Share your gobbos-but-not-gobbos with me. Let’s all be hacks together.
Backing up for a second: One of the functions of the setting is that wild magic naturally ebbs and flows through the world. Where it gathers and wells up, this is called a Nexus. A Nexus can produce spontaneous magical affects, including the creation of living beings.
Goblins are one such example. Really it’s a catch-all term for a number of creatures that are “distorted echos” of humanity, miraekind, or other races made animate by magical surges. Unlike other periodic surges which have warped living populations, goblins seem to emerge directly from the land itself. They carry twisted elements of others’ societies, seemingly rearranged at random by the magic which conceived them.
Unfortunately, once they emerge into existence, crawling from trees, fens, and the earth, they’re also cunning enough to hang on in the long term. While Goblins can reproduce the good ol’ fashioned way (and do so, frequently), without more emerging from nexuses they are not likely intelligent enough to hang on in the long term.
I like that. It captures what makes them goblins, to my thinking. “A distorted echo of humanity” is a wonderful and incisive way to put it. They’re a dark mirror for humans, but a funhouse dark mirror. They’re an inherently unsustainable, malefic society of gross little fuckers. A bit like us, just moreso. A whole society of the kind of imp that usually sits on the shoulder of a villain, whispering madness and glee in their ears.
My goblins are magic-stripped elves who were physically altered by a spell to make ‘assassin’ type soldiers (almost all my “humanoid” races stem from something similar actually). The goblins developed a scavenger/recycling culture after the conflict they were created for ended and they now often live just outside of settlements or monster territories. They get the majority of what they need from their neighbours scraps. Being small, fast, and blending into their environment benefits their survival significantly, hence their size and unusual coloring.
That’s sick! Do they retain some elvish culture and practices? Have they mostly lost that heritage, and/or do some try to reclaim it? Or have they rejected all that in favor of a newer culture that reflects their current predicament? They’re basically living in their own apocalypse setting, alongside people for whom the world hasn’t ended. That sounds like fuel for a lot of angst.
Oh man, I typed a big response and lost it so this is going to be much shorter whoops.
To answer your questions: In the time immediately after the conflict there was a lot of desire to “go back to elf”, but there were a few problems.
- They went through brainwashing to feel separate from elves (as they were created to kill them) and even though they managed to kind of break out of it, they still feel like they are and are not the same at the same time. They don’t really “fit” anymore.
- It wasn’t actually possible to undo the changes.
- Elven society made a decision to cut them and similar races off completely.
As for culture, there are virtually no similarities remaining at the main time period I’m writting in, as elven culture further developed in a magic-centric way and goblin culture developed in a very different direction. And since they weren’t interacting whatsoever during that development, very different.
Of the elf-based races, goblins are probably the most content with their new way of life, and are usually the least ambitious. While others, like humans, deeply desire reclaiming magic somehow (not being an elf again, just getting their “birthright” magic back). Goblins have a bit of pride in their new lifestyle, and power like that would disrupt their way of living. They don’t really teach about their origin (though they retain stories of it as needed) and they live among many also non-magic races, so there isn’t a lot to be jealous of (for the time being).
There’s also definitely some difference between the ones that have a symbiotic thing going with creatures in the wild vs those that are urban. The grief is mostly for the latter, who have to deal with the people who see them as “trash rummagers” and “thieves”, and treat them harshly, instead of seeing them as the “recyclers” they are. They’ll never acknowledge that cities with goblins living nearby are always cleaner.
That’s cool! I like stories where “you can never go home”. Status quo is for episodic TV. I like to lean into consequences.
Something I find is that you can never change someone else without them changing you right back. As for the original promulgators of the goblin race, have they had any sort of knockback effects in their culture a la Fouccault’s Boomerang? What about elf culture, have they changed throughout their grieving/rejection process?
It had one huge impact on elf culture which was completely dividing their society into 1) people that isolated and 2) people who wanted to help the other races, guide them in the right direction and such.
Since the “borders” on elf lands went into lockdown, the ones that chose to leave and help also can never return (until far far in the future when a world event breaks boundaries). They also insist on keeping their existence secret for many decades, until the other races are no longer so…combative.
In the eyes of the “inner” elves, they are giving the other races a chance to flourish without putting themselves at risk. They could have killed them all, and considered it, but they chose not to because they were once family. Let them have their chance. There’s only so much damage they can do to the world without magic and they cannot enter elf lands without it, so “it’s fine probably”.
In the eyes of the “outer” elves, the others abandoned their kin and are putting up ridiculous walls. They see them as lacking compassion and often resent them as they made these elves choose. They also often feel the others abandoned their duty.
Are inner elves basically like the political isolationists we have in real life? What were they protecting from the outside world?
Stupid joke response
Did they make the goblins pay for the wall?
Hah, thankfully not really like that
Unrelated, but its nice to see other people using kanka
It’s really good. I do a lot of my actual text editing in Notion, and I tie it all together on Kanka. u/Ilestis is unfailingly pleasant and hard working.
My goblins were a lower caste of orcs sorted away at a young age due to their small size, they are a servent class. though orcs who are pastoralists with a high protein meat based diet are overall large enough to not produce goblins.
That’s interesting, and could be a pretty direct way to deal with topics like casteism or eugenics. Do your goblins ever try to reclaim power? Have their circumstances led them to claim a new identity or belief system?
Maybe there are factional divides in goblin culture around whether to remain culturally orcish or embrace new ways. Maybe there are even rifts in orc society over how to deal with the fallout of the divisions their ancestors have sown.
Maybe they’ve got the same religious ideas but they’ve created a new way to worship, or maybe their smaller stature and decreased privilege has led to a wholly different style of cuisine.
When you’re born into a world where you’re not accepted or valued, you find a way to walk in your own truth even if you’re not valued by the society you’re in.
