D&D combat can be fixed with group initiative re-rolled every round.
To the tables:
Encounters by Terrain Type (d100)
Roll once per day of travel, more if you want. Re-roll after rolling weather events. Rolling over the highest number listed means no encounter.
Spatial Distortions (d8 or use the d100 encounter die number)
- No matter how far the party travels today, it will end up exactly where it started.
- The party will arrive at its destination tomorrow, no matter how far away it actually is.
- The party can only get closer to its destination by moving away from it.
- The party wakes up in an entirely random part of the wood.
- The party wakes up outside the wood on the border nearest where it slept.
- The party wakes up in the Goblin Market.
- The party moves at half its normal speed today.
- The party moves at ten times its normal speed today.
Treasure/Search the Body (d100)
NPCs (d20)
- goblin raider
- goblin merchant
- goblin shaman
- pig knight
- airship bombardier
- spy
- hermit wizard
- fungus farmer
- oneirist
- lizardman separatists from Southern Isles
- traveling merchant
- orc scout
- rat man
- elf crusader
- snail rider
- idiot bird, goblin court attendant
- goblin noble
- spidersilk weaver
- emissary of the spider goddess
- Anansi, the spider goddess
Wilderness Locations (d10)
- bog
- labyrinth
- geode cave
- moving city on chicken legs
- hedge maze
- mushroom field (hallucinogenic)
- misshaping pool
- deep cave
- spiderwebs
- beanstalk
Settlement Locations (d10)
- airship yards
- drinking hole (think Star Wars cantina)
- rat laboratory
- menagerie of intelligent creatures
- palace
- pig stables
- oneirist chamber
- shaman's hut
- spidersilk works
- fortress
Dungeons (d4)
- Goblin Market
- web of Anansi, the spider goddess
- Tower of Change
- spire of Sarpedon the Shaper
Events (d8)
- Four goblin nobles, three goblin merchants, two goblin children and a handsome shrew all claim to be Goblin King. Each develops a violent following, especially the shrew.
- An assembly of mushroom-worshipping oneirists gather in a large mushroom field for the harvest festival.
- A goblin merchant plots to kidnap one of the player characters to sell to an eccentric collector.
- A giant in a floating castle recruits goblins for a campaign of terror across the world.
- A procession of goblins carrying babies from the latest raid makes its way to the Labyrinth.
- A ragtag flotilla of airships passes overhead on its way to raid the elf borderlands.
- A great migration of the forest leaves the place unfamiliar even to seasoned inhabitants.
- A hermit wizard claims to have unlocked the secret to eternal life by studying goblin anatomy.
Customs (d6)
- Goblins of means compete to see who can be the worst host for travelers.
- The upper classes get around via a network of underground geode cave tunnels.
- You cannot truly trust someone until you have been inside each others’ dreams and lived to tell about it.
- Offering to pay for something with money is an unforgivable offense.
- It is customary to leave an offering of flies to the spiders before undertaking any great venture.
- Goblins often claim the support of the Goblin King in disputes, but it is rude to ask who or where the Goblin King is.
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