In Fourth Edition, “Goblin” is a noun that names both an entire set of related species, and the runty jerks that are at least 50% likely to be your group’s first adversaries. I like this ambiguity as a setting element, but since I apparently already have problems being clear enough in these posts I’ll use the older “Goblinoids” noun for the whole set.

“Goblinoids” is a word from older editions that is used to refer to goblins and all related humanoid species. Orcs used to be a part of this clade back in the AD&D days, but became their own thing from 3e onwards. 4e just uses “Goblins” as the catch-all term, encompassing actual goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears.

These three species used to make up a good chunk of the Humanoid Power Ladder back in old D&D, and have been part of the game since its inception. As expected, they appear both in the Monster Manual and the Vault.

We find ourselves into yet another novel situation that wouldn’t really be relevant when using the book normally. Goblinoid lore is fairly compact and unified, but there are tons and tons of statblocks covering these three species across two books. So what I’ll do here is cover all of their lore in this post, and go over the stat blocks one species at a time in the next few posts.

The Lore

All Goblinoids share some common characteristics: large pointed ears, prominent sharp teeth, skin that comes in several tones of yellow, green or red, and dark hair. I imagine the several types are about as closely related as the several types of elf. The MV says they can interbreed, with children taking after one of the parents.

Goblinoids are one of the many peoples in the Points of Light setting to have had a mighty empire in the past. This Goblin Empire was particularly successful, dominating the world and extending to the Feywild. Its chief deity was Bane, the Evil god of war and military conquest. Hobgoblins ran the show, and some sages speculate goblins and bugbears were created through genetic engineering to fulfill specific roles in their society. They also had an uncanny ability to tame all sorts of wild beasts and press them into service, a skill retained by present-day goblinoids.

Little concrete information is known about this empire. We can be fairly sure it fell due to internecine strife, with some tales saying this strife was instigated by the fey. Like many past world rulers, the goblinoids never recovered, a pattern which spells grim tidings for the humans of Nerath.

While many former empire-builders live integrated with current “civilized” society, goblinoids seem to have been driven from it. Either they were such cruel overlords that no one wanted to have them around, or it happened through some unfortunate historical development in the intervening centuries.

Present-day goblinoid culture is militaristic and xenophobic, still worshipping Bane as their main deity alongside his exarchs Maglubyet and Hruggek. The three subspecies mostly live apart from each other and have their own style of doing things, but they really come into their own once they begin working together.

Small and ill-tempered, Goblins favor hidden villages where most inhabitants live in a communal space and only the leaders get private quarters. They prefer to build them close to “civilized” trade routes and settlements, as most of their economy is based on raiding. They’re the most prolific beast tamers among their kin. Goblin wolf riders are a classic, but they have no trouble using whatever is available in their local environment, such as giant spiders in the Underdark and plant creatures in the Feywild.

Bugbears tend to live among other goblinoids or roam in small bands. Despite their great size and strength, they’re quite agile and sneaky. When living among goblins, they’ll take charge of their weaker cousins through bullying and intimidation, but will fall in line when commanded by hobgoblins. In any case, they hate excessive talk and prever to go straight for the violent option as soon as possible.

Hobgoblins are the most sophisticated members of the family, and the ones who most fervently wish a return to their glory days. They have preserved a lot of the military discipline and techniques from their fallen empire and are quite adept at organizing themselves and other goblinoids into frighteningly effective fighting forces. When this happens, Bugbears and Goblins go right back to their original niches of shock troops and scouts (respectively), with hobgoblins making up the rank and file and the top brass.

Every once in a while, a charismatic hobgoblin general will manage to unite a large goblinoid army and march upon “civilization” bent on total conquest. In the past, these were driven back by whatever incumbent empire was there, but now there is none.

The language of the Monster Manual gives me a bit of pause. They use the word “tribal” a lot, along with some terms that allude to vermin when describing “actual” goblins. This is about par of the course for D&D when you look at previous editions, of course, but after that horrible Goblin Slayer anime I’m hesitant to accept this portrayal. The MV steps back from this a bit. Goblinoids are still a menace there, but the language is more similar to what I used in this post.

The bit about the ancient and mighty Goblin Empire seems somewhat inspired by Eberron, whose goblinoids have such an empire in their pasts and are actually on the verge of seeing it restored through political unification and recognized as a modern-day nation in Khorvaire. Khorvaire’s human cities even have goblin populations living peacefully in them!

5e would double down on the “goblins are evil” idea and make them into basically Nazis, with Maglubyet as their main god.