Goblinoids of Khorvaire
They were here first — and they have not forgotten
Origins & History
The goblinoid peoples — collectively called the dar, meaning simply "the people" — ruled Khorvaire for over five thousand years before the first human pirates followed Lhazaar's wake to the continent's shores. Three subspecies make up the dar: the golin'dar (goblins, "quick people"), the ghaal'dar (hobgoblins, "mighty people"), and the guul'dar (bugbears, "strong people"). Under the Empire of Dhakaan, they built cities whose foundations still support human metropolises — Sharn sits atop the ruins of Ja'shaarat, and goblin stonework can be found beneath a dozen other Five Nations cities. Their weaponsmiths worked adamantine and exotic alloys with techniques that House Cannith's artificers have not yet replicated. Their bardic tradition, the duur'kala, wove music and magic into a single discipline that preserved history, enforced law, and — at its apex — created the Uul Dhakaan, a shared psychic dream that bound an entire civilisation together across a continent.
The Empire of Dhakaan collapsed not through internal weakness but through an assault from outside reality. The daelkyr — alien lords from the plane of Xoriat — invaded Khorvaire with armies of aberrations, destroying cities and transforming native goblinoids into horrors like dolgaunts and dolgrims. Dhakaani champions fought them back, and the orc Gatekeeper druids ultimately sealed the daelkyr in Khyber, but the damage was already done. Dyrrn the Corruptor, even in defeat, unleashed the Kapaa'vola — the Treacherous Whisper — a psychic contagion that severed the surface goblinoids from the Uul Dhakaan, encouraged paranoia and irrational behaviour, and shattered the cultural unity that had sustained the empire for millennia. The dar who recognised the threat sealed themselves in deep underground fortresses, vowing to preserve their traditions until the contagion faded. The dar who remained on the surface forgot. They forgot the dream, forgot the meaning of muut and atcha, forgot what it meant to be dar. Their empire fragmented over centuries into squabbling tribes, and when human colonists arrived from Sarlona, they found warring goblinoids living in the ruins of grand cities and assumed — with breathtaking arrogance — that the goblins had merely claimed the remnants of an earlier human civilisation they'd destroyed.
This false narrative was used to justify the systematic displacement and enslavement of goblinoid populations across what became the Five Nations. Goblins were subjugated and enslaved; hobgoblins and bugbears were driven into the wilds and the upper reaches of Khyber. When Galifar Wynarn began his conquest, he promised freedom to any goblin who fought under his banner, and he kept that promise — but freedom without resources, education, or social standing produced a population of technically free citizens who nevertheless occupied the bottom of every economic hierarchy in the kingdom. The human terms goblin, hobgoblin, and bugbear are not the dar's own words for themselves; they are Common-tongue labels that took root during the long centuries of human dominance and that even modern goblinoids have largely adopted.
INSCRIPTION — FRAGMENT OF A DHAKAANI MONUMENT, RECOVERED FROM THE FOUNDATIONS BENEATH SHARN, TRANSLATED BY DORIUS ALYRE IR'KORRAN, MORGRAVE UNIVERSITY Raat shi anaa. The story continues. This pillar marks the western gate of Ja'shaarat, Bright Blade, jewel of the empire, seat of the Third Lhesh. Let all who pass know that they walk on dar ground, that the dar were here before the mountains were named, and that the dar will be here when the namers are dust. Raat shan gath'kal dor. The story stops but never ends.
Biology & Physiology
The goblinoid peoples — goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears — are three distinct subspecies that cannot interbreed but are bound by a primal connection expressed through scent, body language, and instinctual social cues that make them feel more comfortable in each other's presence than in the company of other humanoids.
Goblins are the smallest, standing three to four feet tall with lean, wiry frames, large ears, flat noses, and eyes adapted to darkness. Their skin ranges from yellow to orange to deep green. They reach maturity quickly — around eight years — and live approximately sixty years, a lifespan that produces a compressed, urgent approach to life. Goblins are physically agile and surprisingly stealthy for creatures that seem, in social settings, incapable of shutting up.
Hobgoblins are the middle species: five to six feet tall, broadly built, with red-orange to dark grey skin and a military bearing that is as much biological as cultural. They live approximately eighty years — comparable to humans — and their instincts run toward hierarchy, discipline, and cooperative group action. Hobgoblins are the natural leaders of goblinoid communities, not because they are the largest (bugbears hold that distinction) but because their temperament drives them toward organisation and command.
Bugbears are the largest: six to eight feet tall, heavily muscled, covered in coarse fur, and possessed of a natural stealth that is genuinely alarming given their size. A bugbear can move through underbrush without making a sound, a trait that has terrorised their enemies for millennia. They reach maturity at sixteen and live approximately seventy-five years.
All three species possess darkvision and are comfortable in subterranean environments — a legacy of their origin in the caverns of Khyber. The Kech Dhakaan, who have lived underground for millennia, are particularly adapted: they prefer dim light, come alive at nightfall when on the surface, and may find vast open spaces disorienting. Goblinoids are inherently rational at a primal level, inclined toward structure and hierarchy, and tend toward lawful predispositions — traits that made the Empire of Dhakaan possible and that distinguish the dar from the more chaotic peoples that Five Nations stereotypes lead outsiders to expect.
Cultures & Subgroups
Four distinct goblinoid cultures coexist on modern Khorvaire, each with a fundamentally different relationship to the imperial past.
City goblins are citizens of the Five Nations, born and raised in human-dominated societies. They make up roughly nine percent of Sharn's population and can be found in every major city on the continent. The overwhelming majority live in poverty — concentrated in lower wards, the Cogs, and slum districts — but gifted goblins appear in all walks of life, and goblin soldiers served in the armies of every nation during the Last War. City goblins generally identify by nationality first and ancestry second: a Brelish goblin in Sharn is Brelish, speaks Common with a Brelish accent, and holds opinions about Brelish politics. They may know the name Dhakaan from a school lesson. They are unlikely to know what the Uul Dhakaan was, or what muut and atcha mean in anything more than the abstract. They are, in the eyes of the Heirs of Dhakaan, victims of the Kapaa'vola — dar who forgot what it meant to be dar.
The Ghaal'dar are the tribal confederation that dominates the nation of Darguun. Hobgoblin-led, with goblin and bugbear members, the Ghaal'dar arose from the remnants of the empire in the Seawall Mountains. Their history is one of constant strife — fighting Galifar, fighting Zilargo, fighting each other — until the Last War gave them focus. House Deneith hired Ghaal'dar mercenaries in quantity, and a brilliant hobgoblin chieftain named Haruuc of the Rhukaan Taash recognised that the goblinoids had become the dominant military power in southern Cyre. In 969 YK, Haruuc united the Ghaal'dar under his banner, turned on the nations that had hired them, and seized the territory he had been paid to protect. The Five Nations, caught off guard, ultimately recognised Darguun at the Treaty of Thronehold. Lhesh Haruuc Sharaat'kor rules from Khaar Mbar'ost — the Red House — in Rhukaan Draal, holding together a web of clan alliances through personal charisma, strategic brilliance, and the understanding that if he dies, the whole edifice may collapse. The Ghaal'dar have recovered fragments of their imperial heritage — they know the concepts of muut (duty) and atcha (honour), they are proud of their Dhakaani ancestors — but they were shaped by the Kapaa'vola and differ from the true dar in ways that the dar themselves consider fundamental.
The Marguul are bugbear clans who hold the Seawall Mountains in southern Darguun, having thrown off Ghaal'dar dominance long ago. They worship the Mockery and believe in victory by any means necessary — honour on the battlefield is, to a Marguul, a concept invented by people who have never been in a real fight. They have brokered a truce with the Ghaal'dar but remain dangerous and semi-independent. Anyone travelling through the Seawall Mountains without a Marguul guide is taking a serious risk.
Life in the Five Nations
A goblin walking the streets of Sharn is unremarkable — goblins make up a substantial minority of the city's population, and nobody looks twice. But unremarkable is not the same as welcome. Goblins in the Five Nations are disproportionately poor, disproportionately employed in menial labour, and disproportionately absent from positions of authority, education, and social prestige. The legacy of displacement and enslavement has produced an economic underclass that centuries of nominal citizenship have not erased. In Sharn, Malleon's Gate in Lower Dura is a predominantly goblinoid neighbourhood — and it is one of the poorest, most crowded, and most dangerous districts in the city.
Hobgoblins and bugbears in the Five Nations are less common than goblins and carry a different set of associations. Where goblins are assumed to be poor, hobgoblins are assumed to be dangerous — especially since the founding of Darguun, which most Five Nations citizens regard as an act of treachery. The fact that Haruuc's uprising was, from the Ghaal'dar perspective, the reclamation of stolen ancestral land does not feature prominently in the Brelish or Cyran telling of the story. Bugbears attract the most visceral suspicion, owing to their size, their association with the Marguul, and a long tradition of stories in which bugbears are straightforward monsters. That a bugbear might be a Five Nations citizen with a trade and an opinion about the latest Sharn Inquisitive editorial is a concept that many humans have not fully absorbed.
Goblinoid mercenaries remain in demand. House Deneith maintains a strong presence in Darguun through the Gathering Stone, a fortified enclave that serves as a staging area for goblin mercenary contracts. Nobody will hire goblin armies after Haruuc's betrayal, but smaller units of goblinoid fighters are valued for their ferocity and skill. In Sharn, the Ja'khor (Blackbloods), a hobgoblin troop operating out of the Bloodstone Inn in Malleon's Gate, negotiate contracts through House Deneith and can provide information or guides to parties travelling to Darguun — though their war leader, Margaash, respects strength and has little patience for anyone who leads with words instead of deeds.
Religion & Spiritual Life
Goblinoid religion in the Five Nations largely mirrors the faiths of the surrounding culture — city goblins worship the Sovereign Host, follow the Silver Flame, or observe no religion at all, depending on the community they were raised in. Among the Ghaal'dar, a traditional form of Dark Six worship was common before the Last War; House Deneith's long presence in Darguun has since introduced the Sovereign Host, and some Ghaal'dar have embraced Dol Dorn, Dol Arrah, and Balinor. The Marguul worship the Mockery with a fervour that makes other goblinoids uncomfortable.
Relations & Perceptions
The fundamental perception problem goblinoids face is that they are simultaneously the most ancient civilisation on Khorvaire and the most thoroughly dismissed. Every human who has walked the streets of Sharn has walked on goblin foundations without thinking about it. The buildings of Galifar stand on Dhakaani stonework. The roads of the Five Nations follow Dhakaani routes. The calendar that organises modern life was imposed over a Dhakaani system that preceded it by millennia. And the typical Five Nations citizen, if asked what they know about goblinoid history, might recall the name Dhakaan from a school lesson and then change the subject.
The word chaat'oor — defilers — is what the dar call the human settlers and their descendants, and while it is not a term one hears in polite conversation in the Five Nations, it captures the goblinoid perspective with uncomfortable precision. Humans did not discover an empty continent; they colonised one whose existing population they enslaved, displaced, and built over, sometimes literally. The goblins remember this. The Ghaal'dar remember this. The Heirs of Dhakaan, who sealed themselves underground rather than submit, remember this most of all — and they have been watching the surface world with cold assessment since the Last War began.
Hooks & Tensions
The goblinoid peoples are sitting on top of the most consequential political realignment Khorvaire has seen since the Treaty of Thronehold — and most of the continent does not know it.
Darguun is a fragile nation held together by one brillant strategist. Lhesh Haruuc is ageing, and the question of succession hangs over every diplomatic calculation involving the Ghaal'dar. If Haruuc falls, the clan alliances that hold Darguun together may collapse, producing either a civil war or a power vacuum that the Heirs of Dhakaan are perfectly positioned to exploit. The Kech Dhakaan have been preparing for exactly this moment for thousands of years. They are competing among themselves to determine which kech will crown the Emperor Yet to Come — and once that question is settled, they intend to turn outward. Their goal is nothing less than the restoration of the Empire of Dhakaan, beginning with the conquest of Darguun and extending, in principle, to every territory the empire once held. Given that the empire once held all of Khorvaire, this is not a modest ambition.
Meanwhile, beneath the cities of the Five Nations, Dhakaani ruins contain artifacts, weapons, and secrets that the Kech are actively recovering — sometimes through diplomatic acquisition, sometimes through museum raids, sometimes through strikes against noble private collections. A party of adventurers exploring a ruin beneath Sharn is walking through what the dar consider their own house, and the dar may have opinions about who gets to take what from it.
For a goblin, the tensions are personal. A city goblin navigating Sharn's lower wards lives with the knowledge that their ancestors built the city they are not allowed to prosper in. A Ghaal'dar mercenary carries the pride of Darguun and the suspicion it generates in every nation that remembers Haruuc's "betrayal." A Dhakaani dar walks through a world of chaat'oor who built their civilisation on stolen foundations and do not even have the decency to acknowledge it — and they carry, in the back of their mind every time they sleep, the dream of what their people once were and what they intend to become again.