By T. Glenn Bane

The goblinoids are one of the earliest mistakes ever made in the forging of creation—an accident of ambition, a smudge across the otherwise immaculate tapestry woven by the gods. To understand Sundrah’s darkness, one must understand these creatures, for they are the lingering scars of the Division Wars and the lingering echoes of the Titans’ pride.

What follows is not a list of statistics or rules. Instead, it is a mythic examination—a narrative glimpse into the malformed children of the fallen Titans and why these creatures remain essential to the pulse and peril of Sundrah.

Children of Failed Creation: The Goblinoid Races

During the Division Wars, when the gods shaped elves to serve them, the Titans sought to imitate divine craftsmanship. But imitation without understanding is folly. What the Titans fashioned from stolen fey-essence were imperfect reflections—goblins, gremlins, and trolls—each one a reminder that power without discipline creates monsters instead of marvels.

When the Titans fell, their creations slunk into the world’s forgotten places. Caverns. Root-choked dens. The cracks between the realms where sunlight weakens and reason dissolves. It was in these shadows that the goblinoids fashioned their own society—crudely assembled, violently enforced, and as unpredictable as the creatures themselves.

Their world is not one of laws but of impulses. Not of tradition, but of superstition. Among them, the strongest eats first and eats best. The weakest survives by cunning or by luck. Their lives burn quickly, violently, and often hilariously.

Yet for all their brutality, goblinoids bring a strange, vivid energy to the setting of Sundrah. They are comic relief to some, tragic reflections to others, and to adventurers—usually trouble.

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Belief Without Gods

Unlike elves, who were molded with intention and bound to divine purpose, goblinoids owe nothing to any deity. Perhaps because of this, they offer nothing to the gods in return. Their contempt for godhood is instinctive, almost inherited; they know too well what divine imitation has cost them.

Instead, goblinoids worship primal forces—fire that moves like a living animal, earth that groans and shifts, storms that howl like vengeful ancestors. In their rituals, they placate whatever might be listening, even if they don’t understand what it is.

Superstition saturates their daily life. A gremlin may refuse to step over the bones of a bird. A goblin might insist a certain tree root holds the soul of a murderous spirit. Trolls—despite their size and violence—flinch at omens that would make a human laugh.

Their rituals may be nonsense, their shrines little more than garbage heaps—but in them is an echo of the world’s old magic, twisted but still alive.

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Goblins: Rogues of Instinct and Impulse

Goblins are the most familiar and numerous of their kind. Though lacking the grace of elves and the discipline of humans, goblins possess a raw, wiry tenacity that has kept them alive far longer than logic would suggest.

Culture and Habits

• Goblin leadership changes as quickly as their mood. A chieftain today may be a corpse tomorrow, replaced by whoever swung hardest—or ducked fastest.
• Goblins do not believe in silence. They mutter, giggle, growl, sing, argue, and narrate their own thoughts in real time.
• They accumulate objects obsessively. Anything shiny, sharp, or strange becomes a “treasure,” often invested with imaginary magical significance.

Goblins work because survival demands it; they ally because loneliness frightens them; they betray because opportunity delights them. In their contradictions lies the charm that so often transforms them into memorable characters.

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Gremlins: The Hysterical Hordes

Gremlins are the smallest, loudest, and most disposable of the goblinoid races. They are not respected—not even by each other. They thrive only because they breed with alarming speed and cling to larger goblinoids like parasites with personality.

Culture and Habits

• Gremlins attach themselves to goblins for protection, scraps, and entertainment.
• They express every emotion instantly and with no filter whatsoever.
• Their lives are short, frantic, and filled with mischief so petty it becomes almost spiritual.

While often treated as nuisances, gremlins introduce a special kind of chaos that reshapes a scene instantly. They can derail a negotiation, destroy a plan, or start a war with a single, ill-advised comment. And gods help the adventurer who underestimates them—they may be small, but they are tenacious.

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Trolls: Titans’ Last Laugh

Trolls are the largest, strongest, and most terrifying of the goblinoids. They are not clever, nor are they patient, but what they lack in finesse they make up for in raw, unstoppable force.

Culture and Habits

• Trolls treat violence as a universal solution. Anger, confusion, hunger, boredom—each can be resolved by smashing something.
• Their regenerative nature encourages horrifying self-injury. A troll will casually chew on its own arm if hungry enough and wait for another to grow back.
• Trolls collect grisly trophies, sometimes even pieces of themselves.
• They command goblin and gremlin communities purely through fear. They neither understand nor require loyalty.

Where goblins bring shadowed humor and gremlins bring manic calamity, trolls bring dread. Their mere presence reshapes a story into something darker, more primal, and far more dangerous.

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Why Goblinoids Matter in Sundrah

Goblinoids are more than monsters lurking in caves. They are living remnants of the world’s oldest wounds. They challenge the civilizations of Sundrah to remain vigilant. They test heroes. They disrupt peace. They inject chaos into the world simply by existing.

Narratively, they add:

• Humor (even when unintended)
• Tragedy (despite themselves)
• Danger (always)
• Mythic depth, showing what creation looks like when shaped without care

They are absurd. They are horrific. They are unpredictable.

And because of that—they are essential.

And somewhere out there in the dark, a goblin is already whispering his plan aloud. He just hasn’t realized you can hear him yet.

This coming New Year’s Day, Worlds of Pulp™ invites players back into the brooding, enchanted gloom of The Dark Fantasy of Sundrah with a new Pocket World designed for fast play, deep atmosphere, and richly layered storytelling.

Grak-Thul Warrens

A Goblinoid Settlement in the Cleft of the Weeping Stone

Hidden within the jagged gulch locals call the Weeping Stone, where the cliffs drip moisture like perpetual tears, lies one of Sundrah’s oldest and most infamous goblinoid domains: Grak-Thul Warrens. It is not a village in the civilized sense—no neat lanes or stable roofs—but a chaotic sprawl of burrows, tunnels, and half-collapsed chambers punched into the wet shale through centuries of claw, tooth, and troll fist.

To human eyes, Grak-Thul appears as if the earth itself suffered a fever dream and tried to expel it.

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Origins

Grak-Thul began, as most goblinoid societies do, by accident and violence. During the later years of the Division Wars, a young troll named Thul the Splintermast fled a collapsing titan fortress and, through a combination of panic and poor direction, barreled directly into the narrow ravine. Finding the stone soft enough to punch, Thul built himself a den.

By the time he realized he had no idea how to leave the ravine, goblins and gremlins had followed the sound of his bellowing and established their own dens beside him. This pattern has repeated for generations.

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Appearance & Layout

Grak-Thul is a maze of:

• Mud-packed huts jammed into crevices
• Cavern mouths reinforced with stolen timber
• Tunnels carved at impossible angles
• Bridges made from scavenged bones lashed with sinew
• Platforms that sway alarmingly over bottomless cracks

The settlement smells of wet fur, smoke, mold, and the unmistakable musk of troll. Echoes—shrieks, laughter, snarls, arguments—bounce endlessly through the stone corridors at all hours.

Light is scarce. Most illumination comes from guttering pitch torches, clusters of glowing fungus cultivated by gremlins, or accidental fires left to burn until they die from lack of fuel.

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Social Structure

Leadership in Grak-Thul follows the classic goblinoid model:
the largest troll commands until someone larger arrives or the current leader explodes in a regrettable accident.

At present, the settlement is ruled by:

Grakka Bone-Bender, Daughter of Thul

A troll matriarch whose arms are mismatched in length due to repeated self-remodeling in fits of boredom. Grakka is feared even by other trolls. She rules with the same consistency as a landslide—slow to begin, catastrophic when it arrives.

Under her are:

• Eight goblin clans, each claiming ownership of a different tunnel system
• Countless gremlins, who serve as vermin wranglers, torch lighters, and blame recipients
• A handful of outcasts, including two cursed humans and a fallen fey who claim the ravine itself whispers to them

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Culture & Daily Life

Grak-Thul thrives on noise and movement. Goblins argue constantly—about food, tools, shadows, dreams, and anything else that sparks a quarrel. Gremlins scuttle through tight spaces, stealing scraps and gossip. Trolls lumber between dens, looking for fights, snacks, or children to lift by the ankles as improvised clubs.

Daily habits include:

• Nightlong feasts of whatever the hunters dragged in
• Bone gambling, played with dice carved from troll knuckle-joints
• Shrine-making, where gremlins build ritual piles of refuse to appease imaginary spirits
• Glare duels, a goblin pastime where participants attempt to intimidate each other without blinking

Though chaotic, there is a crude rhythm to life in Grak-Thul—hunter patrols at dusk, communal shrieking at dawn, and the inevitable nightly brawls.

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Religion & Superstition

The settlement worships Gurth the Ember Maw, a primal fire-spirit they believe lives beneath the ravine. They toss offerings—sticks, bones, unlucky gremlins—into deep cracks in the cavern floor. When smoke rises, they interpret it as divine approval. When it doesn’t, they throw more gremlins.

Thunderstorms also terrify the Warrens. When lightning flashes across the narrow scrap of sky, goblins scatter and hide under rocks, chanting nonsense charms. Trolls tend to shout back at the thunder in an attempt to intimidate it.

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Points of Interest

The Maw Pit

A yawning hole at the settlement’s center where the goblinoids toss offerings to Gurth. Fires sometimes erupt from it for no explainable reason—especially worrying since nothing flammable lies below.

Thul’s Bones

The preserved remains of Thul the Splintermast, arranged lovingly by Grakka into a shrine-throne. His skull is used as a cauldron on feast nights.

The Screech Tunnels

A maze of narrow corridors where gremlins breed, fight, and hurl rocks at trespassers. These tunnels carry sound in unnatural ways, making it impossible to tell where voices originate.

The Dripping Court

A cavern where water drips continually from the ceiling into dozens of bowls, cups, and pots. The goblins consider each drip’s sound to be an omen. Most omens predict doom. They are usually correct.

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Why Adventurers Might Come Here

Grak-Thul is a dangerous, maddening place—but also a treasure trove for storytellers. Heroes might travel there to:

• Track a stolen relic swallowed by a troll
• Negotiate with Grakka for passage through the ravine
• Rescue a captive explorer
• Retrieve ancient titan-forged runes lost beneath the Maw Pit
• Investigate strange magical surges emanating from the Dripping Court

Or perhaps they simply took the wrong turn while following goblin tracks. It happens more often than anyone admits.

If you would like to revisit past articles, look no further than the Geek Opera Index!

Until next time, hold the line and don’t let the trolls through the gates!