The Mushroom Press Design Blog

Goblins as nasty maggot monsters

Inspired by the dilemma of this thread (and also by this rant by the spoony one) I have opted to provide a workable and disgusting solution.

(Also, I always hated that goblins had like, two clearly distinct species which were carbon-copies of each other ((I dare you to give me a concrete difference between and goblin and hobgoblin)). So I took a swing at that one too.)

The life cycle and habitat of goblins

Goblins settlements never occupy the lowest level of their environment, and with good reason: that is where both their filth and their children inhabit.

The liquid and solid refuse of a goblin infestation filters down to caverns and tunnels below them, forming a sort of sewer. When goblins breed, the females (who are indistinguishable from the males, as they are not mammals) will journey to this labyrinth to lay their eggs.

Goblin eggs are soft and slimy and laid in massive clutches, similar to frog eggs. Goblin “children” more closely resemble a hideous cross between a tadpole and a gulper eel.

When goblin larva sprout limbs and venture out of their filthy spawning catacombs they are swiftly caught by the Spawn Wardens. These are goblin adults that are equal part slaver, trainer and drill sergeant. They train the spawnlings like dogs, teach them to fight and recruit them into their home clan for the glory of their leaders.

Goblins who survive their harsh early years as cannon fodder grow stouter and more cunning, becoming what humans call hobgoblins.



Those that live and succeed beyond this eventually grow to massive size, what men call bugbears.



The goblin king (whomever that may be) is generally the eldest goblin, swollen to tremendous size from a lifetime of wickedness and excess.

Why I like this

I like it because it makes you not feel bad about killing goblin babies or women. It makes women just the same as men (nasty, evil monsters) so its fine to slay them. It makes babies into gross vermin, far removed from doe-eyed, redeemable goblin babies.

It also makes the question of nature vs nurture academic. Goblin society harnesses the life cycle of their species into an engine creating endless cannon fodder, where the strong naturally rise to the top of the command hierarchy. Separating a goblin spawnling form this cycle would be very similar to taking a wolf from its pack. You wouldn’t redeem it: you would stunt it, warp it into a thing useful for humans. I do like that it opens up “domesticated goblin” as a thing, sort of like a powerless Darby.

Maybe if the players are really torn on killing “young” goblins they can just sell them to a goblin domesticator, with methods of training them that are only dubiously ethical.

I like that goblins get bigger and nastier and rarer as they age. That fits in with the CR paradigm really well and explains why goblins get along so well with bugbears and hobgoblins and the like. It also explains why their leaders are always big gross blobs.

I like the relationship wrinkle it puts in to goblin wolf riders. They have more of a lamprey/shark thing going on now.

I like that this makes goblin cities a sort of organic outgrowth of goblin nature. It makes a species like this make sense while giving them numbers to explain their ubiquity.

So there you go. A way to make both goblins and maggots worse. Enjoy!