Lore Drop, July 2025 - The different kinds of Goblins
Goblins. Such a common concept in the world of fantasy and RPGs, right? We think so too, which is at the same time the reason we want to bring goblins as a race into Taival, but also the reason we want to put a twist to the concept. Let's dive into it!
The role of goblins in these kinds of games tend to be the low-level thievery-indulged evil enemies for the player to slay, from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion to Runescape; we've all seen it! This is why we wanted to bring goblin to be a playable race in Taival. This is somewhat uncommon, but we believe there is much lore to explore with these little guys!
Goblins deserve to be more than just pesky nuisance. They deserve a culture. This is why we've been working on different subraces of goblins!
Common Goblins
"As established merchants and travelers, common goblins can be found bargaining even in the farthest corners of the world of Taival. The main roads are all controlled by common goblins, which brings both wealth and danger. For one, Taival has well-maintained trade connections, but some roads are riddled with bandits, as not all common goblins find their future as honest merchants."
These are the usual green guys we all know. We needed lore of the basic goblins to work pretty much as expected, as this is what player associates their character if they create a goblin as their first character.
Mountain Goblins
"Hardened by snow, blizzards and centuries of survival, mountain goblins have found comfort in caverns they've mined over generations. They've adapted to get nutrients from rare ores they've found deep within the depths of the mountains, leading outsiders to call them the "Ore gorgers" and creating a whole new secluded ecosystem of mountain goblins."
We love dwarves, doesn't everyone? However, including them as we've seen them from the Tolkien days seemed too usual and overdone. This is why we developed mountain goblins, allowing us to dive into the brilliant idea of bearded mead-loving miners, while expanding the lore of goblins. Mountain goblins are bigger and fatter from the abundance of ore, but that also makes them stronger. Their skin draws to the hues of gray and blue from the cold they've endured for so long.
Jungle Goblins
These guys are still very much WIP for their concept.
Goblins also have a very specific naming style for their descendants, bringing us awesome names such as Oriburri, Mukzurri, Eibur, Arantzur, Arestar, Galdari.
Do you have any ideas, any cool weapons, tech, ideas that you'd like to see for different kinds of goblins? Maybe whole new goblin subraces you can come up with? Or some goblin names you'd like us to include? Let us know in the comments, we'd really like to explore this race even further!
All the best,
Taival Team