We Be Goblins!

Since most of the group has never played Pathfinder before, I decided to run a short 1-night adventure to introduce people to the game's mechanics. For those who are interested, I put together a short document comparing Pathfinder to both AD&D (i.e. D&D 2nd Edition) which we've played for most of our gaming careers, and D&D 4th Edition, which we've been playing for the last couple of years. It's available here.

Rather than have the players play the standard assortment of noble heroes out to save the world, I thought it would be fun, for one night only, to see how the other half lives – to play bloodthirsty, greedy, sneaky, chaotic little menaces - to be goblins!

The party consisted of:

Chuffy Lickwound (Brian) - A pustular goblin rogue.

Reta Bigbad (Roger) - A young goblin woman with unusual fashion sense and a special hatred for dogs.

Mogmurch (Dave) - a goblin alchemist who just loves blowing things up

Rempty (Joette) - Rempty sees herself as the next natural chief of the Licktoad tribe, because it just feels so right to boss everyone else around.

Poog of Zarongel (Leo) - Goblin clerics are supposed to be really good a riding things, but Poog is better at falling off of them.

Rastaman Gobgurch (Rich) - Rastaman has a fondness for any substance that alters his reality, particularly his psychedelic toad, Diamond Lucy.


The players are members of the Licktoad tribe, the largest, most powerful, most fearsome tribe of goblins in the Brinestump swamp (also the only tribe of goblins in the Brinestump swamp). Just yesterday, one of their tribe had been found using forbidden arts and was engaged in one of the greatest of goblin taboos—writing things down. There’s no swifter way to bring about bad luck than stealing words out of your head by writing them down, and so the tribe had no choice. They branded the goblin’s face with letters to punish him, changed his name to Scribbleface, and then ran him out of town, took all of his stuff, and burned down his hut.

Burning down his hut would have been great fun in any event, but it was even more so because inside they found a weird box containing some strange looking sticks. When they started to set these on fire, they began to shoot out sparks and explode in bright colors. These only killed a few of their kin and made for a far more interesting way to set things on fire, so much so that they were on the verge of burning down the entire village before Chief Gutwad confiscated the box and its contents.

This morning, Chief Gutwad announced that tonight there would be a feast in order to drive out any lingering bad luck from Scribbleface’s poor decisions. But even more exciting, the characters were secretly invited to meet at Chief Gutwad’s Moot House. There, he told them that among Scribbleface's belongings was a map, showing where he had gotten the fireworks and indicating there were more where those came from. With their added firepower, the Licktoads would finally be powerful enough to destroy the nearby hated man-town of Sandpoint, and become the envy of the goblin world. As the strongest members of the Licktoad tribe (except, of course, for the chief himself), it was the party's honor to go bring those fireworks back to the Licktoads.

By the time the celebration began, all the rest of the tribe had learned of the party's "secret" mission, and in the goblin tradition, began daring them to perform particularly unpleasant or stupid tasks to prove that they were worthy of the honor. Chuffy managed to eat a bag of bull slugs real quick, but in his hurry to choke them down, neglected to spit out their poison bladders, and found himself Sickened for the next 24 hours. For his trouble, the chief awarded him a +1 dogslicer that acted as a bane weapon vs horses. The tribe knew of Poog's aversion to riding, and dared him to "dance with Squealy Nord". The goblins know Squealy Nord as a ferocious boar who lives in a pit in the center of their village, feasting on the bodies of dead goblins (and goblins die at a surprising rate even under the best of circumstances). In reality, Squealy Nord is a hyperactive piglet who escaped from a nearby farm. In any event, Poog overcame his fears (and natural clumsiness) and managed to ride the pig for three rounds, winning a Dragon's Brew Gourd. Everyone participated in a light-hearted game of "Hide or Get Clubbed" (hide and seek, with a somewhat more violent outcome), and Reta managed to stay hidden the longest, winning a Ring of Climbing. Finally, Rastaman took on the challenge of crawling through the Rusty Earbiter, a hollow coil of rusty wires, barrel hoops, bent swords, and thorny branches that serves as goblin playground equipment. He lost most of an ear in the process, but managed to reach the other side, winning the chief's very own Very Useful Robe That Is Useful (a Robe of Useful Items containing mostly useless items).

First thing the next morning, somewhat hungover and mostly healed from the night's festivities, the party set out. Scribbleface's map indicated the source of the fireworks was not terribly far from the village, but it led through a particularly dangerous part of the swamp that the goblins generally avoid. After a short journey, the oppressive swamp undergrowth gave way to an open area. The undergrowth around the clearing was thick with webs, and a particularly large web blocked the path ahead. Scattered around were several web-wrapped goblin-sized bundles.

Rempty immediately asserted her leadership by ordering the others to investigate while she covered them from the rear. Reta and Poog moved forward, and a giant, eight-legged monstrosity dropped down out of the trees directly in front of Poog. It was the dreaded giant spider, Lotslegs-Eat-Goblin-Babies-Many! Poog immediately chomped into his Dragon's Brew Gourd and began breathing fire at the beast, to good effect. Rastaman licked his toad, and charged into the fray, but became so fascinated by the multi-colored poison dripping from the spider's fangs that he missed two attacks before falling unconscious from the effects of the hallucinogen. Chuffy became obsessed with the idea of riding the legendary Lotslegs, and spent his time launching his grappling hook into the trees and trying to position himself over the spider's back. Everyone else fired arrows or other missiles in Lotslegs' general direction with much excitement but little damage. Poog's flames kept driving the spider back towards her web however, where she finally expired just before Chuffy could drop down onto her back.

The goblins celebrated Lotslegs' defeat as they would the defeat of any other legendary enemy - by trying to eat the body. Sated, and picking spider bristles out of their teeth, they began to search the webbed bundles, finding lots of good loot. Rempty again demonstrated her talent for leadership by claiming all the gold for herself. Reta found a big shiny pearl which Rempty also tried to take. When Reta resisted, Rempty produced a badge (looking suspiciously like a piece of discarded gold construction paper from the Longshanks' garbage dump) that she asserted proved her authority; Reta was unimpressed.

The rest of the group lost interest in the two female's bickering and proceeded on their way, leaving Rempty and Reta to scurry to catch up. The spot marked by an 'X' on Scribbleface's map wasn't quite on the coast, but it was close enough that they could soon hear waves crashing on an unseen swampy shoreline. The end of the trail soon became obvious: ahead of them they saw a large wrecked ship lodged in a shallow pool of swamp water. Apparently driven aground decades ago by a particularly violent storm that flung the ship several hundred feet into the flooded swamp, the ship was a two-masted sailing vessel. The swampy yard around the ship was enclosed by a rickety rail fence, and the interior was churned up as if by the feet of some massive creature. The rails and rigging of the ship were decorated with fetishes and windchimes made of goblin skulls and bones. The barking of dogs could be heard coming from somewhere aboard the ship, and something large could be heard moving on the far side of the ship.

The party realized that this must be the lair of the legendary goblin cannibal, Vorka. Once the wife of a Licktoad chief, she had been driven into the swamp many years ago after eating her husband and several other members of the tribe. They began to cautiously approach the shipwreck. Poog began climbing the obvious ladder up to the prow, only to dislodge a wasps nest set there as a trap (luckily he avoided serious damage). Rastaman and Chuffy went to one side of the ship, while Reta went to the other, with Mogmurch following Poog up the ladder. Rempty continued to lead from behind.

Suddenly a filthy gray stallion charged around the stern of the ship directly at Rastaman. Chuffy's first thought was to scurry up a tree, but then he remembered he'd been given a horse-bane sword. Charging the horse from behind (that end looked far less scary than the one with teeth), he swung his new weapon, hitting hard and bringing it to within an inch of its life. Rastaman scrunched his eyes closed and swung blindly, nicking the horse and doing the final HP required to kill it. When he opened his eyes and saw the dead horse before him, he promptly renamed himself Rastaman Horse-Slayer.

There was still the frightening sound of barking dogs coming from somewhere on deck. A large cabin blocked the view from the prow to the stern, and Poog and Mogmurch were reluctant to investigate much farther. Reta used her Ring of Climbing to scuttle up a tree on her side of the ship, while Chuffy used his grappling hook to do the same on the other. Rastaman pulled a ladder off his Robe (about the only useful thing on it) and climbed onto the deck. From their vantage points, Reta and Chuffy could see two mangy dogs chained to the aft mast. Chuffy dropped down onto the deck as Poog crept up the other side, and the dogs caught wind of them and charged. One could reach Poog and attacked, but the other's chain pulled him up just short of Chuffy - at least until Rastaman gave Chuffy a helpful shove in the back. The battle was short and sweet, with Reta dropping down behind Poog's dog to help out. When both curs were dead, Chuffy made it very clear exactly what Rastaman could lick in the future (hint - it wasn't a toad). 

The party made their way quietly to the stern. The dogs had apparently been guarding a door to the cabin, and a short ladder led to the roof of the cabin and another small structure. Chuffy attempted to listen at the door, but Rastaman felt he was being too cautious, so he flung the door open and shoved Chuffy inside.

Inside was the cannibal witch, Vorka, along with her giant frog companion, Lord Longtongue. Vorka immediately summoned a swarm of spiders to fill the space just inside the door, then cackled with glee as she described just how she would cook and eat each of the characters as they entered. Chuffy frantically fought off the spiders, then charged Longtongue only to find the frog was much tougher than anything he'd fought before. Rastaman, fresh from his horse-slaying glory, charged Vorka, who pointed a bony finger, let fly a bolt of flame, and left Rastaman lying on the floor, contemplating whatever passes for goblin heaven.

Poog stood just outside the door, casting healing spells just as fast as he could to try to keep Rastaman and Chuffy from biting the big one, and Reta leaped in to join the fray. Rempty and Mogmurch were sorely tempted to leave the rest of the party to their fate while they investigated the unknown room on the roof, but something (i.e. the DM) made them reconsider, and they somewhat reluctantly entered the fight. It was touch and go, but Vorka went down, followed shortly by her amphibious friend.

When the dust settled, the goblins began to search Vorka's lair, and found an odd assortment of objects, both broken and intact. All of these items (broken and functional alike) were strangely decorative, depicting colorful serpentine dragons, towering cliffs, delicate humanoid figures, and strange pagodas—not that a goblin would know a pagoda from a tool shed. In addition, there was a large red lacquer chest, containing many more fireworks! This would please Chief Gutwad greatly, and ensure the party's favor. What's more, on the back of a strange silk fan, Vorka had drawn a crude map of the Brinestump Swamp, not unlike Scribbleface's map, which seemed to show where she had gotten the fireworks. Perhaps there were more!

DM Commentary:

I felt this adventure went well, and certainly served its purpose. Everyone definitely got into the spirit of playing goblins, and I just wish we'd had more time to really play with that. 

As a group, we got exposed to a lot of the basic Pathfinder mechanics: combat, movement, skill checks, spells, saving throws - we even got to try out the rules for dying!

Being new to Pathfinder, both as a player and a DM, I learned a lot from this exercise, mostly that I need to prepare better. There were a number of things that I took for granted going into the adventure that I realized I didn't really know as people started asking questions. Like how the heck do ranged weapons really work in Pathfinder? Is this bomb attack a targeted attack or area-of-effect? I need to really mentally play through all the encounters and make lots of notes prior to play, at least until we all get much more familiar and comfortable with the system. Having Roger, Leo, and Brian there to help was great.

I can't wait to start the next adventure ...