Howdy fellow role-players! I’m still deeply buried with my prep work, but the DM needs a break from such matters. Today I want to talk about something about the game that has always bugged me. A race that just doesn’t seem to get the respect that it should, and I really don’t know why?

When I was a boy, my grandmother used to come visit from Washington State once or twice a year, and stay at our house. Being that young my internal clock demanded that I wake up at some ungodly hour of the morning that is totally beyond me now, but back then I’d be up at the crack of dawn, and there would be my grandmother, sitting at the kitchen table with a full ashtray and a cup of coffee. The stories that she would tell me! Nothing about where I came from, or why Uncle Jack can’t seem to ever stay sober for more then a day or two, but fiction stories that she’d just kind of make up as she went along. To me, however, these little yarns of hers were gods good truths! I even had to defend her honor with my fists a couple of times out at the school yard.

Tales of knights battling evil wizards seemed to be her favorite . . . Or more then likely, she sensed that they were MY favorite, so she told lots of them. This is where I first got exposed to many beings of fantasy, especially the most fearsome beast imaginable, the GOBLIN!!!

Now goblins weren’t ever the masterminds of evil plots, but they were the life-blood of those whom weaved them. They weren’t giants, such as the trolls of my grandmother’s yarns, but they were the perfect size to crawl into the places where boys hid from the monsters who fed upon them. I don’t know if she ever described them to me, I’m sure she did, but it was the very idea of them that entertained and scared me.

Of course, it wasn’t my grandmother that made them up off the top of her head, back in that orange and brown kitchen. Goblins have been in myths and legends for years! I am by no means a master of the subject, but just a simple student. You don’t have to be surprised when I tell you how let down I felt when I got to fight goblins in a game. D&D goblins are, in a word, pathetic. They can’t hit the broad side of a barn, wooden doors have more hit points then they do. Even to 1st level PC’s these poor creatures are boring, just there to give experience points and slow you down. BORING!!! But the question that I pose to anyone how may have an answer is, Why? Why have these things which have haunted our collective subconscious for centuries become low level adventure fodder?

You can tell a million stories about a prince falling in love with a princess, but just watch the young ears perk up as soon as a goblin enters the story! It turns a boring romance into a thing of awe and wonder. Now goblins are pussies? Why?

Well, THIS has to be changed. Things can’t just sit the way they are. Goblins have influenced to many good stories, art, cartoons, and spooky campfire stories to be left to rot by RPG geeks who dictate that they are simply as annoying as some two legged insect without any special attacks beyond digging. DIGGING!!! How pathetic is that?

THE MYSTERIOUS ORIGINS OF THE GOBLIN

In my grandmothers stories, the goblin wasn’t a little pest who rode on the backs of wolves, they were servants of evil! At one point, they had been human, however they were cursed by weavers of evil magic!

Somewhere between undead and the living, the victims of this spell were trapped! Their minds were not their own, for they will only act when their masters tell them. They don’t tire, they don’t get bored, and they never question, but they do feed! This isn’t an act that keeps them alive, a goblin can live for centuries without food or drink, but these habits are an addiction to them. Hunger is perpetual and always hangs over them like the stench of filth that surrounds them. Hunger that won’t kill them if it goes unanswered, however when the opportunity arises, they feed with terrifying abandon, and only upon human flesh. The mere sight of witnessing this terrible act has driven strong men permanently mad!

THIS is what the goblin should be, at least in my opinion.

CREATE GOBLIN (8th Level Wizard‘s Spell-ALTERATION)

Range: 5 yards/level
Components: V, S, M
Duration: Variable
Casting Time: 1 round
Area of Effect: Special
Saving Throw: Special

This spell changes one human into a goblin. Victims who are engaged in committing an evil act during the time that the spell is being cast will automatically fail their saving throw, those who are not committing an act of evil at the time of casting are allowed a saving throw vs. polymorph with a -4 penalty to their roll.

Those that become Goblins will begin to polymorph immediately, and will not be able to perform any act until the metamorphosis is complete, which takes 2-12 rounds. The caster will have full control over the goblin, and able to instruct the creature through a telepathic link. The goblin will retain this form until the caster dies, at which time the Goblin will (if it has been kept alive beyond it’s normal life cycle) die as well, else revert back to being human and remember nothing.

There is no limit upon how many goblins a wizard can control at one time. The components of this spell requires the tooth of a hobgoblin, a raven’s eye, and a whole fingernail from the caster, (or, in the case of a lich, the nail of someone in his bloodline will suffice)