Goblins, or Why Use Humanoids

(Note: this post contains spoilers for my Sunday morning game.)

The first time I ever played D&D, I took a piece of graph paper, sketched some rooms on it, and stuck a few goblins in them. Two players went through them, beat the goblins, got the treasure and some XP. I've enjoyed goblins ever since.

I feel like there's a particular prejudice against using default humanoids in OSR games. I think that two points from Bryce Lynch's review standards sum up the reasons why.

• Non-standard monsters.
  • The party should not know what to expect. What are it’s attacks and weaknesses? Mystery, wonder, and fear!
• Go light on the humanoids, or even replace them with normal bandits, etc.
  • If all it’s going to do is swing a sword and die then it can be a human. People can do can pretty disgusting stuff.

I've actually tried using this approach in my games for a while, and switched between humans and odd monster races (beastmen, Selenites and others) for my main monsters. But I keep going back to goblins. Why? Well, frankly I don't think a gang of bandits is necessarily a better match than a horde of goblins, and having the option to use either makes the game a bit richer. Sure, the bandits might eventually say "Stand and deliver," but I feel like they're possibly more of a cliché in my game than goblins are.

(As an aside, I'm not picking on Bryce; I like his reviews and I think his standards are good, I just find them a useful statement of an attitude I see in a lot of places.)

When it comes to humanoids, I think the key is to focus on a single type of monster. In my Sunday AM game, there is an influx of goblins in the Fazren Hills, so they'll be a piece of the low-level games. I don't intend for the goblins to act as a step on the cursus honorum before the PCs get to orcs and hobgoblins etc, but rather to use them as one of several factions in a larger sandbox.

For the goblins in the Fazren Hills, what the PCs will find out as the game goes on is that the goblins who are now pushing into human territories have been exiled from the Fae realm. Many of these goblins have links to that realm, and one of the things I need to work up is a chart of minor effects of this exposure – minor illusions, short-range teleportation, conjuring minor items, strange features, and so on.

I particularly want to play with this idea because I love the notion that goblins are really bogeymen, in the old fairy-tale sense. There was an element of this in the bugbear, but there's a reason that we talk about ghosts and goblins, and bugbears was a vocabulary word until Gygax decided to make each thesaurus entry into a monster.

I think a sandbox game needs strong factions, and ruling out humanoids cuts off a whole category right off the bat. The problem with most humanoids in D&D is that they're just an entry in the monster zoo, the ordered thesaurus that the PCs have to kill to get the treasure. I'd say that a good faction in an adventure or sandbox campaign has the following:

1. A strong hook
2. A tangible goal in the game
3. Something that distinguishes them from other factions

Overusing humanoids and overusing humans alike make #3 more difficult. My feeling is that one of any given type of monster makes it easier to do #3 both in terms of the factions, and in terms of making it stand out. If everything is special and different, then it all goes into a kind of sameness. Taking an established monster and tweaking it is a good way to make them stand out but still keep the game familiar and grounded.

At the end of the day, I just like goblins. But I do think they can fit into creative old school play in a way that I don't think is properly acknowledged.

Ready Reference: Curiosities in a Bandit Lair

Curiosities Found in a Bandit Lair (1d20)

1. A deck of playing cards with a second ace of spades.
2. A pair of dice, one weighted to the 6, one weighted to the 1.
3. A neatly folded piece of parchment with a picture of a naked woman.
4. A good wool coat.
5. A bottle of local rotgut whiskey, half-full.
6. A talley stick that, in the right village, can be exchanged for a goat.
7. A small stone that, on close inspection, contains a trilobyte fossil.
8. A small glass bottle of a musky cologne.
9. A small bag with dried mushrooms of mild psychedelic effect.
10. A sewing kit with bone needles and thread.
11. A collection of painted flat discs used for playing a board game.
12. A small manual on sword fighting (stances, strikes).
13. An intricate wood carving less than 6” long.
14. A pipe and attendant smokeable stuff (usually tobacco or marijuana)
15. A hard piece of cheese wrapped in cheesecloth.
16. A wooden flute or recorder.
17. A double sided wooden comb.
18. A pet weasel that will be loyal to a master who feeds it meat.
19. A spinning top.
20. A seditious political tract.

Ready Reference: Standing Stones

I've been thinking that I'd like to do some more wilderness gaming, and toward that end I've decided I need more random tables for wilderness features. Rather than just write them up for myself, I figure they are good material for the blog.

Standing stones are compact, simple things of interest in a wilderness setting. They aren't all weird, but these are some ideas for when the players encounter, and possibly camp out near, a mysterious menhir.

What's Going On With These Standing Stones? (d12)

1. The stone is a marker of a ley line. This amplifies the range / duration / effects of spells cast within 120' of the stone by 1.5x.
2. The stone creates a wild magic zone with a 120' radius. Casting a spell in the area has a 1 in 6 chance of creating a wild surge.
3. Several times a year, the stones awaken and walk to a new location. Roll 2d6; if both dice show "6", then today is such a day.
4. It's a giant transformed into stone thousands of years ago. Weather has not been kind to its features but the face can still be made out.
5. The stone covers up the cave-home of a tribe of pixies who come out at midnight. There is a small hole at the base that they come out of. Anyone camping nearby will be vulnerable to their tricks if the hole is not covered up before midnight.
6. It's the meeting-place for a local human or monster faction.
7. The stone was flung out from the fey realm and will give dreams that are both surreal and prophetic to anyone sleeping nearby.
8. The stone is a finger / body part of a long deceased god. Depending on the god's alignment and that of the person touching it, the stone may give a boon (blessing, bonus/advantage on future roll) or bane (curse, penalty/disadvantage).
9. The stone is inscribed with ancient symbols. If translated (requires Read Languages) and read aloud, the writing on the stone will summon the extraplanar entity that instructed it to be built. (Use your game's cosmology to fill in the type of entity.)
10. It's a gravestone. The deceased may be attracted back to it either in spectral or skeletal form.
11. It's just a rock. A very unstable rock, that falls on anyone unfortunate enough to get too close to it. 3d6 damage, save for half.
12. It is the egg of an enormous creature. No, bigger than that, it's just a baby after all. And look, it's starting to hatch ....

Ready Reference: Mix-and-Match Humanoids

I've gone back and forth a lot about humanoids in D&D. The cursus honorum of kobolds, goblins, orcs, hobgoblins, gnolls and bugbears is a tired set of clichés. On the other hand, D&D has a lot of resources dedicated to them and they are an archetypal part of the game. Demihuman bonus languages are based on the whole list of humanoids, and default encounter charts pretty much assume them. AD&D makes it even more severe; not having the humanoids basically eliminates the ranger's biggest bonus.

But they are still entirely too predictable. In the interest of alleviating that, here's a table that can give them a bit of variety. Any time there is a need for a low hit dice human-shaped creature in your games, use the table below to create a quick, appropriate humanoid.

1d6	HD	AC	Move	Morale	Language	Height	Damage	Special
1	1/2	7	60'	6	Kobold	3'	Weapon-1	Small; hate gnomes
2	1-1	6	60'	7	Goblin	4' 6"	Weapon	-1 to hit in daylight
3	1	6	120'	8	Orc	6'	Weapon	-1 to hit in daylight
4	1+1	5	90'	8	Hobgoblin	6' 6"	Weapon	+1 to hit if chief present
5	2	5	90'	8	Gnoll	7'	Weapon+1	Wield 2-handed weapons
6	3	5	90'	9	Bugbear	8'	Weapon+1	Surprise on 1-3

The table above might produce odd results if you run too literally with it; you could easily have a 1/2 HD creature 8' tall. This would probably be a thin, wispy type of humanoid. Likewise, a 3' type with 3 HD could be stocky almost to the point of being barrel-shaped.

Of course, older D&D never had monster types without some kind of leaders. Only 3 HD humanoids should be considered truly independent. For the remainder, the following chart should be used.

1d4	Leader	Bodyguards
1	9 HP / 2 hit dice	1-6: 6 HP / 1+1 hit dice
2	15 HP / 4 hit dice, +2 to damage	1/group: 8 HP, +1 to damage
3	22 HP / 5 hit dice, +2 to damage	1-4: 3d6 HP / 4 hit dice
4	16 HP / 3 hit dice	N/A

If the above tables give "bodyguards" more powerful than the leader, this may call for a "Klingon promotion" for one of them.

Because I like you, here's another chart to determine how your new humanoids look.

1d6	Skin	Pattern	Coloration	Head Shape
1	Smooth skin	Solid (1 color)	Red	Human
2	Hairy skin	Striped (2 colors)	Orange	Canine
3	Completely furred	Mottled (2 colors)	Yellow	Feline
4	Scaled	Different torso (2 colors)	Green	Porcine
5	Feathered	Multi-hued (3 colors)	Brown	Serpentine
6	Exoskeleton	Iridescent (2 colors)	Grey	Avian

So there you have it: quick replacements for humanoids that still fit in most OD&D, classic and advanced old-school games.

Ready Reference: What Kind of Mushroom Is It?

There aren't a lot of plants that grow naturally in caves and underground locales. This is generally because plants, as a rule, require light. But where there are moisture and food (which may include fecal matter), it is possible for fungi of various sorts to grow. (Conveniently for hexcrawlers, they grow in forests as well.) Mushrooms are great and interesting things, and can have all kinds of effects when introduced into the human body. This chart is for when PCs find mushrooms, and maybe do something about it.

(For the curious, the mushroom on the left is the death cap, the most toxic mushroom for humans; the one on the right is the fly agaric, which causes hallucinations.)

d100		Description
01-30		Harmless but inedible. The mushroom is too tough to eat or indigestible, but trying it will not make a human sick.
31-35		Bioluminescent. These mushrooms are neither edible nor poisonous, but they give off light. It only illuminates 2' from the mushroom but they will be visible from as far away as 120' if there is a clear line of sight.
36-55		Edible but not incredible. This type of fungus has nutritional value, and eating enough will give some basic semblance of nutrition, but it tastes bland and spongy. They can be gathered and sold for 1 GP per pound.
56-59		Delicious. Not only edible, but tastes very good, cooked or not. In town these can be worth up to 10 GP per pound of mushrooms.
60		Rare gourmet mushrooms. These are the finest mushrooms, or perhaps truffles. They are extremely rare and nobles or merchants will easily pay 100 GP per pound.
61-75		Mildly poisonous. These mushrooms cause retching and vomiting; a character failing a saving throw will be disabled for 2d6 turns while they deal with the effects.
76-80		Extremely poisonous. A character who eats these and fails a saving throw versus poison will die. Success entails 2d6 turns of retching and vomiting.
81-90		Psychoactive. A saving throw against poison should be made; the result determines how much control the character eating the mushroom has. They will experience hallucinations, visions, perhaps even synesthesia, but if they make a saving throw they can act normally through the experience. Failure means the character is inactive for 2d6 turns. Each mushroom can sell for 10-20 GP in town.
91-00		Magic mushroom. The mushroom is literally magical. Suggested effects include growth up to 50%, shrinking up to 50%, healing 1-3 hit points per mushroom eaten, invisibility, bioluminescence, growing mushrooms, polymorphing into a random animal, or reversing any of these effects.

Ready Reference: What book did you find?

The tome is an inescapable object of fantasy worlds. This table is for some interesting tomes that PCs may find in their adventures. For a "normal" book, you may want to roll 1d6 or 1d8 instead of 1d12 to avoid the "weirder" entries.

What Book Did You Find?

1. A magic-user's spellbook. Roll 2d6 to determine the level of the magic-user and determine the spells available randomly.
2. A religious text. There is a 10% chance it is related to the religion of any given party member; otherwise, it is worth 1d10x5 GP to a member of the appopriate religion.
3. A manual of a particular regional fighting style. A fighter reading the book will add an additional 10% to experience earned only for fighting and defeating enemies for the next 1d6 game weeks.
4. A book on Living Things and their History. Roll 1d6 for subject:

   1. Botany	4. History
   2. Zoology	5. Biology
   3. Medicine	6. Sociology

5. A book on Supernatural and Metaphysical Things. Roll 1d6 for subject:

   1. Theology	4. Ethics
   2. Metaphysics	5. Legends
   3. Philosophy	6. Folklore

6. A book on the Physical Universe. Roll 1d6 for subject:

   1. Astronomy	4. Mineralogy
   2. Geography	5. Chemistry
   3. Geology	6. Physics

7. The book is an extensive diary of someone who has explored the area where the book is found. It should give detail on several features in the location. 25% chance that the final entry the diary was written in another hand.
8. A trapped book. Reading it will function as if the spell Feeblemind were cast by a 10th level magic-user.
9. The book is exactly 100 pages in length. There is writing on 90 of the pages. If a character writes a question on the left leaf of any of the blank page spreads, an accurate (although not necessarily complete) answer will appear on the right leaf the following morning. Only one answer will appear per day, and only one question may be written per page. Writing more than one question, or writing on the right leaf, will spoil the effect on that page.
10. The book contains revelations or illustrations of such visceral horror that a character reading it must save vs. spells or be driven mad.
11. A manual on summoning demons. Every ritual takes a minimum of 1 turn and 100 GP of material components. The base chance of success is 25%. Every additional turn or 100 GP of components adds 5% to the chance of success, to a maximum of 75%. Summoning a demon does not give protection, control, or the ability to dismiss it.
12. A book written in a tongue not spoken on this world. Roll again to determine the book's actual contents. A Read Languages spell is needed to read this. If you roll this result again, the subject is completely alien and seems meaningless to the reader.

For each entry (except for 12) above, roll 1d100 to determine the language of the book.

1-50:	Common
51-70:	Racial language (determine randomly as appropriate)
71-80:	Monster language (determine randomly as appropriate)
81-90:	Ancient language; 20% chance that a magic-user can read it.
91-00:	Ancient language; only thieves have a chance of deciphering without Read Languages

Note - the book types in 4, 5 and 6 are borrowed from Supplement II: Blackmoor

Ready Reference: What Kind of Flower Is That?

It's Valentine's Day, so here are some ideas for flowers encountered in your game.

What Kind of Flower Is That? (d12)

1. An ordinary but pretty flower. +2 to reaction rolls if presented to a sentient creature of the appropriate species and sexuality to be impressed.
2. An ordinary but foul-smelling flower. -2 to reaction rolls generally if touched.
3. An ordinary flower as in 1 above, but a PC is allergic. For the next 1d6 turns, the character is sneezing and all rolls are at -1. Stealth is impossible.
4. An ordinary flower as in 1 above, but a PC is deathly allergic. Save vs poison or the character enters anaphylactic shock (Cure Disease or similar to negate). Death results within 1d6 turns of onset.
5. The flower's petals can be used to create a mild poison (vomiting, penalties to action, etc.). Value is 1-10 GP per intact specimen.
6. The flower's petals can be used to create a severe poison (death, ability score loss, etc.). Value is 50-100 GP per intact specimen.
7. The flower creates a mild drug effect if dried and smoked. 5 GP per intact specimen.
8. The flower is a powerful opiate. 15 GP per intact specimen.
9. The flower's petals create a powerful hallucinogen. 25 GP per intact specimen.
10. The flower is an ingredient in a magic spell. A wizard may pay up to 100 GP per spell level for an intact specimen.
11. The flower is blessed or cursed (as per the spells), 50% chance of each.
12. Making a tincture of the flower's petals has the following effect (roll 1d8 to determine effect, result is 1d6 doses):
1. Raise/lower a random ability score by 1 point.
2. Causes the imbiber to fall madly in love with the first person they see (follow the rules for Charm Person).
3. Gives the imbiber visions as per Contact Higher Plane.
4. Causes the imbiber to fall asleep until Remove Curse or similar spell is cast.
5. Grants the effect of the spell ESP, Clairvoyance or Clairaudience (2 in 6 chance of each).
6. Grants the ability to cause flowers of the same type to grow spontaneously from any soil.
7. Permanently changes the color of the imbiber's eyes to match the flower.
8. The imbiber slowly changes into a plant-human hybrid. After 3 months, movement is reduced by 75%, hit points by 50%, and there is no longer a need to eat. Requires Cure Disease to stop this process and Remove Curse to reverse it.

As a general rule of thumb, the flowers with special properties should have a 25% chance of being transported without significant damage. Tinctures should be unique per flower, not per type.

Ready Reference: What's Behind That Loose Stone?

A good table should really have some interesting possibilities that are both good and bad. It's with that in mind that I present today's Ready Reference table, "What's Behind That Loose Stone?", with some good and some bad things that fit behind a loose stone found in a dungeon wall. You'll also notice that there are some creatures here; I'm using a simple pattern of defining AC by armor type and giving HD. This should make it easy to convert to your system of choice. Enjoy!

What's Behind That Loose Stone? (1d12)

1. Treasure! Roll 1d12: 1-8, coins; 9-10, gems; 11, jewelry; 12, magic item. Determine as you normally would determine random room contents for the current dungeon level.
2. 1d8 spiders (AC unarmored, HD 1 hp). 25% chance that they will be poisonous.
3. 1d4 rats (AC unarmored, HD 1-2 hp). Successful attack gives 5% chance of disease.
4. A map showing this area of the dungeon. 50% chance of inaccuracies.
5. A book. This may be the diary of a long-ago dungeoneer, the rantings of the mad wizard who created the dungeon, or a religious text.
6. A skeleton. 2 in 6 chance that it is animated.
7. A passageway to elsewhere in the dungeon. The opening will have to be widened before characters can travel through it.
8. The stone conceals a hole in the floor. This may be filled with any liquid, animal, monster or anything else that the referee chooses as appropriate to dungeon level.
9. A small statue, carving or relief of a type appropriate to the dungeon's builder(s). 2 in 6 chance that it will have magical powers.
10. Ooze, slime or mold. Choose from your favorite source of monsters or generate a glop from Geoffrey McKinney's Dungeon of the Unknown.
11. A crystalline intelligence (AC chainmail, HD 2 per cubic foot). It can be contacted by spells such as ESP or other forms of mental communication. If threatened it can create an electric shock for 2d8/cubic foot (save for half).
12. The stone is one of several concealing a portal to another plane, world or dimension. It takes 1-6 turns to clear enough of the wall to go through the portal.

Ready Reference: What's Blocking the Corridor?

Just to be clear, every "Ready Reference" table provided in this series is going to be in the format of answers to a question. It's not the format of the Judges Guild Ready Ref Sheets, but it's a simple and fun way to make charts that have an immediate use when the referee needs to come up with some relevant details quickly. And it's more fun to come up with this style of answers rather than one-word prompts.

The other thing I should be clear about is that the tables are deliberately written to be moderately system agnostic. When necessary I'll refer you to the rules of the specific game you're playing - rather than trying to describe an already existing sub-system. Not that I won't detail new sub-systems when it's appropriate.

Whats Blocking the Corridor? (1d12)

1. Giant spiderwebs. Follow the rules for a Web spell as appropriate.
2. A partial cave-in has filled the path with stone or dirt, determined by the referee. 10' sections of dirt take 1 hour to clear a pathway with shovels or 3 hours without shovels; sections of rock take 3 hours.
3. The corridor is filled with refuse from elsewhere in the dungeon to the point where it is impassable. The referee should roll 1d6 to determine number of turns required to work through it. Each turn there is a 25% chance of encountering vermin (referee's choice).
4. Rocks and boulders fill the hallway. It takes 3 hours to clear a 10' section.
5. A magical wall blocks the way (referee's choice of any wall spell).
6. The pathway is blocked by an iron portcullis, rusted shut. Refer to the rules for bending bars and/or lifting gates; a spell such as Knock will also open this.
7. The entire corridor is filled with a gelatin-like substance. There is a 25% chance that it is acidic and causes 1d2 hp damage per round when characters walk through it.
8. A wooden barricade has been erected. Each 10' section of hallway takes 3 turns to hack through if the party has axes; otherwise it takes a full hour.
9. There is a curtain lining the entire width of the hallway. Naturally there are opponents appropriate to the dungeon level waiting in ambush on the other side.
10. A mountain of skulls, meticulously stacked into a pyramid.
11. The remains of some corridor-width monster such as a purple worm fill the hallway. It takes 1 hour to clear each 10' section, and the stench is awful.
12. A red dragon (age category = dungeon level). Roll for initiative.

Ready Reference: What's Dripping from the Ceiling?

I realize this blog has been horribly inactive lately. I do intend to fix that, but the main problems are my schedule (busy) and generally the fact that I haven't really had a direction I wanted to go in the blog for a while now. In the interest of fixing that, I'm starting a series called "Ready Reference" with table-useful charts for your dungeon or wilderness sandbox. We'll see what kind of schedule I can get them on. So without further ado...

What's Dripping from the Ceiling? (1d10)

1. Ordinary cave slime. No effect if touched.
2. Highly acidic cave slime. Will eat away leather/wood or etch patterns in metal if contacted. 1d3 points of damage if exposed to bare skin.
3. Cave slime carrying an exotic disease. Save vs. Poison or characters contacting the slime contract the disease. Refer to your favorite disease rules.
4. Ordinary cave slime. Contains a strong pigment (determine color randomly) and will permanently stain any object or creature coming into contact with it.
5. Phosphorescent cave slime. Bioluminescence is enough to see within 5'. Skin or objects coated with slime will retain this luminescence for 1d6 turns.
6. Blood. 25% chance that it contains a blood-borne disease.
7. The residuum of a powerful magical entity that existed centuries ago. Roll 1d6 to determine an attribute, and a second d6 to determine attribute change. On 1, 2 or 3, subtract the number rolled from the attribute; on 4, 5, or 6, subtract 3 and add the difference (1, 2, or 3).
8. The reproductive fluid of a demonic entity. Anyone coming into contact with it must make a saving throw vs. poison or become pregnant with the spawn of this demon. (Note that this does not discriminate by gender.)
9. Cave slime that is conspicuously green, but totally harmless.
10. Green slime (q.v.).