Goblin Roles and Slaughterfests
A short excerpt about the classes in Goblindom, and yet another delay.
It’s May—the month Goblindom is supposed to be released. Supposed to, because honestly, there’s a chance it might be delayed a bit. We’d love to define what “a bit” means, but our PR dude—wielding a butcher’s cleaver—strongly advised us not to mention any more dates until the final file is in our hands. The fact that he licked the blade like a punk bandit from Fist of the North Star convinced us he may have a point.
Of course, we are sorry for the sudden change, but we hope the upcoming releases, including a top-secret one for a Jam, will keep you company until this game finally decides it’s f*****g ready.
Mixing narrative-driven games with an OSR flavor
As mentioned in a previous Making Of post, Goblindom uses a fiction-driven game engine like Epigoni to deliver delicious dungeon crawl adventures. It’s not OSR in a mechanical sense, clearly, but the approach—both in spirit and in its more chaotic, “Red Box” attitude—is remarkably similar.
To still give some more traditional reference points in a game filled with rather modern rules, we decided to keep something akin to Classes, which we call Roles. There are three of them, with the potential to evolve through experience points, including some mutations that only trigger under unusual and unpredictable gameplay conditions. But we’ll talk about that another time.
Today, we bring you an excerpt from the Goblindom manual that talks about the birth of these adorable green idiots and the three roles they can have from the very beginning.
Goblins
As magic slowly accumulates in a Dungeon, sometimes the leftover of this eldritch force, the very waste of an unknown energy such as this, can end up pooling down in the depths of the earth, forming a wretched, disgusting primordial ooze with rainbow-colored hues and an abominable smell. These formations have had many names attributed to them by scholars: “Generative puddles”, “Demi-primordial matter”, and the particularly popular “Disgusting garbage”, but for the Goblins, it is simply their lovingly despised home. At random intervals, sometimes in a spontaneous manner and sometimes brought forth by the bizarre rituals of insane Goblin Shamans, the Generative puddles can be activated, kickstarting a process similar to that which creates all other Creatures, though noticeably flawed. The Goblins, undeniable wastes of magic, are born almost disturbingly, among agonizing gurgling and magical instabilities, immediately manifesting mutations that perfectly represent the chaotic and volatile nature. This makes every goblin unique, although it usually makes them feel more miserable rather than special. When a new generation of Goblins is born, the newborns are often spiteful and violent, possibly because they still need to face the terrible reality of being surrounded by goblins. Said hostility only increases when they finally realize that they are also Goblins.
So, in the most sensible solution the Shamans could think of to placate such tempestuous minds, the cave where the generative puddle is located is sealed for an undefined amount of time, starting the well-respected traditions of the Slaughterfest. Only the most stubborn and hateful Goblins survive through unfiltered violence, cunningly using every dirty trick they can think of, or tapping into the mysterious thingamagik.
The Roles
When a Goblin is born in the Generative Puddles, the first thing they understand is that their life will not be easy, and usually, they start getting really angry about it. While these Creatures rapidly traverse all the steps of grief by murdering and feeding on their many twins in what Goblins refer to as the Slaughterfest, the survivors find themselves with the very first emerging signs of their talents, based on their Mutations, on their physical characteristics, and in how they instinctively face a threat. By the time they finish the murderous initiation and are finally welcomed into their unfortunate community, each newborn Goblin has already decided their general Role.
Fighter
During the Slaughterfest, some Goblins realize that the initial burst of rage directed against the world might have its uses, especially if you need to brain someone with a rock. Among all Goblins, the Fighters despise their own weakness, launching themselves in reckless charges that approach just being suicidal, and facing anyone and anything that gives them the slightest excuse. Fighters have the highest mortality rate of all the roles, especially when they discover that being the strongest Goblin doesn’t uphold a particularly high standard compared to an ogre. Fighters that live long enough soon learn to live a delicate balance between vile self-preservation and utter lack of self-control, alternating good old tactics of Goblin cowardice with brief bursts of murderous fury and sheer arrogance.
Trickster
Of all the different types of Goblin that try to make it out alive during the Slaughterfest, the Tricksters are those that, more than anyone, listen to their fine survival instinct, urging them to prioritize attacks from a safe distance, backstabs and any other dirty trick in the book to avoid getting hurt at all costs.
Tricksters understand just how precious life is, specifically and only their own, and will do anything to live to backstab another day. Sometimes, these Goblins even find a particular affinity for animals like spiders and snakes, observing such Creatures up close to learn their tricks to slither into the darkness, leaving war cries and invocations to their less long-living friends. It would be, however, a massive mistake to think that Tricksters do not love violence, quite the opposite! They simply love it only for as long as they’re not subjected to it; after all, a peaceful Goblin is no goblin, just a miserable Halfblin.
Shaman
Being a lumpy mass of magical waste, it’s only natural that a Goblin, especially if placed right in front of a raging Fighter during the Slaughterfest, might find out they’re able to tap into one of the elemental Spheres of magic, or Thingamagik, as the Goblins call it.
Those that do not instantly explode into arcane fireworks of sparkles and guts become Shamans, destined to become the wisest of their communities, with the precious role of speaking with the Goblin spirits to understand the Spheres better. The fact that, in truth, “Goblin spirits” aren’t real and that the Shamans just make everything up each time does not mean that a Shaman doesn’t believe what they say. Aided by the fact that a true Shaman never admits they don’t know about something, it creates a vicious snowball effect that spirals into a highly complex pantheon in constant change and development. Essentially, each tribe has its own Goblin spirits, whether friendly, neutral, or antagonistic, with each binding between one another and the elemental Spheres of the Thingamagik. Shamans are universally considered the wisest and most clever of their people, not necessarily because they are, but because they are quick to let everyone know how easily they can cast a fireball at anyone who doesn’t treat them with the proper respect.
Please, make our PR Dude happy.
The psycho with the cleaver really wants you to see their work, so we recommend following our Instagram account to keep up with all the updates on Goblindom (and more). We’re also on Bluesky, but you won’t see their posts there—and I think they might cry. Or make us cry. Please, save us.
This is looking really sharp.