d100 Goblinoid Rumours + Reviews + Handy Ref Links

 

Non Goblin News
Broken his pre-release book on Patreon live now so for a few bucks you can see where months of my life met. Dan Smith came through with three artworks in under 48 hours and surpassed most of my expectations so some in this version of the book. Its my best book yet for readability usability with more original art. Over next month as art comes in will finish with a cover and a few extra pages. Is an adventure too on Patreon for it now with more coming.
A big mega dungeon will be my baby this month so I will be doing more fantasy here. I have run Broken Hill using a BX clone with wizards.

Poll  here for next book + where Broken Hill book available

Also, check out:

Page shows size and mass of metals I found handy for a current project
https://demonocracy.info/infographics/world/silver/silver.html#:~:text=A%20Troy%20Ounce%20is%20about%201.09%20regular%20Ounces.&text=This%20is%20a%20chart%20of%20standard%20Silver%20bullion%20size%20comparison.&text=10.49%20g%2Fcm%E2%88%923%20in%20typical%20Silver%20Bar%20Dimensions.

and this book on ancient cartography chapter by chapter
https://press.uchicago.edu/books/HOC/HOC_V1/Volume1.html?fbclid=IwAR3ZkBdHFLDKIF8ye-76fssoZhIlD5GTGSk0CXQyXYxZX5SYONpQVOot5bo

Found photostat on academia.com on Assyrian palace art and full of maps but i can't share it but archaeology often a great source for dungeons.

I'm reading dnd5 mad wizard dungeon book as (bedtime/up to early) book. Been great fix for my insomnia. It is wordy and I'm glad I accidentally got map pack by mail order first because having a map with you as reading is great (old modules with loose covers this was not a problem plus they were screens). Sad they didn't have random encounter tables - id make my own easily from the content. The paths off the map for add on are nice but can't but think they would affect ecology lots. Maybe they will explain where some monsters come from. It's like a funhouse dungeon with wack wizard stuff. I doubt some of the traps, puzzles or poetic clues will bear fruit with my players. I would probably want to murder hobo my way through. Named interesting characters you don't get to talk to but if I ran it they would. Some guys you help would turn on each other which might be interesting. I'm only in beginning this is my attempt to be interested in 5th ed again which Theros book has me interested in (i might even run it gasp now has a setting I don't loathe).

d100 Goblin Rumours
I use tables like this rather than windy text blocks to define my settings. Also by presenting as rumours you can declare they are true or false or other.

01 Goblins are faerie folk kin to fungus, bracken, cacti, thorn bushes and low light shrubbery under a forest canopy
02 Goblins were bred by elves to make up for elven slow reproduction, goblins can outbreed most humanoids
03 Goblins in only 3 generations will adapt to a local environment like caves, deserts or city sewers
04 Most goblins that cause problems are the feral ones who resent elves
05 Elves establish goblin colonies on their borderlands as a buffer zone to keep other races away
06 Many elves keep goblin slaves, the dark elves even more
07 Goblins can be peaceful but once wronged or angered they become malicious, cunning and nasty
08 Goblins are experts at farming especially fungus and berries and fruit
09 Beware goblin gifts of fruit, they can be highly addictive and a trick to enslave you
10 Goblins like money and can often be bribed or traded with
11 On full moons, in secret places goblin markets are thriving selling strange goods  and petty magic
12 Goblins are good at domesticating animals like bats and wolves to ride or for milk
13 Different goblin tribes excel at breeding different animals as pets and may often know animal secret languages
14 Goblins mostly feel resentment to humans grabbing their land and plundering them
15 Goblins are good miners and good crafters but prefer speed and quantity over quality like dwarves or gnomes or elves, but they can if they choose and have time - longer living demihumans can afford to take decades
16 Goblins are industrious and fidgety and can't sit still or be quiet for long
17 Goblins are very curious and ask lots of questions especially about magic stuff
18 Goblins are able magicians but only about one in ten have some cantrips and less become full wizards or priests or shamen
19 Three goblins may fight side by side in the same space meant for two humans
20 Goblins often have large families but well off ones only have a few
21 High goblin culture is quite sophisticated, ancient and literate. It is also the most hidden from humanity
22 When goblins steal babies it is when they are so desperate to replace their own losses or under the command of elves who use raise the babies as slaves
23 A rare goblin nilbog talks backwards and are harmed by healing and healed by weapons. They often have eccentric body paint and dress. They dedicate themselves to chaos to do this but only some survive the ritual that makes them
24 A norker is a throwback goblin to elder times who live in caves and distant glaciers using only stone and bone and animal products for tools
25 Goblins don't shun Iron like elves so the feral ones love it and sprinkle iron filings to keep elves away and like horseshoes and other trinkets in homes to scare elves away
26 In times of war goblins under pressure begin to cannibalise their dead. A fraction who do this become hobgoblins. They are bigger, stronger, less crafty, less magical, less good at farming and animal husbandry or mining. They are good hard workers, more organised and disciplined and better at teamwork
27 Hobgoblins make excellent cheap workers but if you rip them off or swear near them they take it personally and are enraged easily
28 Hobgoblins even as young like to make military formations, play with weapons and war games while goblin kids prefer skulking and hunting and craft
29 Hobgoblins will breed true but if at peace for too long will start to produce litters of goblins
30 Cursed elfmaids who risk fertility treatments often produce a litter of goblins which is a great embarrassment and source of shame  
31 When some goblins practice cannibalism they might become a bugbear instead of a hobgoblin but only one in a hundred do and there may be some other metabolic trigger
32 Bugbears are huge hairy brutes but they are very sneaky
33 Bugbears like arts like shrinking heads and scaring human children  
34 Bugbears would rather scare human children than eat them, sometimes they will take risks sneaking into a village to do so but it brings them great honour
35 Bugbears love to silently kill with garottes or snatch live victims
36 Bugbears love psychological warfare, some say the smell of a human in fear is nectar to them
37 Bugbears for all their skill at sneaking also love archery, huge spiked mauls, flails and maces
38 Bugbear fur is soft and warm but seeing their skins used as rugs or winter cloaks is highly offensive to them and they will seek to cremate the remains
39 Bugbears will eat goblins and sometimes abuse their power over them until they run out
40 Bugbears breed true but only one or two at a time, but they live much longer than other goblinoids and less meet sticky ends as young
41 Kobolds are technically a type of goblin but don't really fit into goblinoid culture anymore. Even goblins can't account for how kobolds came to be 
42 Kobolds are tiny goblinoids often with draconic or dog like features
43 Some kobolds are more humanoid looking and quite pleasant and entertaining. Some befriend them with alcohol and keep them around for their humourous and sometimes erotic antics
44 Kobolds are able miners, builders and crafters but they love to build dungeons. Other humanoids often take them over such dungeons or enslave kobolds for labour
45 Kobolds claim they invented bricks and pottery
46 Kobolds hate gnomes as they often compete for materials and living space
47 The more reptilian kobold lines lay eggs which some think are good eating
48 Kobolds really like dragons and might worship or serve them willingly
49 Kobolds are industrious and hard-working and are famous for traps 
50 Kobolds are very inventive at ambushes, hit and run tactics and swarming enemies with numbers. They breed rapidly and a dozen in a cave will be 200 a decade later
51 Goblins love to lick feet and suck toes of humans and elves
52 Common goblins love bodily humour and enjoy a farting contest now and then. If a prisoner puts on a good show they might free them
53 High goblins are more snooty and look down on their low born kin, they also live longer 
54 Goblins who dwell in faerieland where it is timeless may live forever but it is mostly in service to the seelie court so many choose to live short but free lives
55 Goblinoids who learn the secrets of black powder love explosions
56 Goblins have a knack for alchemy and herbalism
57 Goblins are by nature rebellious so enslaving them is a bit risky as they may dig secret lairs and make plots
58 Kobolds are popular slaves and fit easily in a carpetbag or backpack for transport
59 Hobgoblins are poor slaves because of their aggressive paranoia to non-goblinoids and their assistance on getting paid cash in advance
60 Bugbears will work for cash but they often like to collect a few heads and scare people for fun which is a problem
61 I heard soldiers were in the wilds spent days of being picked off by an invisible foe one-by-one. It turned out to be just a lone bugbear wearing shrunken heads of their comrades as a necklace
62 Goblinoids find orcs bossy, humourless, smelly and crude (not in a good way either)
63 Goblinoids can be quite cheerful and enjoy noisy parties quite often
64 Goblins and hobgoblins have longer arms than legs and slouch, high goblins and bugbears are exceptions to this
65 Goblin skin colour varies greatly which to them indicates tribal allegiances and ancestry
66 Goblins and bugbears prefer demon worship but kobolds and hobgoblins prefer devils
67 Goblinoids of all kinds love using drums and use them for messages and festivities
68 Goblins often use bones of their ancestors in craft to keep them always near. The shaman often talk to ancestors for advice through them
69 Goblin tribes who use a particular species may develop some of their totem beast characteristics after a few generations, The bond with their pets for life
70 Goblins don't like dogs much and sometimes can be cruel to them
71 Goblins might have many strange breeds of own domestic animals which are adapted to subterranean life. Their dogs and swine might be hairless, pale and see in the dark
72 For every goblin you see, there are a hundred more underground in the deep
73 Because goblins are curious and love magic wizards can easily attract loyal goblin followers and they love pointy hats
74 Goblins with their knack for domestication often breed monsters and can develop procedures to handle trolls and ogres for use in war
75 Common goblin structures are thought of as precarious and flimsy at times but
sometimes their dumber older tech wins out as needs less maintenance and lasts longer and is cheaper 
76 Goblins treat human children better than they do adults. Could be they remind them of elves or they think humans ate smaller children to get so big like hobgoblins do to goblins
77 Thouls are created by goblin magicians using strange rites. The process is long and dangerous and most don't survive the treatment. A troll and ghoul are destroyed in the process and it takes months each attempt. They do not breed
78 Goblin fungus farmers are often found in caves and they help maintain a diversity of life in the deep. These goblins spread many edible, medicinal and magical fungus that supports many other underland beasts
79 Many goblin structures like scaffolding, narrow walkways and bridges are built deliberately to break when bigger creatures use them. Goblins can tell at a glance how much a structure can take
80 Goblins don't like open seas and are fearful of storms but many live in marches and rivers and are able fishers
81 Goblins have superior smell and hearing to humans, even blind ones perform well
82 Goblins can eat all kinds of horrible food but if fed well they live far longer
83 Some goblins prefer giant bugs to domesticate especially in the deep dark
84 Goblins worshipping darkness cults often keep human zombies around as guards and having human slaves is amusing
85 There are sea goblins but they are shy and dress in seaweed, some are confused with young of other marine species
86 Some say there are palid moon goblins riding moonbeams to earth to steal children  not asleep
87 A goblin woman in a litter might have many fathers, some goblin kings get very worried by this and keep harems with thoul or elderly or pets for guards
88 Goblins often get confused which tribe is boss at the time so tributes can do the rounds a few times which causes trouble and is a good opportunity for a heist
89 As goblin fruit from faerieland makes eaters addicted and die without being taken to faerieland, mortal fruit makes faerie goblins bound to the mortal world
90 Goblins exposed to alchemical waste mutate strangeley and are often unhappy about it
91 Goblins are canny traders who like gold, silver and shiny things and coloured fuid in glass
92 The far away hidden high goblins build mighty ziggurats of bric often employing kobold labour
93 Goblins kidnap babies and make them into goblins leaving a sick or lame goblin baby in its place. Some goblin dynasties came entirely from stolen human babies to avoid clan vs clan wars. The shamen use a secret ritual to make the change
94 Goblins make good nannies and wetnurses, just make sure they are tamed properly and dont run away with your baby
95 Some goblin are born with animal heads like pigs or dogs or goats and other goblins tease them
96 Warts and wattles and moles are signs of wisdom and comliness to goblins
97 Goblins cannot grow beards, well seldom anyway, goblins have a way of breaking any rules
98 Certain favourite goblin fruits attract lots of goblins for ceremonies. Thus humans dont grow them near homes or farms and vagrants avoid such places when sacred fruits are in season
99 Goblins do like music and occasionally a bard can lure them all away while they dance and cheer happily 
100 Bugbears and hobgoblins and goblins all will eat goblin flesh (goblins only if desperate and eating war dead) but goblinoids dont eat hobgoblins or bugbears who taste vile

Thanks to Michael & Fergus on my FB group for this page