Tales of Tamriel
Goblin
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"Miserable, horrid creatures. They're vile and vicious. They vary in size from smaller than a Bosmer to larger than a Nord. Some are mindless animals; others have learned the ways of magic."
Goblins, also derogatorily called Gobs, are violent and primitive humanoids found throughout Tamriel and Akavir. They typically inhabit sewers, caves, and ruins, living in small clan-based societies.
Goblins are relatively small creatures. They have distinct physical features, including green skin, yellow eyes with slitted pupils, pronounced canine teeth, pointed elven-like ears, and occasionally horns and hunchbacks.
Racial Traits
Goblins have endured many hardships as a species, and as such have quite a sour view of the rest of the world. As such, they look at all other races as enemies, and refrain from trusting or working with them unless trust has been earned, or there is some mutual benefit.
Goblins have a particular dislike for the Altmeri Elves, as they have enslaved their kind for menial tasks such as mines, or fodder for their armies, and in turn have a special place of hate for their kind in their hearts.
Playing a goblin, you will always stick to your own, and perhaps work with other outcasted races such as Minotaurs, or even Argonians at times. You are untrusting of others, and at the same time often very untrustworthy yourself!
HEIGHT LIMIT: 135-150 (Female), 140-155 (Male)
LANGUAGES: Goblin
Small Stature
Goblins gain advantage on all sneak and stealth rolls.
When traveling with three or more goblins, they may use their tribal shout ability, granting themselves +2 to damage resist and +2 to attack damage.
(This can be cast at any time, even during PVP when it is not your turn. Cannot be cast when not around other goblins.)
The Blue God's Hubris
When traveling with four or more goblins, they may not retreat from any hostile encounters, unless outnumbered two (2) to one (1).
Description
Goblins are a diverse humanoid species found throughout Tamriel and Akavir. In terms of height, they can range from three feet to over eight feet, with the average goblin standing around five to six feet tall. Their bodies are typically stocky and muscular, giving them a robust and sturdy appearance.
One of the most distinctive features of goblins is their green skin, which can vary in shade from a pale, sickly green to a deep, vibrant hue. Their skin is often mottled or covered in patches, adding to their rough and primitive appearance. Goblins have a rugged and weathered complexion, reflecting their lifestyle in sewers, caves, and ruins.
Their eyes are characterized by yellow irises with slitted pupils, giving them an animalistic and predatory look. Goblins possess pronounced canine teeth that protrude slightly from their mouths, adding to their feral and savage appearance. Their ears are pointed and elven-like, adding to their overall wild and untamed aesthetic.
Goblins exhibit a range of body shapes, from lean and wiry to bulkier and more muscular, depending on their individual strength and stature. Some goblins may have hunchbacks or other physical deformities, further emphasizing their primal nature. While they are often depicted with a hunched posture, goblins are capable of standing upright and displaying both bipedal and quadrupedal movement.
It's worth noting that goblins are a diverse species, and variations in physical characteristics can be observed among different goblin clans and regions. Their appearance may also be influenced by environmental factors and adaptations to their specific habitats.
History
There is a unique history between the Altmer and the Goblins, some of which revolved around King's Haven Pass. Scouts of the King of Alinor discovered the passage, claiming that it would make a perfect outpost, citing its natural defenses, the network of caverns, and the fertile land, but it was inhabited by the Coral-Splitter Tribe of Goblins, who lived off the wealth of the land as an agrarian society. Because of their hospitality, the High Elves were able to establish trade with the Coral-Splitters, bargaining for the ore in the caves. The Altmer had secured trade agreements with nearly every tribe in the region, trading fish, textiles, and tools for the fruits of the goblins hunting and trapping skills, as these goblins were adept at capturing and taming welwas and gryphons. As trade increased, the King of Alinor became wary about the dealings since these goblins did not swear their undying loyalty to him, so he orchestrated an agreement with the Coral-Splitter's chieftain for the crags in the east, but it did not go through. What followed was a great battle between the elves and the goblins that ended their relationship. Altmer traditionally use goblins to reinforce their armies.
First Era
In 1E 780, the first recorded warrior wave of the Ra Gada occurred, where Frandar Hunding arrived in Hammerfell and discovered vast numbers of giant goblin strongholds littering the entirety of Hammerfell. Frandar refused to allow these goblins to exist and so went to war with the giant goblins of the Flint-Tooth tribe, however, Frandar was killed during one of the bloodiest battles of the campaign. His son Divad Hunding took command and forged five mighty Shehai which allowed him to drive out the giant goblins from Hammerfell.
During the First Era, sometime after the foundation of the Redguard city of Ojwambu, a giant goblin warlord by the name of Mahgzoor Rockhand, became warlord of all the goblin tribes in the Dragontail Mountains. Mahgzoor rose his great blade 'Bone-Hewer' and roared in a mighty voice like an earthquake, and declared that the day of vengeance, at last, was at hand. He led his "Endwise army" down the Dragontail Mountains and into Hammerfell, and the people of the Fallen Wastes fled from this goblin army to Ojwambu, where the city became full of refugees. As the people started to leave the city to travel to the Alik'r, goblin scouts saw that the Redguards had a considerable number of Ansei warriors, and the smallest goblin scout was forced to return to Mahgzoor by the other goblin scouts. Once this scout returned, Mahgzoor struck his head off and then told the goblins to destroy the crop fields and block up the rivers so that nobody in the city could eat or drink, unaware that only Hallin and his fellow Ansei were in the city.
After a long time of waiting, Mahgzoor became suspicious as the city should have starved at that point, so he called forth his goblin shamans, asking them if the Redguard warriors were just "shadows". To see if this was the case, the shamans sacrificed twin infants and sent a scullion to the East Gate, and this scullion was killed by a spear from Hallin. The shamans returned to Mahgzoor and told him that they were real warriors, and in response to this, Mahgzoor was enraged and killed the shamans. He then ordered his army to get ready to assault the city. This assault lasted for 17 days, where no Ansei survived except for Hallin and at the end of this assault, Hallin and Mahgzoor clashed swords for a whole day. Eventually, both were mortally wounded, with Hallin striking off the head of the Warlord Mahzgoor. They both died, but Hallin was smiling knowing he had won. The Redguards who had been using this time to train with the Book of Circles then marched to retake the lands captured by the goblins, renaming Ojwambu to Hallin's Stand.
In 1E 874, when Warlord Thulgeg's army of Orcs and Goblins was driven from Hammerfell by the Redguards, the Bretons of Bangkorai Garrison denied them passage through the Pass and forced them to flee northeast, trudging all the way through the Dragontail Mountains before they finally reached Orsinium. Not a single goblin made its way through the pickets into High Rock.
Second Era
Goblins were not exempt from catching the Knahaten Flu between 2E 560 and 2E 603. The Flu caused the green skin of goblins to become yellow and have buboes blister around their mouths, and caused them to go into coughing fits, which meant that the shamans could not cast magic properly.
Third Era
Warchief Kurog Sometime during the Imperial Simulacrum, a band of goblins led by a goblin called Golthog the Dark attacked and looted the palace of Rihad. These goblins also stole a parchment that held clues on the location of Fang Lair. The goblins were known to be hiding in the ruined fort of Stonekeep, so Queen Blubamka informed the Eternal Champion of this and the Champion dispatched the goblins and retrieved the parchment.
In 3E 427, goblins were imported by Helseth from the Summerset Isles to the sewers of Mournhold, where they were trained and kept as soldiers by two Altmer trainers. They had two war chiefs, Durgoc and Kurog. These goblins and their Altmer trainers were killed by the Nerevarine.
In 3E 433, the Rock Biter Goblins and the Bloody Hand Goblins were engaged in a goblin war because the Rock Biter Goblins stole the tribal Totem Staff from the Bloody Hand Goblins. This was preventing the town of Cropsford from being built, so the farmers who were building Cropsford asked the Hero of Kvatch to help them. It's not fully known how the hero dealt with the goblins, but the war was ended and Cropsford was fully finished. In this same year, the Sharp Tooth and White Skin tribes were engaged in a war due to the White Skin totem being stolen by the Sharp Tooth tribe. The White Skins' chief was a Breton named Goblin Jim.
Fourth Era
Circa 4E 180, the town of Rivercrest was at threat by three goblin tribes who were working together and with a bandit group known as the Greencaps, these tribes were the White Ghosts, the Red Fangs and the Iron Skulls. An Imperial envoy known as Gaius Platorius was in charge of dealing with this goblin threat on behalf of the Empire, and worked alongside the Warrior to destroy these alliances. The Warrior destroyed these alliances by performing false flag attacks on each tribe, planting each tribe's banners at the site of goblin massacres, and stealing a statue of the BlueGoblins are native to the Summerset Isles, and were there when the Aldmer first arrived.
Culture & Society
Some goblin-kind worship the Blue God, represented through idols representing Malacath that have been painted blue. Some goblin tribes worship a god called Muluk, who is thought to be related to the Orc god Mauloch, an aspect of Malacath. As goblins are a type of Goblin-ken, they are protected and guided by Malacath. Hunters of a tribe may lean towards worshiping Hircine, and one was even granted the honor of wielding the Spear of Bitter Mercy.
Current goblin society is known to be primitive, and often poses a threat to the more advanced societies that surround them. While their societies are often led by the strongest and largest goblins (called warlords) or their religious leaders (called shamans), some tribes are ruled by other races. Goblin shamans are usually the most intelligent members of a tribe and the ones that lead in religious practices. The death of a shaman is known to turn a tribe docile. The symbol of a shaman's position is often a totem or a headdress; if taken or lost, the tribe will do anything to get it back as these are seen as holy items.
These headdresses are often magical in nature and give the shaman power and intelligence. This symbol can also be a bone rod, one known one had an infant's skull on the top of it and was ornamented with an assortment of feathers, spines, and animal claws, and filled with something like nut-hulls. Certain Cyrodilic tribes have banners as their symbol and will fight other tribes over these banners. Destroying an item that is deemed holy by a goblin tribe will cause the tribe to go on a rampage for weeks, destroying and killing anything in their way. Goblins also use territory markers.
Goblins can communicate with their own language that can be learned by others, though it largely comes off as gibberish. Vice versa, some goblins are capable of speaking Tamrielic to a coherent level.
Goblins take a rather traditional view of their outfits, with some pieces even dating back to the First Era. This is called the "Primal" culture set by ethnographers, however, it is unknown if they inherited it from previous generations, looted it from ancient ruins, scavenged it from other civilizations, or forged it themselves. They are also known to carve femurs into flutes.
The diet of goblins varies, with some tribes raising and grilling rats for meat. Goblins are believed to have over a dozen ways to prepare rat meat. Sugar leaf is also a favorite for goblins.
Goblins will also eat rotting vegetables, bread, and meat of any type. Goblin tribes also commonly farm different types of mushrooms with different properties in caves, with the goblins in Stros M'Kai and the Western Reach goblins being particular examples. The Goblins of the Valus Mountains go back and forth between Cyrodiil and Morrowind using tunnels and secret passes. Some tribes have imported subterranean agricultural practices from their cousins to the east, namely the farming of kwama and spiders.
There are a couple of artifacts relating to goblins, such as Shadowsilk gems, which grant the user the appearance of a goblin. Another is the Emerald Chalice, which when drunk from, turns the drinker into a goblin. The only way to reverse this is by using blood from a human.