How to represent goblins as a serious thread?
>a serious thread?
They are all wearing expensively tailored clothes.
>>48325891
Just a regular goblins. In a setting where government is convinced peaceful coexistence with them is not only possible but desirable even.
Eberron.
>>48325891
Goblins that can spin hay into gold, sought after by powerful empires and dragons alike, hunted by inflation-fearing economists.
Low light vision
Ability to scale a wall with ease
Fast and quite
Something approaching human intelligence.
They can just run into your castle, get past all of you guards and kill everybody in the building and should you get the alarm out before Mr Knife starts a romance with Ms Throat they can scarper back over those walls just as fast.
Yes they are difficult to organize and turn on each other with some regularity. That's the only reason why they don't rule the world.
When the orcs march to war its not the orks you have to worry about. Orcs are big and easy to spot and mover around in poorly organized regiments. It's these little fuckers that tag along with them that will fuck you up royal.
Give them AIDS, everything becomes fucking serious with AIDS.
>>48326077
>everything becomes fucking serious with AIDS.
Counterpoint: Charlie Sheen
>>48325968
This. Make Goblins lesser fae, not just some ugly demihumans. We had a pretty good thread about the concept back in the day:
>http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/17037845/
>>48325984
Sounds like a vidya I got on the steam sale. Styx, I believe it was called.
>>48326106
If you had to choose between Sheen and AIDS ridden Sheen charging you with a dagger you would probably consider the AIDS option to be more serious
>>48325891
Goblins were once a highly powerful magical race with each individual being a tall strong winged high tier wizard and as a race they were capable of warring with Gods, which they did, because the Goblins and Gods were assholes to each other because neither gave recognition to the other due to pride.
Eventually the Gods won and were able to place their own creations that they favored onto the Goblin homeworld while cursing the goblins to degenerate into the ugly little green hordes of apes we know and genocide today. Hence why goblins are all such tiny angry fuckers. They all have an instinctual memory of their glorious past and it pisses them off when other races treat them like they have always been shit. However all curses can be undone and if any Goblin unite their people and could get their hands on the Magical Scepter of the First Goblin King he could return every individual in his race into powerful sorcerers.
>>48325891
Is easy. Add more goblins. And if that isn't a threat add more.
Enough CR 1/3s can roll enough 20s that they become rather deadly.
>>48325984
I think something like this is important. Make them horrifying night-terrors that can easily infiltrate places and have no qualms about gutting those they find
>>48325891
Give them class levels (if applicable), equipment, strategy, and a culture.
Abuse the fact that there are hordes of them by utilizing proper horde tactics in which the maximum amount of attacks can be levied against their targets.
Hide more credible threats within mobs of expendable goblins.
Savage and ruthless, with deadly cunning derived from a natural underdog position upset by their own ingenuity.
>>48325891
Give them poisoned weapons, absolutely monstrous reserves, short life spans and incredible breeding rates, and a few intelligent goblins who lead the grunts.
>>48326620
This.
>Give them class levels (if applicable), equipment, strategy, and a culture.
Goblins can be so much more than quick and easy xp for murderhobos. have some goblins spellcasters, give the warbands some goblin bards and they start to become real threats.
>Abuse the fact that there are hordes of them
and how quickly they can repopulate. even if you wipe out a den of goblins another pack could always move in after a few weeks-months.
>Hide more credible threats within mobs
throw in some hobgoblins, orcs, orges, trolls, etc
if you don't mind weebshit i can give you some anime/magna to check out for inspiration.
>>48325891
Goblins themselves are like wild dogs, coyotes. They are savaging opportunists, picking on anything weaker than themselves or using their numbers to bring down something larger. Goblins are related to Orcs but make no mistake, a Goblin's strength is it's cunning and how many of it's fellows there can be.
For every one Orc there can be fifteen or thirty Goblins. They each require much less food and water to survive off of. A Goblin's bite is more dangerous than it's blade given how it's diet usually consists of cave mushrooms and spiders, raw meat and fungus beer. The sharp teeth and snapping jaws are guaranteed to puncture skin especially if you're tender fleshed like an Elf or Man-thing, infection is likely.
Much like how their culture functions, Goblins will do whatever it takes to win. Sacrificing countless of their fellows, choke-points, ambushes, traps, dead ends, and dark. So much dark. Goblins can see well enough in low lighting, especially given adventurers provide their own torches.
They will avoid direct confrontation, lead you on a chase, disorientate you with noise and shifting rocks. The caves are their home, not yours. No matter what you kill, how hard you try they will never stop. Goblin flesh is foul, sour meat to surface folk. Food will dwindle as smaller Goblins and cave pests steal food. Kindling becomes harder to light, water traps dowse fires and wet equipment. In the dark they swarm, biting, stabbing, slashing, and cackling as the invaders stumble in the dark blind, hungry, and cold.
Heavy nets are thrown, stumbling weary adventurers. Sharp nails dig into clothes and skin as they drag them off into the dark, screams becoming distant as the party struggles to find a way out. Poisons and hunger weaken, lack of sleep disorientates, cave mushrooms addle the mind and Goblin flesh sits heavily in their stomach.
And when the last falls and their fight is gone, cages become their new home, at the mercy of their red eyed captors.
>>48326620
>>48327069
I once hid a goblin wizard in a large horde of wimpy goblins. He looked the same as all the rest until he burned three PCs to death. I didn't expect them to be caught THAT flat-footed.
