A (Very) Partial Pictorial History of Goblins

During the course of looking into the pictorial history of kobolds last week, I noticed that, starting in the late First Edition AD&D era and extending into early Second Edition, kobolds started looking more goblin-like in illustrations. This was particularly striking in light of Dave Sutherland's original depiction of them as short, horned, scaly dog-men, a depiction unique to old school Dungeons & Dragons. Thinking further on the matter, I began to ponder just what I meant by "goblin-like." Had my notion of a goblin in D&D been similarly influenced by the depictions of them to which I'd been first exposed during my entrance into the hobby of roleplaying? Given the popularity of my kobold post last week, I thought this a question worth investigating.

So far as I can tell, the very first depiction of a goblin in any Dungeons & Dragons product is this one from the original 1974 release of the game. Drawn by Greg Bell, this early goblin looks to me more like a deranged dwarf than a monster in the usual sense of the term:

Dave Trampier provided the illustration for goblins in the AD&D Monster Manual (1977) and I suspect this is the ultimate source for my own imagining of what they look like:

In the same year, Minifigs in the UK produced a series of Dungeons & Dragons miniatures that included goblins among them. Here's one that looks to be quite similar to Trampier's art, right down to the little horned helmet:

In 1980, Grenadier Models produced its own take on goblins, which, again, are broadly consonant with Trampier's depiction, though, to my eyes anyway, they seem slightly more feral. 

1981 is the year Tom Moldvay's D&D Basic Set is released. Though the rulebook does not include artwork for any of the game's traditional humanoid enemies, it does include this Dave LaForce – were all of TSR's early artists named Dave – piece from the alignment section in which there's a bound and gagged figure whom my childhood friends and I assumed was a goblin. He certainly matches many of the characteristics associated with goblins, though he seems to be taller and less stocky than previous depictions.

Like the Moldvay Basic Set, Frank Mentzer's 1983 revision does not include any illustrations of its monstrous humanoids. However, in its solo adventure, there is the following piece of artwork (by Jeff Easley) that, from context, would seem to depict goblins. Once again, they wear horned helmets.

The same year, the Doug Niles D&D Basic adventure, Horror on the Hill, was published. The adventure's primary antagonists are goblins and hobgoblins. Jim Holloway provides numerous illustrations throughout the module, but, aside from a couple of contextual clues, it's not at all clear (to me anyway) when he's depicting a goblin and when he's depicting a hobgoblin. A big of why that's the case is that the two races look very similar to one another. Are these two goblins or hobgoblins? Regardless, I think they're representative of Holloway's broader take on these humanoids.

In the third and final season of the D&D cartoon, there's an episode entitled "The Dungeon at the Heart of Dawn" that features a character who looks very much like Dave Trampier's original Monster Manual illustration of a goblin, though he's not explicitly called a goblin. He even has – yet again – a horned helmet, although, in this story, the horns serve to focus a magical blast that he shoots from his helmet. 

Second Edition's Monstrous Monstrous Compendium (1989) gives us a different Jim Holloway take on goblins. You can definitely see in this piece an evolution of Trampier's original, right down to his pose. He still wears a small helmet, albeit one without horns. This goblin is a bit more wizened in appearance than his 1e counterpart, which, strangely, calls to mind Greg Bell's dwarf-like OD&D version.

Finally, there's this goblin image from the 2e Monstrous Manual (1993) by an artist I can't quite identify. He's vaguely reminiscent of Holloway's goblins from Horror on the Hill, but also seems vaguely "fairy tale-ish" in his attire, particularly the oversized shoes. 

As the title of this post implies, this is an incomplete examination of the evolution of goblins in TSR era Dungeons & Dragons. I am sure there are other illustrations depicting this classic evil humanoid to be found during the period between 1974 and 2000, but I've presented here only those with which I am most familiar. If there are other examples from this period you think are particularly relevant to this discussion, please feel free to post them in the comments. This is especially true if the depiction differs radically from what we see above. My own take on goblins from the Dwimmermount and Urheim setting of Telluria owe a lot, I think, to the illustrations I saw in the TSR products of my youth, which just goes to show how important evocative artwork is in bringing a game and/or setting to life.

Alternate Humanoids

Today's Pulp Fantasy Library featured monsters called "gnoles" which were first referenced in a short story by Lord Dunsany. Though Gary Gygax gave different answers at different times, OD&D's entry on gnolls nevertheless makes reference to Dunsany, implying that the Anglo-Irish author was the ultimate inspiration for these antagonistic humanoids. 

Dunsany doesn't describe his gnoles in any detail, leaving it to the imagination of his readers. Consequently, the entry for gnolls in Volume I of OD&D theorizes that they are a "cross between Gnomes and Trolls," despite the fact it later states that the gnoll king's bodyguards "fight as Trolls but lack regenerative power." There's no suggestion whatsoever of their being hyena-headed, something I don't believe appears prior to the publication of the Monster Manual (though, as always, feel free to correct me in the comments if I am mistaken).

This relative lack of detail extends to all the monstrous humanoids in the game. Other than being small and poorly adapted to daylight, for example, neither goblins nor kobolds receive any detail. Orcs and hogoblins are not much different. Greyhawk gives us bugbears and says they are "great hairy goblin-giants" with a "shambling gait," but is otherwise silent on the matter of their appearance (though there is a genuinely compelling depiction of them on the inside back cover that features a jack-o-lantern as a head).

Why mention all of this? I've talked before about my unhappiness with the enervating self-referentiality of Dungeons & Dragons. This is a feature of all editions of the game after OD&D and necessarily so, since they all build on one another (with the possible exception of the much-hated 4e which, for all its manifest faults, did genuinely try to break free of the shackles of the past). When I first read the Holmes Basic Set or even the Monster Manual, this was all fresh and imaginative and it powerfully seized my imagination – as you would expect, given its novelty to me. 

With time, though, it's inevitable that I wouldn't feel quite as enthusiastic about the standard presentation of monstrous humanoids in the game. So I find myself returning to OD&D and using what little it presents as the basis for my own interpretations of these enemies. As I further develop Urheim, I'll share what I've come up with here. My goal is twofold: to imagine unique versions of classic monsters that convey the distinct flavor of my campaign setting and to show that this cane be done without the need for mechanical changes. That is, even if, for example, my take on orcs or kobolds is different from the received D&D version, it will still be mechanically compatible with the one everyone already knows. I don't want to create a new game, just show how the existing game can be used in (I hope) imaginative new ways.

Grognard's Grimoire: Goblin

A goblin by Zhu Bajiee

Requirements: Minimum DEX 9
Prime Requisite: DEX and STR
Hit Dice: 1d6
Maximum Level: 8
Armor: Any appropriate to size, including shields
Weapons: Any appropriate to size
Languages: Alignment, Common, Goblin, the language of wolves

Goblins are short humanoid beings standing between 3' and 3½' tall. They possess skin ranging in color from yellow to orange to red (and everything in between), while their eyes are usually reddish in hue and are visible even in the dark. Though many goblins live underground, not all do so, especially those most likely to interact with Men and join adventuring parties. Goblins can be somewhat surly and resentful when interacting with other beings, or even their own kin, like bugbears and hobgoblins. These attitudes are only heightened by the fact that many goblins – though not all – are aligned with Chaos.

Prime Requisites: A goblin with at least 13 in one prime requisite gains a 5% bonus to experience. If both DEX and STR are 16 or higher, the goblin gets a +10% bonus.

Combat
Goblins can use all types of armor, but it must be tailored to their small size. Similarly, they can use any weapon appropriate to their stature (as determined by the referee). They cannot use longbows or two-handed swords.

Defensive Bonus
Due to their small size, goblins gain a +2 bonus to Armor Class when attacked by large opponents (greater than human-sized).

Detect Construction Tricks
Goblins are fair miners and have a 2-in-6 chance of being able to detect new construction, sliding walls, or sloping passages when searching.

Infravision
Goblins have infravision to 60'.

Stealth
Underground, goblins have a 3-in-6 chance of moving silently.

Wolf Affinity
Goblins live alongside wolves, including dire wolves. They can speak to these animals and gain a +1 bonus to reaction rolls when encountering wolves. If the result is at least Indifferent, a wolf will consent to being ridden as a mount by the goblin.

After Reaching 8th Level
A goblin can establish a stronghold, whether above ground or beneath it, attracting 2d6 goblins from far and wide. Goblins typically live in clans, so goblins of the character's clan will be attracted to this stronghold. Goblins from other clans will generally be friendly and clan may collaborate in times of war or disaster. 

A goblin ruler may only hire goblin mercenaries. Specialists and retainers of any race may be hired, but this is uncommon.

Goblin Level Progression

D: Death / poison; W: Wands; P: Paralysis / petrify; B: Breath attacks; S: Spells / rods / staves.

REVIEW: In the Shadow of Mount Rotten

Back in 1988, TSR published a product as part of its D&D Gazetteer line -- I still find it difficult to say the name "Mystara" with a straight face -- called The Orcs of Thar. In addition to providing historical and geographical details on the aforementioned region of the Known World, The Orcs of Thar doubled as a rules supplement for players hankering to roll up an orc or a hobgoblin or a gnoll character. For the referee, there was lots of information on the societies and cultures of these humanoid species, in addition to a boardgame called Orcwars! that was intended to simulate the tumultuous politics of Thar.

If that sounds interesting to you, I'm sorry to say that, as presented, The Orcs of Thar came across mostly as a joke, with the various humanoid races being portrayed as congenitally stupid and thuggish caricatures. The product isn't helped by the fact that its interior art is entirely the work of Jim Holloway in full-on Paranoia mode. I say that as a fan of both Holloway's art and of Paranoia. My feeling is that the artwork only adds to the sense that we're not to take the humanoid races of Thar seriously, either as traditional exemplars of Faceless Evil or as revisionist Misunderstood Primitives. Consequently, though I own a copy, I've never for a moment considered borrowing any ideas from The Orcs of Thar.

So, when I received my copy of In the Shadow of Mount Rotten from Faster Monkey Games, I was skeptical. Written by Joel Sparks, this 80-page book (available as either a PDF for $12.00 or a printed book for $19.99), it presents rules and information for using goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs in Labyrinth Lord (or any old school class-and-level RPG), whether merely as antagonists or as player characters. Part of my skepticism is due to memories of The Orcs of Thar, but a bigger part of it is that I'm not now nor have I ever been a fan of "playing the monster" in D&D. With few exceptions, I prefer my humanoid monsters to be, well, monsters -- alien and implacably hostile minions of Chaos. Nowadays, whenever someone tries to make orcs or goblins playable, they do so by revealing that they're not really so bad after all and it's just the prejudice of the Man that makes us think otherwise.

Well, I'm happy to say that In the Shadow of Mount Rotten (hereafter ItSoMR) does no such thing. Goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs -- collectively referred to as "Rotlanders," for reasons I'll explain shortly -- are, in general, nasty, brutish beings who think nothing of raiding, pillaging, slaving, and even, on occasion, cannibalism (or "anthropophagy," as the book charmingly calls it). Certainly there's room for putting one's own spin on the Rotlander races, if one is so inclined, but the default assumption is much closer to my own preferences, which greatly helped me overcome my initial skepticism.

ItSoMR consists of five sections of varying size. The first (and shortest) is the introduction, which presents the Rotlands setting, in addition to overviews of its history, mythology, and races. The Rotlands, of which there is a color map provided, connects to the sample campaign setting map provided in the Labyrinth Lord rulebook, as well as the map in the excellent Lesserton and Mor. It's essentially a region of mountainous badlands, where life is difficult for all who inhabit it. The second section covers Rotlander characters. Thus, we get rules not only for the various Rotlander races but also for three new classes: warriors, shamans, and mongers. Warriors are similar to fighters but more geared toward being lightly armored and commanding lesser examples of their species. Shamans are spirit-oriented clerics with their own spell lists. Mongers are the "smart guys," being especially useful because of the nature of the economy in the Rotlands, where scrounging and bartering are commonplace. Much more is packed into this section, such as rules for reputation, ransoming, and encumbrance, some of which has utility even in "standard" Labyrinth Lord campaigns.

The third section discusses the various tribes of the Rotlands and their territories. This section is very useful, whether as a basis for determining the homelands of humanoid PCs or simply as a gazetteer of the region. This gazetteer provides many random tables (and sample maps) to help the referee determine what is found in ruins or caves encountered in the wilderness, along with more peculiar "oddities." There's also a really clever system using 54 playing cards to determine what's going on in the life of the PCs' tribe. It's intended to spur the imagination in creating adventures, which are more fully discussed in the fourth section. That section likewise offers its own random tables for encounters, along with some simple but useful rules for wilderness survival. The fifth and final section is dedicated to "stuff," like trade goods, caravans, and bartering. Concluding the book is an excellent three-page index.

All in all, In the Shadow of Mount Rotten is a well-done supplement to Labyrinth Lord, though its focus makes it more of a niche product than a must-have. Like previous Faster Monkey products, it's clearly written and uses a simple two-column layout. Personally, I find the margins on the pages too narrow, which gives them a somewhat "cluttered" look, but that may just be my old man's eyes speaking. The majority of the book's artwork is by Mark Allen and is uniformly well done and evocative. My only complaint is that I'd have liked to have seen more artwork, but, having self-published a few books of my own, I fully understand why that's not always practical.

Presentation: 7 out of 10
Creativity: 8 out of 10
Utility: 7 out of 10

Buy This If: You're looking either to add some depth to humanoid monsters or fancy giving them a whirl as PC races.
Don't Buy This If: You either have no interest in additional details about humanoids or want a more non-traditional approach to these races' societies and cultures.

Where are the Halflings?

When I started working on the Dwimmermount campaign back in 2008, one of the things I decided early on was that I wasn't, at the start, going to make many changes to the baseline D&D rules. Instead, I was going to accept them as written and any changes to them would occur through play, since I adhere to the principle of "D&D is always right," about which I've spoken before.

There was one big exception to this, though: halflings. I hope John Adams will forgive me, because I'm not a big fan of halflings in D&D. I like hobbits, which I think are an absolutely terrific creation of Professor Tolkien. However, in my opinion, they belong in Middle-earth, or at least I think they don't belong in many D&D campaign settings, Dwimmermount chief among them. I was explicitly trying to evoke a pulp fantasy feel and decided that halflings simply ran counter to that. (Why didn't I think the same thing about clerics? That's a post for another day)

But I didn't just eliminate halflings; I replaced them. Their replacements were goblins, which I presented in an earlier form in this post from 2008 (and where I again talk about my reasons for not including them -- I am repetitive, aren't I?). That post, though, was written prior to the start of the Dwimmermount campaign and, by the time the first session began in January 2009, I'd already changed my approach to goblins as PCs and I'd change it several more times over the course of the months that followed, in large part because there was an important goblin henchman, Brakk, whose ignominious death by slapstick  still has repercussions to this day.

The first volume of the upcoming Dwimmermount Codex series is a kind of 32-page "Player's Guide to the Dwimmermount Campaign Setting." It includes all the rules additions and modifications I've made to Labyrinth Lord over the course of the campaign. Among its contents are the current rules for goblin PCs, which I've reproduced below, along with an illustration by the always-terrific Steve Zieser.

The material in the quote box below is hereby designated Open Game Content via the Open Game License and subject to the Designation of Product Identity.

GOBLINS

Requirements: None

Prime Requisite: Strength and Dexterity

Maximum Level: Fighting Man 4, Thief (Unlimited)

Goblins are short humanoid beings standing between 3 and 3½ feet tall. They possess skin ranging in color from yellow to orange to red (and everything in between), while their eyes are usually reddish in hue and are visible even in the dark. Though many goblins live underground, not all do so, especially those most likely to interact with Men and join adventuring parties. Those that do live underground possess infravision to 90 feet but suffer a —1 penalty to attack rolls in full sunlight. Goblins who lives on the surface only have infravision to 60 feet but suffer no attack penalties in sunlight.

Most Men see goblins as inherently Chaotic beings, enemies of human civilization who delight in theft and destruction. While it's true that many goblins fit that description, not all of them do, particularly the surface-dwelling variety who often establish settlements near those of Men. For their part, goblins see Men as interlopers and invaders. Goblins believe — largely without evidence, it should be noted — that they are the only intelligent race native to Telluria, all others being either from "somewhere else" or artificial beings magically created from beasts or from themselves.

Consequently, goblins can be somewhat surly and resentful when interacting with Men, dwarves, elves, or even their own kin, like bugbears and hobgoblins. These attitudes are only heightened by the fact that the lot of goblins in the world are not aligned with Law (let alone Goodness). Except underground, where they often lead miserable existences, goblins rule no realms of their own, instead being the subjects of others. That being said, there are places where Men and goblins live amicably side by side, even if goblins are always the junior partner in any such relationship.

Like all other nonhumans, goblins, as a rule, have no belief in the gods. They do not, however, deny the supernatural, being animists who believe that all living things are possessed of imperishable spirits. They also believe in metempsychosis, the transmigration of souls after the death of the body. Perhaps for this reason they cannot be raised from the dead by means of any magic.

Similar to elves, goblins advance simultaneously in two classes, though in this case it is fighting men (4th level) and thieves (unlimited). They divide all their experience points between their two classes, each of which has a separate pool. Bonuses due to high prime requisites only apply to the appropriate class's experience pool. Experience points continue to be divided even after reaching maximum attainable level in a class.

Their saving throws and attack values are equal to the best values available for their classes and levels. New hit dice are gained only for levels attained in fighting man, meaning that no new hit points are gained after reaching 4th level in that class. However, the player of a goblin character may re-roll the hit point total every time his character attains a new level in thief and use the new total if it is higher.

Because of their small size, goblins may not use large or two-handed weapons, but they may use any other weapons. They may wear any armor, but cannot use their thief abilities while wearing anything heavier than leather. Their small size does have benefits, however. Normal and large-sized creatures suffer a –2 penalty to hit them. Goblins are also quick, granting them a +1 bonus to their effective Dexterity, when it comes to determining initiative.

The Goblinoids of Dwimmermount

With the first volume of the Dwimmermount Codex nearing completion, I've been turning my attention to the second volume, Monsters & Treasures. Yesterday, I got my first piece of art from it (from Kelvin Green) and it perfectly captures the distinct appearances and personalities of the goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears of my Dwimmermount campaign. Enjoy!

©2011 Kelvin Green

Three Goblins

In Dwimmermount, goblins are a playable race, taking the place of halflings/hobbits, with whom I've always been uncomfortable in D&D, particularly nowadays. Consequently, I had to purchase Otherworlds Miniatures' line of goblins for use in the campaign. Here are photos of a few of them, courtesy of the player of Dordagdonar.

Grognard's Grimoire: Goblins as a PC Race

One of my mantras is that "D&D is always right," which is my way of saying, "Don't screw with stuff just because you don't understand why it's there." As should be obvious by now, I tend to believe that, while D&D's faddish popularity in the late 70s and early 80s was a happy accident, its design, by and large, was not. There were reasons why this was done rather than that and why one thing was included rather than some other thing. That's not to say that I'm opposed to tinkering, house ruling, and generally mixing it up -- those are the essence of old school play, after all! However, my first instinct is to work with what we've been given by Gygax and Arneson rather than change things too radically. It's also my opinion that the foundation laid by OD&D is both strong and flexible enough to accommodate many different interpretations and play styles. Neophilia has been the bane of the hobby from the beginning and I'm not keen to contribute to that vice.

That said, I don't like halflings and never really have. Oh, I've always allowed halfling PCs on the rare occasions when people wanted to play them, but I always felt somewhat "dirty" about it. The reason, I think, is that, moreso than most of the other hood ornaments ripped from Tolkien and bolted onto the pulp fantasy chassis of OD&D, halflings (né hobbits) are just too idiosyncratic to Middle-Earth. That is, it's hard not to think of The Lord of the Rings whenever halflings come up, which is why I avoid using them whenever possible. On some level, all gamers know this. Heck, even game designers do, which is why pretty much every game or setting that includes halflings has made an effort to disguise these guys' origins, often to the point where you have to ask, "Why even bother including them?" My feeling is that, if you're comfortable with the notion of halfllings in your campaign, then let them be what they are rather than calling them halflings and then portraying them as nothing like their literary origins.

Me, I'm just not all that comfortable with halflings anymore, especially in any setting that's heavily inspired by pulp fantasy. Dwarves and elves I can take, since there are enough variant interpretations of these two races from myth and legend -- not to mention pulp fantasy literature itself -- that I have enough leeway to make them what I wish. I don't really have that luxury with halflings, which are so obviously the Professor's creatures that they simply don't admit to alternate portrayals, if one is being honest with oneself.

And so it was that I decided to exclude halflings from my next campaign. Now, there are other reasons I wanted to exclude them. For one, I didn't have a good rationale for their existence. I intend in my game world for Mankind to be the children of the gods, brought into being to strike a balance between Law and Chaos. Elves, as I already mentioned, are the degenerate descendants of the Eld of Areon. Dwarves are minor earth elementals, given sentience by Mother Earth to defend her against the depredations of the Eld (thus explaining the antipathy between dwarves and elves and why there are no female dwarves). I like pig-faced orcs, so I decided that orcs are boars given evil intelligence by Eldritch magic, whichn then opened up the possibility that many humanoid species could be the result of the Chaotic sorcery of the Eld during their ancient reign of terror. This way I could provide an explanation for hobgoblins and bugbears, since each is clearly a mutant strain of goblin. But then the problem arose: where do goblins come from?

I had no answer to that question -- and still don't. I quickly realized, though, that goblins were obviously one of the "ur-races," which is to say, the stock from which other races of creatures descend. Given that I'd eliminated halflings as a PC race, couldn't goblins occupy a similar "niche?" That is, couldn't they be the doughty little guys with a knack for getting into places they shouldn't? The idea grew on me over time and I'm pretty firmly committed now to the notion of goblins as a potential PC race. OD&D says they hate dwarves and don't like sunlight, so that means they're almost certainly subterranean creatures, thus limiting their appeal. Still, I find the notion of goblins as a not necessarily inimical species to be a compelling one. They probably won't be nice by any reasonable definition of the term, but I'm thinking that, like Mankind, they're not natively aligned to Law or Chaos (while hobgoblins and bugbears are).

In any case, I'd give PC goblins the following attributes:

Favored Abilities: Strength or Dexterity
Classes Permitted: Assassin (if permitted), Fighter, Thief (if permitted)
Racial Abilities: Goblins possess the ability to note certain features of stonework: sloping corridors, traps made of stone (in particular: falling blocks, rigged ceilings, and tiny arrow slits designed to release poison gas or darts), and moving walls. They are also very talented at hiding in shadows and moving silently while in a subterranean environment and can see in the dark without the need for illumination.
Racial Drawbacks: Because of their subterranean heritage, goblins suffer -1 to attack rolls while in direct sunlight.