Are goblins in Golarion categorically insane?


Lost Omens Campaign Setting General Discussion


I am running into a bit of a conundrum regarding Golarion goblins, and maybe it stems from my lack of familiarity with the setting. I have very little experience with Golarion. I recently joined a Pathfinder group which was starting up a Rise of the Runelords campaign set in the default setting of Golarion. Not being familiar with the campaign setting or region, I deliberately chose an outsider style character, a Mwangi human from a faraway land. He is Lawful Good, believes in ancestor worship, and holds all sentient life sacred, believing even the wicked may be redeemed or at the very least ought to be granted a chance to repent for their crimes.

So, not really a spoiler here as I understand it, but goblins attack from the start, and everyone other character in the party, including the good-aligned ones, seem to find no problem with exterminating goblins on sight from that point forward. And to the other players, all of whom have played quite a bit in other Adventure Paths set in Golarion or Pathfinder Society, this does not seem abnormal. To them, goblins are categorically evil, irredeemable creatures essentially deserving of genocide. (They also seem to think goblins are stupid, but that's another discussion.) And the GM portrays them much the same way. But to my character, goblins are sentient creatures, and like any other sentient creatures, they have free will, including the choice to do evil or good. Now I am not saying that my character does not recognize that there is not a general racial tendency among goblins toward evil, simply that they are not automatons programmed to do evil, and therefore laws should apply fairly to them and mercy should be applied when possible.

I went through the Pathfinder setting books which I have and the Bestiary. I also read the ten facts about goblins. I found one reference to goblins being described as insane, but aside from being generally evil creatures and stories of a horrific war against goblins in Isger, I couldn't really find enough justification for their depiction as completely insane and irredeemable creatures.

I understand that Pathfinder goblins are not the same as D&D goblins. I also recognize that D&D goblins are largely based on Tolkien goblins (who were categorically wicked creatures by all accounts). But D&D always seemed to leave some grey areas for creatures like them. Many GMs have allowed players to play goblins who are not evil throughout D&D's history. It is even my understanding that there is a rare cert out there that allows players in Pathfinder Society to play a goblin as a PC. And some settings (such as Eberron) even go so far as to give their culture a touch of nobility, even if it is rather brutal. Goblins in some settings co-exist alongside humans, sometimes peacefully.

This depiction of goblins to me, as a player, seems extreme, far more on the Tolkien-esque side of things than the D&D side of things. But my character has been insisting on taking captives when possible while my fellow players have been engaging in summary execution at every opportunity. It has caused no small amount of party tension. (We are rational players however, and this does not extend to player-player interactions, simply in-character actions.) Now I can continue to play off my character's attitude as simply ignorant of goblin nature (he does not, after all, have any ranks in Knowledge (local) and is not native to the region) as well as Varisian custom regarding the treatment of goblins. But I do not feel my opinion as a player, that goblins are theoretically capable of any alignment, is necessarily wrong. But perhaps I simply don't have the context of having played in Golarion enough to understand what all of my fellow players take for granted.

So tell me, are Pathfinder goblins categorically insane? Incapable of reason? Are they innately evil? Can they be redeemed?


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The new hobgoblins (despite the awful non-Bestiary artwork) are closer to what I would call goblin in my mind than the small-size imp-things currently labeled "goblin".

That said, I've seen a few examples of individual goblins that felt like goblins (the Hellknight-wannabe goblin in Westcrown immediately comes to mind). Varisian goblin tribes probably are insane by default, but the race tends to get more and more sane as you move away from Varisia.

I think goblins can be redeemed and I don't think the race is anymore "always" evil than your typical human.

Liberty's Edge

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Actually, I think the descriptions of goblins show them to have a much more evil bent than humans. They're violent, cowardly and greedy. And consider the taste of Humans and Gnomes to be a rare delicacy. Not many human nations consider eating sentient beings acceptable. Dire boar, sure, but elf and halfling are usually off the menu.

Also, the ARG states humans are normally neutral, while goblins are usually neutral evil, or chaotic evil.

Don't know if that makes their wholesale slaughter acceptable, but I would probably be okay with killing creatures known to murder and consume members of my race.


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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

By our standards they would seem quite insane. In the very beginning they're happily burning things, killing people, and singing cheery little songs about killing babies and eating them. Generally I am of the opinion that killing any monster that sings songs about baby eating is gonna not have too many alignment ramifications.


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From what I understand about ROTRL even though I haven't played it(hope to get the Anniversary edition soon though) is that the Goblin tribes are pretty much all CE Lamashtu worshipers that wish to inflict harm on the humans in the area; but you're right Goblins are sentient creatures and can have any variety of personalities and Alignments.

I've played in PFS and have encountered plenty of Goblin enemies but I know two scenarios Frostfur Captives and Rise of the Goblin Guild that I've encountered that have been friends I'd like say with my characters(even my Dwarven Inquisitor of Torag who was actually the only one of the that was nice to her in Rise of the Goblin Guild); personally to me it just sounds like your GM and group might just be trying to keep the game simple by just having all Goblins be evil(which isn't necessarily a bad thing check here for a bad example trying to add good aligned Goblins in but it's mostly bad since the GM never let the players found out) so that way they don't have to ask themselves is this Goblin, Orc, Harpy, *insert normally evil race here*, etc. actually evil or are they just protecting their home/family, forced to do this, trying to hold back a great evil every time they come across one.

As for Golarion like any sentient creature be they Human, Elf,, Demon, Angel, or Goblin they can be insane, they can be incapable of reason, and yes they can be redeemed or they can fall; there are examples of it in Golarion even a Deity has Fallen in the setting.

Dark Archive

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Goblins in Golarion are categorically adorable.

I applaude your character for not immediately jumping on the genocide bandwagon, but that kind of world view doesn't exactly mesh well with professional adventuring, where in order to earn you keep you kill things and take their stuff.

Silver Crusade RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

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Most goblins in the Golarion setting, as far as I know, follow a culture that encourages theft and destruction and burnination. They're kind of dumb and goofy to provide some comedy relief and to ease up on new characters.

For example, in Rise of the Runelords (very minor, context-less spoilers ahead), the guidelines for running the first combat against some goblins suggests having one of them ignore the battle to jump on a table and fill its pockets full of fish. But they can also be extremely cruel, and at one point have slaughtered a bunch of townsfolk and are pouring molten glass on the bodies for fun. They have a game called "Kill Gull," where one goblin holds a string tied to a live seagull and the others try to throw rocks at it. The winner gets to eat it. So their default culture is "Evil," per the game alignment term, which makes them Evil.

Whether or not they can be redeemed is frankly a matter of how the GM runs it. The problem here seems to be a divide between in-character and out-of-character knowledge, and between GM and player knowledge. Out-of-character, your fellow party members may be okay with just accepting the game conventions of "we're adventurers, so we fight monsters, and if the bestiary says this race is evil 99% of the time, we can kill them without feeling bad because most of the game mechanics are about combat and we want to kill stuff without feeling like awful people." But there's also a GM/player divide. If everyone except you knows about Golarion goblins out-of-character, the GM is probably not going to put too much energy into showing why these goblins are evil (because the bestiary says they just are). However, the GM could do more by describing how the goblins are cruel and bloodthirsty combatants, and are nasty little monsters who attack the party on sight with suicidal ferocity.

So what it all really comes down to is: communicate with your GM and your party. Try to work out what kind of tone you want to set for the game, and get everyone on the same page, both while playing and not. Use your words! That prep will likely help.


Victor Zajic wrote:

Goblins in Golarion are categorically adorable.

Until you have hobgoblins whip whole tribes of them into a frenzy, which results in the destruction of thousands of lives and lays waste to wide swaths of territory.

Which happened in the Goblinblood Wars.


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The typical goblin must be considered insane and/or evil by human standards, but they presuambly have no genetic imperitive to burn, kill, steal, eat sentients and their babies, torture small animals as part of games, etc.

Maybe goblins have sight that extends slightly into the infrared, making fire look especially pretty to their eyes, and maybe they have deep-seated instincts to view certain animal types as prey, but the rest of it pretty much has to be cultural, same as cannibal tribes on Earth.

So the goblin culture is evil, and it's perhaps not unreasonable to expect that 99.999% of all goblins born are reared into it. A goblin child never exposed to its native culture should have no greater bent toward evil than anyone else (though I'd keep it away from matches and small dogs.) It will never be human, though, no matter who brings it up. I presume it is true for all sentient species, that to some extent it will always feel different (because in all likelihood it's been made to, by other people) and will feel an instinctive curiosity about its own kind, whether it pursues that curiosity or not. At least some internal conflict is to be expected.

I prefer to think only of undead and outsiders as being defined by an alignment; Paizo adds dragons to that list, where paladins are concerned. In theory, pretty much any other sentient being might be of any alignment, but the probabilities can be considered low enough that players don't need to try to negotiate with every biped that attacks the party.

Kill 'em all, let Pharasma sort 'em out.

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, Contributor

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Seems to me this post is more about a disconnect between your expectations of the game and treatment of monstrous creatures and that of your GM and fellow players.

It's very hard to play a redemption focused character when everyone else in the group is focused on killing everything you encounter. It's particularly difficult when the GM is running goblins and many enemies as irrevocably evil. I've run much of Rise of the Runelords and while playing the paladin redeemer type could make for a very fun adventure, this particular AP is only going to get more and more confounding to you unless you iron this out.

I'm not trying to criticize your character choice here, but without some kind of buy-in from the GM and from the other players in your group, this is going to be a frustrating, uphill battle for you.

To be clear here:

Redeemer type characters are a blast, nothing wrong with them.

Trying to play such a character when the rest of your group and GM are determined to run a classic hack & slash game is a huge challenge.


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*has fond memories of the Eberron goblinoids and the Legacy of Dhakaan trilogy*


Are goblins in Golarion categorically insane?

I sure hope so.


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Goblins are generally portrayed as goofy, murderous savages. Personally, they're my favorite interpretation of the "goblin" creature in any work of fantasy.

What's interesting is that, for every behavior you observe in a culture, there's a context of events that shaped that behavior. If you go far back in the history of Paizo goblins, you'll find that they were slaves to Asmodeous thousands of years ago. After being freed by Lamashtu, many turned to her as their patron deity, while also disavowing any kind of written language (since a contract is what enslaved them). Thousands of years of illiteracy and worship of an evil deity is going to result in a very...interesting...culture.

It's going to be up to your GM. Some GMs are comfortable with races having certain intrinsic behaviors. Personally, I find such a mentality problematic that could easily be argued as bigotry if applied in a real-world context. I have no problem with goofy goblins, savage orcs, etc, but when I use them in games, I make sure to present them in a way the presents the cultural situation as more complex.

Short answer: Most goblins you encounter in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting are going to be savage, murderous, and comical. This doesn't mean that it's inherent to their nature (unless your GM says so?).


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Damon Griffin wrote:
The typical goblin must be considered insane and/or evil by human standards, but they presuambly have no genetic imperitive to burn, kill, steal, eat sentients and their babies, torture small animals as part of games, etc.

I would think it would be less genetic imperative and more...well, one thing that struck me while reading Goblins of Golarion is that they're a lot like children. Cruel, terrifying children. And a child's brain has literally not finished developing, compared to a human adult's, so some predisposition to distraction, foolishness, thoughtless destruction, inability to really think long-term and amoral "innocence" (the scary kind) might actually BE genetic, along with similar traits they display - I don't have time to go through the whole book again and do a really involved essay, although it could be interesting.

A goblin raised by good-aligned humans might still get caught giggling while pulling the wings off flies or setting things on fire (heck, that happens with human children) and will probably never grow up to be quite right or think/act like a little human in a goblin costume. But as with most children, goblins *are* still people and most could probably be raised to be better than what the goblin gods want them to be. If the adoptive parents had the patience of saints.

The goblin would just never really grow up/mature in the same way a human would, because that's not what a goblin brain *does*. Just like a Golarion orc is probably still going to have anger management problems no matter their upbringing. You run into this sort of stuff when you start talking about literally alien brains.

Now I've gotten myself really, really interested in what a non-evil goblin might be like, while still being a goblin.

EDIT: Oops, typo.


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theraphos wrote:


Now I've gotten myself really, really interested in what a non-evil goblin might be like, while still being a goblin.

When I've played non-evil goblins as PCs or NPCs, they're usually played more like wild tribal gnomes (for lack of better description). They maintain a certain level of violent mischievousness, short-term thinking, and naivete, but comparatively more behaved than the typical goblin. They're definitely still chaotic in alignment, and struggle to fit in with more "civilized" company.


Splode wrote:
theraphos wrote:
Damon Griffin wrote:


Now I've gotten myself really, really interested in what a non-evil goblin might be like, while still being a goblin.
When I've played non-evil goblins as PCs or NPCs, they're usually played more like wild tribal gnomes (for lack of better description). They maintain a certain level of violent mischievousness, short-term thinking, and naivete, but comparatively more behaved than the typical goblin. They're definitely still chaotic in alignment, and struggle to fit in with more "civilized" company.

This is more or less what I was thinking, yeah. I love inhuman characters to bits. Got any good stories?


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theraphos wrote:
Splode wrote:
theraphos wrote:


Now I've gotten myself really, really interested in what a non-evil goblin might be like, while still being a goblin.
When I've played non-evil goblins as PCs or NPCs, they're usually played more like wild tribal gnomes (for lack of better description). They maintain a certain level of violent mischievousness, short-term thinking, and naivete, but comparatively more behaved than the typical goblin. They're definitely still chaotic in alignment, and struggle to fit in with more "civilized" company.
This is more or less what I was thinking, yeah. I love inhuman characters to bits. Got any good stories?

Sure. There was this CG goblin druid NPC that the PCs would always encounter fleeing from a goblin village. This druid, it turns out, was the decedent from an ancient order of goblins that swore to protect the written language and culture of goblinkind when the rest of them swore off reading and writing. She would try, mostly in vain, to bring literacy to various goblin tribes only to be chased off. The party eventually befriended her by offering her horse meat (don't ask how they got it).

The druid's goals and role lead to some amusing moments into a campaign, including an encounter where the PCs arrived in a small mining town where the mines had shut down due to a union strike. The twist was that the miners were underpaid goblins, and the founder of the union turned out to be that upstart goblin that they had encountered several times before. Also, it turns out a "goblin protest" consists of goblins banging their picket signs against the ground, or each other, while cussing loudly.

As a side note, check out Paizo's April Fool's joke from 2011: http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5lc2e?Goblins-for-All

Dark Archive

Fabius Maximus wrote:
Victor Zajic wrote:

Goblins in Golarion are categorically adorable.

Until you have hobgoblins whip whole tribes of them into a frenzy, which results in the destruction of thousands of lives and lays waste to wide swaths of territory.

Which happened in the Goblinblood Wars.

But there's sooooo many of the cute little buggers!

Squeeeeeeee


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Victor Zajic wrote:
Fabius Maximus wrote:
Victor Zajic wrote:

Goblins in Golarion are categorically adorable.

Until you have hobgoblins whip whole tribes of them into a frenzy, which results in the destruction of thousands of lives and lays waste to wide swaths of territory.

Which happened in the Goblinblood Wars.

But there's sooooo many of the cute little buggers!

Squeeeeeeee

We be goblins!

Please don't shoot!
We be goblins!
We too cute!

>(^w^)<


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It should also be pointed out that Golarion goblins have been described as having a seriously unreal metabolism at times (such as four killing and eating an entire horse in a single night.) That's probably a bit extreme, but it gives you an idea of some of the problems even a "civil" goblin might cause.


Splode wrote:
What's interesting is that, for every behavior you observe in a culture, there's a context of events that shaped that behavior. If you go far back in the history of Paizo goblins, you'll find that they were slaves to Asmodeous thousands of years ago. After being freed by Lamashtu, many turned to her as their patron deity, while also disavowing any kind of written language (since a contract is what enslaved them). Thousands of years of illiteracy and worship of an evil deity is going to result in a very...interesting...culture.

Where was this found?


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Tacticslion wrote:
Splode wrote:
What's interesting is that, for every behavior you observe in a culture, there's a context of events that shaped that behavior. If you go far back in the history of Paizo goblins, you'll find that they were slaves to Asmodeous thousands of years ago. After being freed by Lamashtu, many turned to her as their patron deity, while also disavowing any kind of written language (since a contract is what enslaved them). Thousands of years of illiteracy and worship of an evil deity is going to result in a very...interesting...culture.
Where was this found?

Pathfinder Wiki cites Mystery Monsters Revisted as the source of this. This is admittedly one of the older supplements, so I don't know how canonical it is.


Thanks!


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It's not "goblin ancestors," it's the four barghests who Lamashtu sponsored to demigodhood, and whose spilled blood created goblins. One account says Lamashtu stole them from Hell, another says she had to deal with Asmodeus to get them, and the latter version is the one with the fear of contracts.

My goblin headcanon says that while their hatred of dogs is purely cultural, their fear of horses is because horses universally instinctively try to kill any goblin that gets near them, which would cause problems in any populated area since horses are pretty much everywhere in human lands. (House rule: you have to expend a trick to train a horse not to automatically attack any goblin adjacent to it.)


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It probably also doesn't help that baby goblins are kept in cages where they are poked and prodded at by adults. Who may or may not regularly feed them, which sometimes results in cannibalism.

Interestingly, the Advanced Race Guide leans really hard on the idea that Hobgoblins, in contrast, are evil almost entirely due to cultural reasons. Something it does do with Orcs and regular goblins by contrast.


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The Goblinoids of Golarion seem to personify the basic evil archtypes

Hobgoblin as the reginmented organized style of evil. Evil with a clear goal and purpose and rules.

Bugbears and the kill you slow, listen to you scream serial killer, sort of evil. They want you to be afraid and they are only going to finish you when they can't get any more fun out of your twitching catatonic body.

Goblins are the sort of Random Evil of the lot. they are like that particularly nasty kid who pulled the heads of grasshoppers or used Frogs for baseball only nobody told him it was wrong. Nasty little blighters who think about themselves, their stomach and setting things on fire while laughing at the missry of others. Schoolyard nasties amped up a hundred fold. Not the bullies but the nasty skeevy little runt behind him

Now maybe, taken away from their normal lives and told "no you don't do that to Frogs cause it's wrong" maybe they might learn


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Damon Griffin wrote:
The typical goblin must be considered insane and/or evil by human standards, but they presuambly have no genetic imperitive to burn, kill, steal, eat sentients and their babies, torture small animals as part of games, etc.

If they sprang to life from the spilled blood of an evil demi-god, whose body is more or less composed of solid, as in tangible, evil. Yeah, evil's probably written into their basic structure.

The cages thing doesn't help either.


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Victor Zajic wrote:
Fabius Maximus wrote:
Victor Zajic wrote:

Goblins in Golarion are categorically adorable.

Until you have hobgoblins whip whole tribes of them into a frenzy, which results in the destruction of thousands of lives and lays waste to wide swaths of territory.

Which happened in the Goblinblood Wars.

But there's sooooo many of the cute little buggers!

Squeeeeeeee

Tell me that again when they start gnawing your legs off.


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Golarion goblins started to make sense to me as soon as I imagined them as evil Muppets.

Their style of evil is very impish in nature.

Franchisee - Game Kastle College Park

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I always imagine them as a cross between the goblins in Labyrinth and the gremlins from the movie Gremlins. Might this mean that there's a sweet, adorable, fuzzy Gizmo out there that got wet and whose brood was fed after midnight? YES!


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You try remaining civil, polite, and kind in a world that has an abbondanza of pain, a smörgåsbord of hate, and a paucity of food. Perhaps the next time you think about smiting an entire gob tribe, you might first cast detect evil and take a hard look in a mirror.

Victor Zajic wrote:

Goblins in Golarion are categorically adorable.

Victor Zajic wrote:

But there's sooooo many of the cute little buggers!

Squeeeeeeee

It lightens my heart to see some pinkskins can move beyond their institutionalized hate and Othering.

Fabius Maximus wrote:
Tell me that again when they start gnawing your legs off.

You're way too stressed. That's not good for the flavor health of your meat body. You need a nice massage to help you relax. {massages Fabius' succulent calves in a nice lime-garlic-olive oil marinate} Yessssss... relaxxxxxxx...


Dennis Baker wrote:

Seems to me this post is more about a disconnect between your expectations of the game and treatment of monstrous creatures and that of your GM and fellow players.

It's very hard to play a redemption focused character when everyone else in the group is focused on killing everything you encounter. It's particularly difficult when the GM is running goblins and many enemies as irrevocably evil. I've run much of Rise of the Runelords and while playing the paladin redeemer type could make for a very fun adventure, this particular AP is only going to get more and more confounding to you unless you iron this out.

I'm not trying to criticize your character choice here, but without some kind of buy-in from the GM and from the other players in your group, this is going to be a frustrating, uphill battle for you.

To be clear here:

Redeemer type characters are a blast, nothing wrong with them.

Trying to play such a character when the rest of your group and GM are determined to run a classic hack & slash game is a huge challenge.

This right here. While it is fun to sit here on the message boards and contemplate our navels and the true nature of goblins, doing so while in game when the other players just want to kill monsters and take their loot is a surefire recipe for a bad night for all involved.

TL;DR, change your characters backstory to something more suitable for hack n' slash and save the redeemer dude for a solo session.

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