Gutwrenchingrpg.org - Jade Regent campaign journal
My group had a blast with this. It is our way to transform the pbp logs into coherent narratives so the above is the link to what happened when we played through. One of the things is that it gave my players a chance to really do the three stooges bit (are in their case five stooges):
Chuffy slinks back a few steps. A wide grin breaks across his face, his large eyes squinting to yellow slits. He stands there rocking on his heels. Poog eyes the map greedily and sticks his foot out to trip Mogmurch after the latter jabs him in the side. Unfortunately for Poog, he only ends up losing his own balance as Mogmurch leaps over Poog’s foot and dives on top of the map. Drubbus joins in the general dive for the map, landing hard atop Mogmurch. Mogmurch gasps as Drubbus lands on him. Reta pushes aside Chuffy, almost nicking herself on the dogslicer he has drawn, and piles on trying to grab the map away from Mogmurch. Trying to throw off his competitors, Mogmurch bares his teeth and hisses viciously at Drubbus and Reta, trying to scare them off.
Chuffy steps back, watching eagerly, dogslicer at the ready, to see who emerges from the tussle with the map. Slorb waves at Chuffy to put away his dogslicer and starts kicking at the goblins on the ground, yelling at them to get up and be on their way. Chuffy continues to grin, but his eyes go wide. He turns the dogslicer over and scans the edge. As quickly as it was drawn, the sword is sheathed. Looking at Slorb, Chuffy shrugs with an upturned palm, and then whispers into the cage held in his other hand.
I also had to address in-game the stupidity of making the goblins take these dares to get magic items they would need to complete their quest:
All the goblins fall silent at such audacious stupidity. Chief Gutwad glowers and even Slorb seems speechless. Finally a nearby goblin smacks the goblin girl hard on the back of the head, almost causing her to fall into the bonfire. “Don’t be stupid!” says the smacker. “That’s just not how things are done in the Licktoad tribe. You wanna prize, you gotta take a dare!”
As we have five players we had to add a fifth goblin, Drubbus the goblin druid. So we had to add a fifth dare so he could have a chance to get a magic item from Goblins of Golarion. For those needing an additional dare try this (inspired by the Flash Gordon movie):
“There are many holes in this log,” Slorb leers at them all as he states the obvious. “All you must do is reach in and grab the Stone of Fixing Broken Stuff. But first…” Slorb is handed a leather sack bound at the top with a rope. He thumps it about a bit and then unties the sack and dumps an angry water moccasin into the top of the stump. “Now I believe we have a snake bite cure somewhere. We’ll send someone to see if it can be found if we need to. But it would be better if you just grab the stone and not the snake. Heh heh.”
Poog sticks out his tongue and makes a raspberry noise, “No wayz.”
Reta watches and waits for any of the others to step up.
Chuffy is still massaging his wound from the Rusty Earbiter. “Nope, that’s one dare you can’t get me to take,” has says and steps back.
“Snake! Rake! Eat the cake! I’m not afraid of that little slithery worm!” Mogmurch steps up to reach in for the stone but comes up with nothing.
Drubbus steps up to the stump, he says some words in the secret Druid tongue and scatters some mistletoe leaves.
Mogmuch shouts “Frack!!” in disappointment, and reaches into another hole but comes up with more nothing.
Drubbus spits on Mogmurch for luck. Then he shoves his hand into a hole to find still more nothing.
Drubbus tries yet another hole – nothing.
“Mog, you really wanna get snake bit? You just as like to grab a snake as a stone, an’ I can’t helps you if’n ya do.”
“Slinky snake won’t get me! I’ll get the stone!” Mogmurch tries the tenth hole.
Drubbus reaches in again but again comes up with nothing. He turns to Mogmuch and says, “I can tell you what hole the snake is in, so’z ya don’t get bit. What’s that worth to ya?”
Reta belts out laughing at the increased agitation of both Drubbus and Mogmurch, very happy that she is not thrusting anything into those nasty holes.
“Which hole? Tell me!” screams Mogmurch as he thrusts his hand into another hole. Then his eyes go wide and he pulls it out again triumphantly, shrieking “I win! I win!”
I must say that for first level goblins the final fight was certainly apocalyptic and weird.
In fact, my group enjoyed it so much that they continued playing the goblins in a way that further impacted our Jade Regent campaign. More on that later.
As I said, my players had so much fun they wanted to continue playing their goblin characters. As it turned out, because one of their main PCs (the elf magus) ended up kidnapping Slorb and possibly ruining the first part of the Brinewall Legacy it seemed obvious what the next mission of the goblin "heroes" should be as recounted here:
In the Brinewall Legacy it is assumed the goblin heroes from We Be Goblins perish before the PC's arrive at the Licktoad village. In our campaign the heroes raided Sandpoint that night in order to get back Slorb (also assumed to perish before the PCs can find the village). So the next adventure for the goblins was to figure out exactly what they did do the night before the PCs find their village and whether or not they survive.
Also, this goblin characters get a chance to fight the encounter that they missed from We Be Goblins and also one of the swamp encounters from Brinewall Legacy that the main PCs never got around to.
This chapter also shows how tough it is to be a goblin without a lair.
More goblin shenanigans as the goblin heroes continue their quest to find food and shelter for their tribe, and in the process conduct a raid on their boggard neighbors.
In this chapter the question is answered as to why the goblin's don't simply live in the caves found in the cliffs to the south of the marsh:
Two things to note -
1. The croaking of the boggards are actually the words of a Japanese children song about frogs.
2. The troll is singing Trollhammer by a Finnish black/folk metal band. Here are the original lyrics in English (though in the story I swapped out "Christian" for "Iomeden":
"The Troll-Hammer"
Among shadows rides a beast
Like a black tree.
Grips tightly on a mighty hammer,
Out for weak Christian blood.
TROLL-HAMMER!
TROLL-HAMMER!
The Troll-Hammer sweeps again!
Cut down, brother again!
Hear the last shout -
The Troll-Hammer is here!
TROLL-HAMMER!
He is not a human
Not fragile and weak like you.
You will be powerless,
No eyes see your end.
TROLL-HAMMER!
TROLL-HAMMER!
Since the darkness overtook
It is afraid of the frost's cold fingers
That take hold and kill
Under the coming winter night.
TROLL-HAMMER!
TROLL-HAMMER!
TROLL-HAMMER!
More goblin hijinx. This time the goblins find out why raiding the human farms north of the road is a bad idea:
To whoever is reading this - see if you can guess who the three farmers are modeled after. Here's a hint - the farm belongs to the Gale family.
I did wonder how farmers could ever survive incursions from all those monsters from the Brinestump Marsh. This little scenario made it clear that between vicious guard dogs and the solidarity of the human farmers, they probably could fight off most incursions. With torches they could probably even fend off the troll the goblins ran into earlier.
And here is the last chapter of the goblin mini-campaign, in which all the creatures they angered in the previous chapters come to get their revenge.
Frankly, it was my thought that all the goblin PCs would be killed off but it didn't turn out that way. Those little guys are quite the survivors.
I also got a lot of mileage from the chase cards in this scenario. I figured though that the goblins would surround their home with lots of obstacles and getaway routes.
Our gaming group was filled with glee when they learned that there will be a sequel to We Be Goblins and so will get a chance to revisit these characters again.