My Take on Goblinoids

[Deadhand]

(OOC: This is me, Tybalt, but due to some difficulties I had to change stuff)

Because the war that is the backdrop to my campaign is in some ways a cultural one, I have put down some of my thoughts on the who and why of Hobgoblins and Goblins just for fun and to see what interest this generates.

Childhood
For a young goblin or hobgoblin, life is one of challenge. They are able to walk in less than a year, and after that they find themselves put in a group where they must compete for food and attention. These groups are only those of similar age, with the very youngest always keeping close to females and having no duties at first. Soon however they start being given simple small tasks and rewarded for carrying them out. They are encouraged to compete for these tasks (keeping fires lit, sweeping, feeding domestic animals, etc) but there are often only so many rewardable tasks to go around.

Those who do not work or compete end up dying. The weak are winnowed. Gradually they start to be divided in task by sex, the females being given tasks that are more directed to maintaining hearth and home, the males being trained principally as hunters and warriors.

Females

both hobgoblins and goblins revere females that are proven breeders. Among hobgoblins in particular these are given choice rich food and often become heavily fat around the bosom and hips, which is a prized state of being, signifiying that a chieftain is powerful to be able to maintain such wives. The breeding females while sequestered are also admired, respected, listened to, and given the best of booty and food and drink. They are guarded very well.

While orcs seem able to breed with other races easily goblinoids do not without some magical assistance. This would require for instance a female of another race to by magic and possibly by physical alteration to be changed to be more 'goblinish'. This is only resorted to by goblinoid populations that are dwindling badly.

'unproven' females tend to be cast more into the worker mould and are the crafters and trusted skilled labour in a goblinoid habitation. They tend to do more overseeing of slaves among hobgoblins, who being more powerful than goblins are more likely to have a number of slaves to do the work that is considered unworthy of the tribesfolk. The females also are traditionally those who look after and torment prisoners and slaves in both groups.

The daily lot of female goblinoids is most often directed by the higher caste 'good breeders' who test the younger females and are in fact those who choose who has a chance to become a wife. Since only proven warriors get wives (goblinoids being polygamous) and since only working females who are shrewd, loyal to the tribe, resourceful and have physical stamina catch an approving eye of a higher caste female this is all intended for the good of the tribe. Part of all this is a wooing process in which booty is given to intended females, who in turn make it into ideally decorations of hearth or self, displaying deliberately what they are worth to others. Note that since richest booty is often tribute to chieftains and their advisors and family it is almost never possible for instance for a lower caste working female to rival in goods a chieftain's wife.

Males

A male is a warrior unless they are trained to be a shaman. (both sexes may do this as shall be shown) While they are also trained in crafts related to war(a certain degree of engineering, saddlery, blacksmithing, etc) they prefer for slaves to do tasks that don't directly relate to using and maintaining arms.

Goblins have rites and warrior societies that may vary from tribe to tribe, but generally they have a local tribal war god that prescribes the manner in which they decorate armor and arms, paint their bodies and how they are to treat captives. Goblins do not consider themselves cannibals since they eat non-goblins for the most part, mostly to demonstrate their victory but also frankly because they would eat just about anything.

Hobgoblins are more precise in all this because they have cross-tribal warrior societies that indicate affiliations with warlords/kings/great chieftains. Warbands given similar names that are particular on a tribe by tribe basis will train to fight together if they should gather under the banner of the warlord.

Shamans

Both sexes can be shamans. Shamans are limited for the most part as opposed to say human priests because they are very narrowly focused usually on local godlings and in a distant way on the higher deities. They are often covered in garments in part made up of talismans of enemy races and rival tribes,which they claim the spirits of the same enable them to learn how to defeat enemies and know their secrets. They are usually sworn to give up or avoid something in order to sacrifice a normal goblin life to the gods.

Slaves

Slaves may be taken from rival tribes but are most often lesser humanoids or demi humans or humans. Elves make very poor slaves and are mostly treated as captives for amusement/ransom rather than as workers. Humans are preferred because of their adaptability--the right sort of human will do anything to survive. Dwarves are loathed almost as much as elves and often 'sport' takes precedence even over practicality.

In their treatment of slaves goblins reveal their evil nature. Anything that is not them or the tribe is lesser or greater to the extent of grovelling. Nature is domination and submission.

Home and Hearth

Hobgoblins prefer fortifications, made out of whatever materials are available. Goblins prefer to live in caves and underground places.

Goblins don't use much furniture, don't read books really and live fairly communally. The result is that the standard home, ideally, resembles their lives--harsh, pragmatic and somewhat brutal, with a kind of rough affection among one another. The ideal home is almost shaped like a star--subchieftains with their warriors each as a 'point' around the center, the place where children are reared and the proven wives are pampered, where food is prepared and goods are stored.

The culinary arts are not of interest save in one respect: how much is there? They far more appreciate good well marbled meat than how it is prepared. A goblin stew will often look like someone dumped the contents of a butcher's display onto a platter, hacked it up roughly and then tossed it into a pot along with hunks of vegetable matter. A roast might still have patches of hide on it.

Bigger and Badder

The attitude towards bigger monsters or evil beings such as powerful magic users is one of wary servility. Often there is some benefit to serving with them--loot or territory--but often some awful risk as well. With say a group of powerful clerics (such as in my campaign) there is the concern (hobgoblins and goblins are not sophisticated but they are not stupid either) that they are merely being used. This ironically makes them more likely to be a bit half hearted when the chips are down in say some great evil 'cause' than if they were raiding on their own. They might be devoted to duty out of fear and desire for success but they will probably doubt an unproven overlord. Leaders who are both ruthless and capable of making certain that their followers are looked after are admired.

Bigger monsters such as ogres or trolls are often not very clever but tough enough to take on a number of goblins or hobgoblins on their own. Fortunately arrangements with them tend to be temporary or with say some evil human or demihuman overlord to make the relationship bearable. Otherwise they are rather considered like mobile artillery with just enough brains to be terrifying and not enough to be truly stable.

Evil

Goblins do not trust the attitudes that most humans would call 'good'. Generosity to strangers,honour, friendliness, chivalry, virtue is its own reward, modesty, compassion--they are all attitudes that would make no sense to a goblin. There would have to be a catch in it somewhere.

Goblins admire courage, ruthlessness, cleverness and loyalty. they are capable of getting along with others if they have these enshrined and are not consumed with a lot of what goblins would consider emotional fakery.

[Kindling]

The thing that struck me most about your goblinoids is the final section, headed "Evil"

I like this a lot, especially the term "emotional fakery" being used to describe a lot of "virtues" and so on. Those two words give me more of an insight into the goblinoids than the rest of the article put together, I think, Lol.

I dunno, just something about it must have struck a chord with me...