Earliest existence: 30,600 BR
The first Goblins woke in the absolute dark around 30,600 BR. They weren’t the familiar creatures known today. These were primal things, a race born of the deep earth who survived through sheer cunning and the unique gift of sight in the pitch black. Their lives were small communal things, scraped from unforgiving rock. They used the intricate tunnels as both refuge and resource. Every cycle was a grim battle against starvation, scrounging for pale fungus or hunting the immense insects of the deep. They fought the cold finality of the earth itself.
Over millennia these deep tribes grew. Their numbers swelled until the dark territories they occupied simply could not feed them. Competition turned into a new kind of raw warfare. By 23,256 BR the fighting bred a true menace. A goblin named Fargol clawed his way to the top. Ruthless and sharp as flaked rock he hammered the bickering tribes into one. He ruled by fear and by promising a life free from the suffocating rock above the endless dark. This was the end of the small family unit. It was the birth of brutal kingship. Fargol’s reign was cruel but effective. He dragged his people out of the deepest caves into the sickly twilight of the upper Underdark. There they carved out their first real city. A sprawling complex of stone and silent mushroom farms they called Raszt. It was a defiant monument to their ambition.
Raszt thrived for centuries but the goblins found themselves constantly pressing toward the surface. Their quick skirmishes with the emerging Orcs and Firbolgs became a new daily terror. In open ground the goblins were no match. Their small stature and lack of muscle were nothing against the brute strength of their enemies. But they were wily and they were endless. They learned to use the forests and the twisted terrain. They employed hit-and-run tactics and set cunning traps that broke the knees of giants.
A true moment of clarity came around 14,183 BR. The various surface goblin warlords and clan leaders saw their endless internal squabbles were leaving them too vulnerable. An elder named Grelg whose wisdom was known like a secret told to the wind proposed a different way. He brokered a fragile pact among the tribes. This wasn’t a single king. It was a loose deadly alliance where the strongest leaders held the most power. It let the goblins present a unified front. They pooled their wicked knowledge of trap making and guerrilla warfare to finally defend their stolen lands.
For thousands of years this structure held. Other races saw them as little more than a persistent nuisance. They were cunning but completely untrustworthy. While the Orcs and Bugbears formed their own great alliances the goblins clung to their fierce independence refusing to be drawn into the large conflicts of the region.
Then a devastating plague swept through the lands of the Orcs and Bugbears around 5,625 BR. The collapse of The Crushing Hand alliance led to The Bitter Feast a constant war between the surviving tribes. The goblins mostly spared by the sickness saw their chance. They began to expand their influence trading their finely crafted traps and vital subterranean knowledge for the resources they could not otherwise acquire. This strategic trade made them a more significant player in the region’s bleeding politics.
Their true moment arrived around 4,332 BR. The fighting between the Orcs and Bugbears had become a true sickness. A clever Bugbear chief named Belatz saw the potential of a new alliance. He knew the goblins with their superior numbers and tactical cunning were the missing piece. Belatz met with a rising goblin shaman named Vuk. Vuk was a charismatic leader who had successfully unified several of the strongest clans. Vuk saw the opportunity for his people to finally be treated as equals. He agreed to the alliance. They combined their strength and forced the fractured Orc tribes to the negotiation table establishing a new terrible balance of power.
For a more complete history to present day, see Awyr
