Goblin Pots

Much ink has been spilled on the subject of goblinoids. Goblins, gremlins, gretchlings, orcs, orknies, bugbears and hobgoblins. Many arbitrary distinctions and taxonomies. In reality, they're all the same creature. First noted in Beowulf as the Old English orcneas, translated variously as 'evil spirits', 'ghouls' and my personal favorite, 'demon-corpses.'

These demon-corpses come in all shapes and sizes, and the variety of local names for them has given some scholars the idea that there are multiple kinds of goblinoids. Any country peasant could tell you otherwise. As everybody knows, goblins are born from magical stew-pots, bearing an ugly and fetid soup. They crawl from the stew fully formed, some tall some short, some thin some fat.

The best depiction of goblinoids I've yet seen.

Crocodile-headed, shark-toothed, stag-antlered, pelican-beaked, frog-lipped, fish-gilled, cat-eyed, snail-horned, elephant-tusked, dog-fanged, slug-bellied monstrosities jumping out into the world. All unique, all depending on what ingredients the goblins have been putting into the soup lately.

The stew is mostly composed of miscellaneous animals parts. On the occasion that the goblins capture humans, they will be able to produce goblins of exceptional cunning and viciousness. Wizards may spawn goblin sorcerers. Soldiers may spawn powerful goblin fighters. Capturing faeries and other magical creatures does all sorts of nasty things to the tribe's genetic soup. In lean times they resort to using stones, which produce small, pathetic, rocky-skinned goblins. And when even that enough, they may sacrifice their own shadows to the stew. Thus gretchlings.

Origins

The stewpots came first. They're pseudo-sentient, with the intelligence of a dog or cat. They wish to survive and reproduce. This is understandably difficult. They create goblins to carry them around, defend them and work towards making more pots, an arduous task. They are the nuclei of a large family, simultaneously a parent and a god.

If goblins appear suicidally stupid or careless, it's because they're not strictly mortal. A dead goblin will reincarante in the stewpot, in a radically new form. To them, there is a seamless transition from death to birth. Simply killing goblins won't destroy an infestation. You need to destroy the pot. This the goblins will do everything in their power to prevent, as it is a true death for them.

As to where the pots came from, nobody, including the goblins, really know. I like to think they were made by Shadoom.

At the same time, some believe that goblins are cousins of the mysterious fae. That the realm of Faerie is secretly formed from gilded stewpots, from which the fae spring. That the fae hide this fact jealously and despise any connection between themselves and the goblins, who were once fae but expelled to Earth for a hideous crime (being ugly).

Most don't really care. They just know that there are disgusting goblinoids walking around, infiltrating their cities, stealing grain, lurking under beds to stab you in your sleep and carry off your children for the stewpot.

Exactly like that, actually.

Using Goblins

I was never especially enamored with standard fantasy goblins. I couldn't get a grip on what they were. Reptilian, mammalian, fungoid? No traction. The 40k goblin look mixed with the misunderstanding of Tolkien's goblins was never evocative to me. The folkloric element was lost and replaced with 'random crazy green things that go boo.'

I like the theme of corruption. I like the idea of goblins appearing in infinite forms, all of them ugly. I REALLY like the Angry GM's use of a hobgoblin as a soldier in an evil army. This is a world where goblins are an unknown quantity, where they can appear, and you don't know what they're up to.

Goblins aren't just sadistic little shits. They're sadistic human-sized shits and sadistic troll-sized shits. If you got a big enough stewpot you could make sadistic giant-sized shits. And you really have to sell the sadism. Which, as much as I love Arnold K, is why I don't use his goblin tables. I have humans for goofy, debased and disgusting stuff. Goblins should be scary, and you can't overexpose them.

Don't have the party jump down into a goblin den. Have a single, halfling-sized goblin stalk a small town, observing, calculating, subtly adjusting the environment to creep people out. Trailing a single target for the stew pot, which the players must identify and protect. Your players should be begging you to fight bandits instead of a single, well-placed goblin.

And goblins should only come out in force at the worst time. When a village is on the verge of starvation, they come to overwhelm. When an army has passed by, they take the survivors and scavenge the wreckage.

And when the next dark lord shows up? They sign on as soldiers, and everyone knows to fear them.