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Threefists 10-12-07, 10:15 AM

I like Monstrous Races....in case the 200+ posts on the subject weren't enough! I love Goblins, but their short life-span, generally paranoid/xenophobic attitudes and the seemingly ingrained aversion to bathing makes for a very quick session: DM: You see a Goblin on the road.... Random Party Member: I the Goblin! Me: FFS! Stop killing my characters! *sigh* In a home-brewed campaign that's been running around for a long while, we've been using [I]this as the Goblin, rather than the Small Goblin from MM I. Variant Goblin Racial Traits: -2 Str, +2 Dex, -2 Con. Medium Size. Base Speed is 30 feet. Climb speed of 20 feet. Low-Light Vision: A Variant Goblin can see twice as far as a Human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight or similar conditions of light. They retain the ability to see in colour and in detail under these conditions. +2 Racial Bonus on Climb, Escape Artist, Hide, Move Silently checks. +1 Racial Bonus on attack rolls against Elves. Special Qualities: Thin Build. Automatic Languages: Common and Goblin. Bonus Languages: Orc, Dwarven, Elven, Gnoll, Giant, Draconic. Weapon Familiarity: Variant Goblins treat the Kukri as a Simple Weapon. Favoured Class: Rogue. For the purposes of checks which involve the size of the creatures, the Variant Goblin is treated as one size smaller that it acutally is. This includes Escape Artist checks, Bull Rush checks and the effects of strong winds. This creature stands nearly five foot tall with a lithe frame that is all wiry muscle and pale-brown skin. Ears nearly a foot long stand up and back from a small face, where the nose is little more than a bump in the middle of the face, with two black eyes on either side and a small, narrow mouth filled with too-sharp teeth. It's hair is dark grey and bound into many tight braids capped with silver, and it wears light-coloured leather garments and a necklace of shrunken Elf ears around it's neck. Variant Goblins live just about anywhere, from the Human cities to great nomad clans on the plains to the caverns of the mountains. Most Goblins prefer to carry only light loads, so that they are seldom burdened if attacked and retreat is their only option, and they also prefer mounts that can climb as they do, so that they can out-maneuver persistant enemies. Their society is extremely free-wheeling, with leadership and mating alone being consistent. A Goblin Clan might trade with one side of war, then the other, and then both or neither, as their leader sees fit, although they are seldom flippant in their attitudes. Mates are taken for life, and chosing a mate is a solemn affair that is in sharp contrast to their normally ever-changing lives. Goblins can live up to seventy years, although most lose their lives to the raiding of Elves, whom see the Goblins as little better than roaming vermin, and occasionally other races also harry Goblins, either to carry off as slaves or simply to secure a region's resources for themselves. The most common Goblin habitat is in the mountains, where the Goblins expand natural caves and fortify them against attacks from both underground and through the cave entrances. Goblin children are raised by their families, but once old enough to take a trade, are pushed to set out and create their own dwellings as soon as possible. Trades the bonus of Small Size for Medium carrying bonus, has a imbalance in ability scores that is countered with a Climb speed, and a nice array of Racial Bonuses to skills that benefit their favoured class, or any other melee class they enter, and the Kukri allows them a bit of added flexibility with their weapon choices, also a bit of mystique given how little the Kukri tends to be used by players in general. Thin Build also makes the Goblin slightly weaker in strait up face-to-face fighting aginst races that are typically strong-arm types. We originally got the idea for the Variant Goblin from the Lord of the Ring movies, the Moira Orcs in general, and then fine-tuned them with the game 'Ninety-Nine Nights', which portrayed the Goblins in a much different light than most conventional fiction does.