Let's talk goblins, /tg/. They're everyone's favorite adventurer fodder, right after basement rats. But what makes them tick?
They're greedy, but don't dig for gold like dwarves.
They're numerous, but don't breed like kobolds.
They're violent, but don't raise armies like orcs.
They're tinkerers, but don't invent like gnomes.
So what's their deal? What do they pride themselves on? How do they determine social status? How do they survive as, basically, the evil race equivalent of humans - jacks of all trade with no specific niche of their own?
Pic: the only setting that's unequivocally theirs.
bumping with art
>>47679968
>what makes them tick?
Being absolutely, violently insane.
Also, Kobolds > Gobbos
To answer the OP:depends on the setting
To REALLY answer the op: In most settings their niche is cannon fodder and slaves. As a free race... hmmm...
Merchants. Gobbos are ruled by oligarchy. They are rcih because their stuff is more mass-produced and cheap. Goblins are glad to work for food and a copper coin, that's why their shit is cheap. Yea. Sounds right.
![callot-gobbi[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/sIMjywQ.jpg "callot-gobbi[1].jpg")
Gobbi by Jacques Callot.
>>47681362
>Merchants
Sounds right.
Kind of like italian city-states but more shitty, then?
>>47681198
Uhhhh those are GNOBLARS, Anon, get it right or pay the price
Wicked Fantasy goblins (or "gobowins", as they shamefully call them because they decided that "goblin language doesn't have the L sound in it) are nomadic traders who survive by a combination of hyper-breeding (lots of kids in short periods of time, plus the ability to shift genders so any two goblins can guarantee baby-making) and an aura of bad luck that pretty much condemns you to a horrible death if you kill one.
So goblins as uber-libertarian, anarcho-capitalists? Fuck anyone who isn't them, unless they can make you money? I could see that.
You never see much of goblin society because it tears itself apart long before it can challenge a real organization. Rich goblins surround themselves with a retinue of bodyguards, toadies, flunkies and general hangers-on, any one of whom might be a spy hired by a rival to kill them for a piece of the wealth.
Poor goblins are eternal optimists. They hire themselves out for whatever to whomever, expecting to be shaken down regularly but still hoping to strike it big. Somehow. In the meantime they content themselves with their corner of the hovel and bowl of stewed rat.
Goblin master race reporting.
Spoopy Goblins incoming
>>47683120
>>47683120
Speaking of spoopy goblins. How does one make them a non-shit on menace in a setting? Anyone ever given them a more fey origin for such an effect?
>>47683149
You make them extremely cruel and revolting but give them something they're good with so they're not just cannon fodder the players can mow through
Tolkien's orcs which were pretty much bog-standard goblins were good at engineering as long as it was for war machines and that sort of thing. Their medicine was also almost as effective as Elven one, but far more utilitarian and bare, so while they could heal you very quickly you'd almost definitely be left with a scar
>>47683120
They're an objectively inferior meme race. Also ruin everything they touch. Only good goblin is a dead one.
>>47683191
Maybe roving bands of goblin mercs known for scouting and tunneling. Cruel enough that some of these bands just take scavenging rights as payment as opposed to any coin exchanging hands. Serrated spades are a favored weapon.
>>47683250
Found the dwarf!
>>47683133
i'd fuck the one on the bottom left
Anyone know of any cool goblin pewter or plastic miniatures?
From page 10, I rescue thee!
>>47683133
I went with these for my goblins
something something goblins.
