Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Set This Goblin on Fire and Call it by its Name


I seen it... But I don’t know what I seen. It was a burning beast and it brought hell upon us. My chickens is dead and my field is taaaaaaaaaantacles!

            Some sicko on google plus asked me to expand my ideas on level limits, elves and the chaos alignment language to account for nilbogs. It is entirely possible that he was joking.Nilbogs are kind of a joke. I have never liked nilbogs. First of all the Nilbog doesn’t even get a picture in the Fiend Folio. That is maybe the worst part of the Nilbog. The second worst part of the entry is the last paragraph:

For obvious reasons, encounters with these strange creatures are dreaded and, as a result normal goblins tend to be treated with extreme caution lest they turn ot(sic) to be nilbogs. There appear to be no way of distinguishing between the two apart from the use of such spells as commune or by trial and error.  Fiend Folio, editor Turnbull, Don, p. 68 (TSR Hobbies, Inc. 1981).
The book pretty explicitly tells you that nilbogs exist just to mess with players. Nilbogs are a trap that is very “gamey.” They look completely ordinary but have special mechanics (weapons heal, healing spells hurt, you do the opposite of what you want to do (no save)). They do not feel like pulpy. They are a product of dungeons and dragons fucking itself.

They could be pulpy and evocative if they did not behave or look like regular goblins. Here is one of the best parts of the nilbog entry:  

Nilbogism (the name given to this strange disorder) appears to occur when overly heavy use of magic strains the fabric of the space-time continuum and lead to some very strange events. Ibid.
It’s not even that great; but, it does try to place nilbogs somewhere into the world’s logic. If we take my idea that goblins are elves that grew too powerful and were seduced and debased by chaos, then we can say that nilbogism is caused by chaos breaking down the spells that resided in the elf when he succumbed to chaos. It looks something like this:

Nilbog

No. Appearing 1
% In lair 0
Treasure: none
Alignment: chaos
All other stats: the same/ whatever you want

Any nilbog would love to die but cannot figure out how. If a nilbog could speak intelligibly it would ask you to kill it. Nilbogs scream. You can hear them for miles. They wander on tirelessly but exhausted until they finally dissipate into a pile of entropy.
Nilbogs are the final form for all goblins that formed from an elf that had spells memorized. Eventually the chaos that forms and poisons them will begin to work on those memorized spells, releasing the spell energy in a chaotic but predictable way. The energy completely overwhelms what faculties the goblin had left and pours out into his surroundings, damaging causality and warping physical laws. You know, typical nilbog effects (the range of these effects vary from nilbog to nilbog).
Nilbogs are surrounded by fluctuations in reality that create dramatic visual effects, warping, flames, and distortion. In the center is what appears at times to be a normal goblin and at times more demonic and at other times more elfin.
Nilbogs can be encountered anywhere and are easy to track. They leave a trail of blighted and deformed land. Stone is warped or changed into other substances, plants are killed or mutated, animals are born deformed and dead.

Most spells heal the nilbog, giving more fuel for the chaos to burn. Cleric spells may work; healing is thought to damage the nilbog. 

2 comments:

  1. As the 'sicko' who suggested that nilbogism might fit into your game theory about elves becoming goblins if they trespass against the level limit, I'd say that we are very much alike, and I really like what you've done with the place. ;)

    Warped stone and transformed landscapes as evidence that a nilbog is nearby... I envision s scene out of Mystery Men when Cassenova Frankenstein activates his machine, but against a Moebius drawn landscape and characters. ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am glad you liked it.

      I think a nilbog should be a monster that is an entire adventure not a monster that is a trap.

      Delete

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