Review: A Zero-Level Grimoire

A Zero Level Grimoire can be found on DriveThru RPG.

I saw this one pop up on the Goodman Games store several months ago. At the time it was available in print and had limited stock. I hesitated to get a copy because I live in Australia. Shipping here is insane at the best of times, and Goodman Games in particular seem very expensive in this regard. I almost had it sent to a friend who could ship it to me for cheaper, but alas, I ran out of time and A Zero Level Grimoire ran out of stock.

I was rather disappointed, and I wasn't the only one. Several commenters in the DCC subreddit had their eye on it too. Eventually I noticed that it was for sale again - this time digitally over on DTRPG. Good enough! I just wanted to get my hands on those spells!

A Zero Level Grimoire provides exactly what it says on the tin: 20 spells based on folk magic out of popular media (along with some fun little quotes from source media). All of the spells are just barely useful - which if you ask me is the perfect amount of useful for a 0th-level spell - and they all have a magical effect you could imagine of some sort of hedge magician. Beer Magic in particular is a fun inclusion, which reminds me of medieval women brewers being accused of witchcraft for being too good at beer.

Worth noting is that the opening page says all listed spells take more than an action to cast, though two of them are explicitly only one "round" long, and at 0th level a round and an action might as well be the same thing. Furthermore, these two spells are the ones that might be most useful in combat, so I found this to be initially confusing.

The mechanics given make 0th-level casting an interesting addition to the early stages of a campaign, although most actually scale fairly well into the later game as well. Each spell is given an "adjuvant", a spell component that can optionally be added to grant higher chances of success. Given the success rates and the fact that non-Wizard/Elf characters only get a d10 to cast (which happens to align with my alternate magic skills), these adjuvants are a welcome addition from both a mechanical and narrative perspective.

Something I was left wanting for was a method for 0-level characters in a funnel to have a selection of spells they know. This is A Zero Level Grimoire! However, all it provides is a recommendation that characters need to have learned these spells through study. This precludes brand new funnel characters from having any. My personal recommendation is that if you're going to allow these spells in your game, 0-level characters get their INT modifier (if positive) in 0th-level spells to begin the game, selected randomly. Players with a relevant occupation might be able to argue their case for why they should have a spell of their choice, INT notwithstanding. 

A Zero Level Grimoire delivers on its promise and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to add a little lower-level magic to their DCC games.

What happens to you when you die? - [blog100] pt. 2, q. 80

This post is part of a series where I put forth a challenge for bloggers to answer all 100 questions on this table by d4 Caltrops. This week I rolled an 80.

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80. What Happens when a Character Dies in your Setting?

They cease to biologically function and can no longer perform actions.

Okay, fine, I'll answer properly.

Something that seems to be inexorably tied to the concept of an afterlife is the existence of realms beyond our own. This is common across both fantasy and real-world religion, with heavens and hells of various descriptions being the usual answer to the question. Reincarnation is a notable exception, but nonetheless a person simply going somewhere else when they die is a prevalent notion in the zeitgeist and seemingly always has been.

It looks like this is going to be a continuation of my recent trend of ignoring DCC's advice to avoid an overly structured approach to the planes. Granted, the way my afterlife planes are designed is intentionally such that the structure doesn't get in the way and you can pretty much slot in whatever you want. The players don't need to (and shouldn't) learn how it "works".

On that note: here's how it works.

When a body dies, its soul escapes. The soul has influence on the corporeal world but exists primarily on the overlapping Ethereal Plane. It doesn't usually spend long here before moving on; it can take moments or hours, but for it to take a day or longer is unusual. These are the cases where something has gone wrong, such as a soul with strong willpower adamantly refusing to leave. These souls are what people call ghosts, and in severe cases where a ghost has lingered for months or years you get a haunting. Beware haunted places and objects, for if you die here your soul may join the occupants.

Where a soul then moves on to varies by circumstance. The Ethereal planes are the only place from which one can travel to planes beyond the physical reach of the Astral Sea that our Mundane World lies within. Deities, devils, demons, and other immortal figures create planes of their own that are not directly connected to our world, and the Ethereal acts as a halfway point through which a tunnel can be opened. Death is therefore a convenient process for those who want to gather souls from the Mundane World.

Deities will often invite their followers - especially the devout ones, including all Clerics - to join them in this plane after death. What this life looks like varies as much as the gods do. Devils prefer more "persuasive" methods than invitation, and demons will outright force you into their hell after destroying your physical body. To an average person who has done good by their god more often than not, and steered well clear of demons and devils, this generally leads to their expected afterlife. A soul with no claimants may be picked up by whomever is willing to take them.

You might notice that there's plenty of room in this process for conflicting claims to a soul, and this is why most deities (even the Chaotic ones) will consider a deal with a devil to be unholy. Deities, even the Chaotic ones, will not generally step in to rescue someone from a devil if their own sinful actions led them there. They may send guardians to save someone from the doom of being taken by a demon, but only the most devout of followers and highest-level Clerics are worth making a cosmic declaration of war over. Greater demons might be able to scare off even powerful gods and occasionally even snatch a Cleric from their rightful afterlife.

It's entirely possible to use this cosmology with DCC's p. 306 suggestion to have a dead party fight their way out of Hell - in fact, you could continue the adventure from the exact moment of their death, in the Ethereal realm. Perhaps the Cleric will have to deal with the fact that they must forsake their own afterlife to follow the party into Hell. It depends on the Cleric whether this would be considered a holy or unholy act. Perhaps the party all end up in different planes and some solo-adventures or group discussion is needed to bring them back together. I'd be wary about continuing play with an individual character who dies as it sets a precedent that death isn't permanent. But for a whole party, there's a few interesting options for continuing the story.

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This week, Judge Toast joined me on this challenge and posted about treasure in a dragon's hoard!

I encourage any other bloggers to check the table for inspiration. Even if you're not up to the challenge of doing them all alongside me, just do one!

Milestone Leveling and XP Leveling Compromise

The debate rages on between XP and Milestones. Perhaps "rages" is overdramatic - it's a conversation that will eternally exist because the answer is different for each table. Milestones seems to be the most popular option in the mainstream crowd, but I suspect my readers (hey, thats you!) lean more toward the older-school XP. Here, I attempt to find a middle ground. Let's create something that is neither comparable to accounting nor has the players asking "do we level up yet?" every session. We can call it Furlong Leveling, because the markers aren't as long as Milestones. Or we can call it "Experiences" Leveling, because it is based on discrete events rather than numerical values.

Goblin Punch wrote about The Legendarium and Popcorn Leveling. These are my primary inspirations, and this leveling system should be compatible with Legendarium-style bonuses (though not with Popcorn Leveling).

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Each player, in addition to their character sheet, has a list of Experiences. Each Experience is one line, and the first page should have 29 lines. This will last up to level 5. Here's a printable one with level markers on it.

An Experience can be:

• Obtaining a treasure
• Thwarting a powerful foe
• Completing the quest
• Making history

Each of these things is something that can be written down as an Experience and grants the player character a title like "Gognord the Minotaur Slayer", "Xenna, Wearer of the Flame Pendant" or "John the Negotiator". NPCs should refer to the characters this way sometimes, to give the players a sense of earning renown.

You go from level 0 to 1 with your first Experience. To use The Portal Under the Stars as an example, there are (maybe) two Experiences characters can gain here: the powerful foe and the treasure. You reach subsequent levels when you have filled a number of lines according to the following chart. Astute DCC players will see how I reached these numbers.

Level	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Experiences	1	5	11	19	29	41	55	71	89	109

Your players should be able to have one or two Experiences each session, though it's not guaranteed if they're the type to faff around a lot. All characters involved in the game session get the Experience.

Here are some more details about what counts as an Experience. These things are chosen to encourage fun adventures and are at the Judge's discretion.

Obtain Treasure: "Treasure" is an artifact whose primary value to the players is its monetary worth. It is something they can sell either for a hefty sum of gold, or choose to keep for bragging rights. The exact value that counts depends on the economy of your world, but the main point is that the Mona Lisa counts as treasure but a +1 sword doesn't, even if the sword is worth a lot of gold. Exceptions are mentioned below.

Thwart Foe: Defeating someone legendary or someone by whom you are truly outmatched. A small group of level 1 characters taking out a bugbear boss could count, but to a group of level 5 character's that might just be an average Tuesday. Note that foes must only be thwarted, not necessarily killed or defeated.

Complete Quest: Saving the blacksmith's daughter. This is usually completing a task for someone, giving them good reason to praise your name, though it could also be obtaining a particular artifact of legend or a long-term personal goal.

Making History: This can be anywhere from brokering an alliance to preventing (or causing) an apocalypse. If it goes in the history books, it counts. Being granted a fiefdom or becoming the owner of a legendary artifact can be making history.

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This system has the following advantages:

• No need for accounting, like milestones
• Players track and see their progress, like XP
• More compatible with sandbox play than milestones
• PCs get titles, titles are cool

For further reading on alternate XP for DCC, Scrolls from the Toaster wrote Fellowship Experience which is about having the players reward each other.

The d4 Caltrops Blog Challenge - [blog100] pt. 1, q. 92

d4 Caltrops is a fantastic resource. They're well-known for their d100 tables. They posted this table of 100 topics to inspire burgeoning blogs.

Fuck it, let's do them all.

Here's how the challenge works:

1. Roll a d100 on the table linked above.
2. Blog about that question.
3. Set your own schedule. Post once a week, once a month, whatever. Don't fret if this slows down later either.
4. Repeat steps 1 and 2 until you've written 100 posts about all 100 topics. Reroll repeated results, you may want to use smaller dice toward the tail end of the challenge.
5. Tell me about it! I'll link to your post at the bottom of the next one.

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92. What was one Major Conflict/War that has occurred within Recent Memory?

For the first entry I've rolled a 92, which is a difficult question for me to answer. My running campaign world is one that is being built from the bottom up, around the players as they adventure. I began with The Portal Under the Stars and the rest of the campaign so far has expanded from there. It's been a good few adventures now and they're still following the hook from the end of that very funnel.

So as for history, the only thing that is currently set in stone is the implied ancient battle from the "war room" in the dungeon that started the game, and a couple of ruins that they've run into while crossing the surrounding world. Those could still be from any time and involve any peoples. Other modules I've included in the world provide either recent local events or ancient history as a background (or both), which can fit into the world without interrupting anything. This is to be expected (modules are modular!) but what it does mean is that I haven't actually had to think about this so far. It hasn't been relevant to my players' journey.

It feels like a copout answer to just say "it isn't necessary", so I am going to actually answer the question properly as well, but this feels like a good opportunity to repeat something that has been repeated many times in the past, and yet cannot be repeated enough: prepare only what you need to play.

Realizing that your players don't care about the world as much as you do is a tough pill to swallow, but man is it good medicine. They will care! But they don't yet. Players only care about the game, so when they're invested in the game is also when they will begin to care about the world. Your players aren't interested in hearing about the decades-long history of two warring families disputing each others' claim to the throne until one family says "hey go get us that thing" and the other family goes "noooo you can't take our thing" and now your players have a side they like and a side they hate. Suddenly, information about the conflict might be useful, and that makes it compelling.

Quick sidebar: Alternatively, you can have players be a part of building the world like in Dungeon World or this activity by Judge Toast. That's a surefire way to make them care before you've even begun playing, but it means you have to hand over the reins.

What I'm saying is: don't prepare too much history because it doesn't matter until you get there and until it matters nobody cares. However, the corollary to prepare only what you need to play is that once you have prepared what you need, prepare what you want. That's where you can do your deep dives into history that isn't relevant to the game yet (or ever). That's where I can have the lonely fun of making up my own world and history - but I must remember that this part is for me, not for my players. I have to be prepared for them to never see it.

One of these things I've done extra-curricular prep for is the conflict between the Lords of the elemental planes.

DCC RPG lists Ithha, Prince of Elemental Wind as a wizardly patron, and gives him a nemesis: Grom, Lord of Stone. To further steal take inspiration from other authors, I took the reasonable assumption that there would be Lords of fire and water too. I thought the names Krakaal and Splaasha were a bit on-the-nose, though I did like how they sound like the elemental they represent. I ended up with Rulf, King of Elemental Flame and Ocea, Princess of Elemental Water. It's a matter of opinion whether that's any less on-the-nose.

I also deviated slightly from the source material with the relationships between these Lords. I went with the simpler model of elements being at war with their "opposite" (air hates earth, fire hates water) and allied with the other two. To put a twist in this, I stole yet again from this same source and threw in Azi Dahaka, another "Prince" patron, but allied him with Air and made Water his enemy, simply because it seemed to fit thematically.

And why do my players care?

Well, currently, they aren't privy to any of this. They have, however, thwarted the plans of some gnolls. In DCC RPG p. 416 gnolls are said to worship "the wicked elemental deities" and have the ability to invoke Ithha, so that's exactly what the gnolls were doing. Presumably, there are other gnolls elsewhere that worship the other Lords, so this may influence future relations between the party and potential Patrons. Furthermore, any random gnoll encounters in the future may worship different Lords and already have a reason to like or dislike the party, or it may become relevant to future endeavours into the elemental planes (should the party choose to go plane-hopping).

And all I had to do was prep the bare minimum and start playing, then fill in the blanks with other materials I stole from was inspired by. I've deviated from the original premise of this post quite a bit, but I think that's perfectly fine given that d4 Caltrops' table was intended as inspiration. It did inspire me, and I let this post go wherever that inspiration took me.

To round out this meandering post, it turns out that by doing only what I need and adding onto that only what I want, I've developed a history of interdimensional conflict that my players care about without even realizing it. Hell, toward the start of this post I even said there wasn't one, but there clearly is. The details just aren't worked out yet, and that's good. It'll get more nuanced as my players get themselves involved in it and we all - including myself - can discover the history along the way.

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Let's aim for next week for the next randomly selected post. Here is where I'll link to other participants' posts next time.

Infinite Elemental Planes

Elementalists are not all enlightened as to the exact origins of the extraplanar energies they evoke. Most assume it comes from somewhere outside their own space. A handful have rightly concluded that such a space might be accessible from our own.

A lucky few have survived such attempts.

The dangers of teleporting oneself directly into a universe made entirely of fire should be obvious. Opening portals is a safer method of accessing these realms (though prepare to deal with a torrent of water or fire from either of those planes) but even the more placid realms of pure earth and pure air are difficult to traverse or even survive.

If someone wishes to traverse the elemental planes, they would have much better chances in one of the other countless available options.

Do I need to give credit for a 400+ year old image? Kepler made this.

There are many models of the cosmos describing how the planes intersect and overlap. They are all wrong, of course, though some are useful. The elemental planes - at least those of our own Mundane World - can be represented by a tetrahedron. A four sided die, if you prefer. Each of the vertices on the tetrahedron represents the location of a pure elemental plane: fire, air, earth, water. But there are more than just points to a tetrahedron; they have edges and faces, and space within.

Each accessible coordinate in this space is it's own elemental plane, filled with mixed energies from the four pure vertices. There are theoretically infinite possible spaces which could be occupied by planes, though it is uncertain how precisely there can be measured.

The Prime Elemental Planes

Each of the elements has their Elemental Lord. Ithha, Prince of Elemental Wind (DCC RPG p. 356) is one such lord, as is his nemesis Grom. These powerful elementals reside in extreme reaches of the elemental tetrahedron, each in their own universe of near-pure elemental energy. These extremes usually only have a small, central location which is habitable (in a loose sense of the word) to life as we know it. The Prince of Wind takes audience in his palace in the endless sky, while Grom sits guarded by a terracotta army in his underground city.

Para-elemental Planes

At all other points within the tetrahedron and along its edges and surfaces exist universes of varying abundance of the elements. Here are some examples of planes that might be of interest to wizards and foolish adventurers. Elements are listed in order of their abundance, with unlisted elements indicating a complete or near-complete absence.

Archipelago (Water, Earth, Air): Chains of islands in an endless, calm sea.
Crucible (Earth, Fire, Air): A blistering-hot craggy land with rivers of molten iron.
Maelstrom (Water, Air, Earth): An endless tumultuous sea with permanent storms. 
Quagmire (Earth, Water, Air): A primordial swamp of mud and ooze, teeming with life. Toxic, disease-ridden life.
Waste (Earth, Air): A place of sand and dust with little wind and zero moisture. Neither hot nor cold, and very little life (even elementals).

There is a vast array of planes that are not habitable due to overabundance of fire or lack of traversible land, but there is also an endless number of spaces between to explore. The above list is far from exhaustive - any combination you can think of can be travelled to. It simply needs to be located.

Many of the habitable para-elemental planes are ducal territories of lesser elementals subservient to (or caught between) the Elemental Lords. The elemental planes are a space of constant and dynamic conflict.

The Elemental Gate

There exists a machine which was created to locate elemental planes and open up portals into them. It was created by a wizard who needed various elemental resources to power his alchemical pursuits, though he met his demise to an elemental who didn't see the humor in being ripped in half by an interdimensional portal... again. In the wizard's defense, the odds of this happening twice were astronomically slim.

The machine consists of a stone panel with a series of three wooden steering wheels like those on a ship, a theatrically-large throw-switch, a stone archway a human could walk through, and a "display": tetrahedron with a small sphere suspended inside it. Flavour this display to the wizard's style - it could be a glass prism with a rainbow sphere of light in it, or a wrought-iron cage with a mechanical rod holding the sphere up. Each corner should be marked with a symbol or color associated with its.

The wheels are each associated with one axis in 3d space (though they are not marked) and set the co-ordinates of the plane being targeted. The throw-switch opens or closes a portal in the archway to the selected elemental plane. Attempting to turn a wheel while the portal is open causes a violent expulsion of elemental energy. Don't mess around with the machine when it's turned on, dingus.

The "puzzle" for the players is to figure out how the machine works and use it to get to the elemental plane they desire. This probably involves a lot of trial and error, and it'll hopefully be a fun session of improv figuring out what each combination of elements looks like on the fly. Hopefully, the players think to navigate to each corner and test them one at a time. Worst comes to worst, I'm sure the wizard left some cryptic list of co-ordinates around here somewhere.

The reward is a hub zone for adventures across the elemental planes. This is sandbox stuff, so make sure you either ask your players what they intend to do ahead of time, have a bunch of touchstone planes to riff on, or be prepared for extreme multidimensional improv (as one should always be).

Colorful Orcs

Human skin tone varies a lot. It's not just one-dimensional, from light to dark. There's shades and there's undertones, making it a little more accurate to map skin tone two-dimensionally (though that's still not perfect). Fantasy races should be at least as varied, if not more - why should all Orcs be green? This can be used as part of DCC's philosophy around keeping things mysterious - skin color is even a part of the table on p. 380. Players will know the big buff green dude is an Orc, but they might not be so sure about a blue or yellow dude.

There are environmental factors that appear to affect the skin tone of a population. We know, for instance, that darker skin protects from the sun and lighter skin helps to produce vitamin D. Humans are adaptable and awesome. Below is a map that uses environmental factors to predict the distribution of skin colors of native populations across the globe - it's not always accurate when you start zooming in to specific places, but the general trend is close enough to actual data be interesting.

The obvious conclusion to draw is that skin tone tends darker near the equator and tends lighter near the poles. In Orcs, we are going to represent this as a gradient from green to red. Orcs in the cooler climates away from the equator will tend toward green, and Orcs in the warmer climates will tend toward red. Humans who are ignorant of biology (i.e. nearly everybody in a pseudo-medieval fantasy setting) will call these populations things like "Woods Orcs", "Plains Orcs" and "Desert Orcs".

As the chart tends downward, we see the Orcish equivalent to undertone. This is a bit more complex in humans than the overtones but it has something to do with the structure of our skin and blood vessels - we don't need to get too noodly with that here. What I'm going to roughly correlate this axis to is altitude, which lets us have populations in mountain ranges and mesa that vary from blue "Snow Orcs", to grey "Stone Orcs", to light reddish "Clay Orcs".

These colors often match relatively well with the colors of their biomes (some exceptions), so we can say that camouflage is an additional environmental pressure that could contribute to these colorings. Orcs are hunters, so camouflage is a useful tool.

While humans (and indeed, players) may assume these different varieties of Orc come with special abilities, any difference between populations is more significantly a cultural one than a biological one. This is up to and including their magic, which would come from different Patrons. The environment a population is found in should absolutely be considered when developing their culture, which will likely fuel stereotypes about the differences between Snow Orcs and Sands Orcs. Travelling bands of Orcs should have one or two that stand out from the rest, maybe with an item of cultural significance on them, hinting at faraway lands.

Similar charts can be built for species like Elves which often have variations (High Elves, Dark Elves, Wood Elves) rather than putting each Elf into a clear, discrete category. Goblins, however, don't have this kind of variation due to their less naturalistic origins.

Goblins Can't Die

Goblins are gross little weirdos. They're known for being quick to violence, even among themselves. Some say they're cowardly fighters. That's not entirely accurate. They're just smart enough to know when they can't beat someone in a fair fight - not that they have much concern for your idea of fair. When they can't win fairly, they win unfairly instead. This might come across as cowardly, but wanting to win doesn't mean they're afraid to die. Why should they be? Goblins can't die.

Goblin Death

Many a Warrior has slain a goblin or five, many a man-at-arms has helped to ward off a raid at the skirts of their village. Any experienced fighter can tell you that a goblin goes down easier than a man. It's laughable to suggest they cannot die. They seem to die quite easily, in fact.

When a goblin is rent in twain by the Warrior's blade, its body ceases to live. The jury is still out on whether these unsavoury little bastards have souls, but something remains. We know this because the goblin comes back. Goblins who have been slain have occasionally been known to recognize the person who slew them, and to be extra clever, extra sneaky, extra cruel the next time they encounter their would-be murderer. They'll still often make the same mistake twice, and they'll be even angrier about it the third time.

This easily explains their lack of fear in the face of certain death, quickness to violence, and even goes some way to explaining why they have no apparent sanitary standards. Illness isn't exactly going to kill them, is it?

Goblin Birth

Goblins are born from a fleshy orifice, much like the rest of us. Motherhood is something usually associated with nice words like "nurturing" and "beautiful". A goblin mother is much less nurturing and a whole lot more fleshy and orificey. They tend to be associated with words like "mound", "heap", or if the goblins are on the move, "ball".

It appears that when a goblin is slain, its body and mind return to its mother as it decomposes. The mechanism through which this occurs is unknown, though many have noted that a goblin corpse decays at an alarmingly rapid rate. If this process were understood, it might be possible to prevent goblin reincarnation; a useful tactic for pushing back against their oppressive horde. There may be some magic ritual, some binding seal, or a particular method of slaughter which makes them stay dead. There are certainly a lot of superstitions about this.

Perhaps the bane of the goblin varies from brood to brood, which has contributed to any consistent method remaining undiscovered.

Goblin Mothers

The green-skinned, hairy-moled mass of flesh the goblins call "mom" usually has only one orifice. It often (though not always) resembles a humanoid orifice, along with any related foul secretions. Goblins are born from it.

A mother can be anywhere from the size of a workhorse to the size of a castle's keep, depending on the numbers of its brood. Small goblin crews will roll their mother around, with a handful of scouts ahead, clearing a path through violent means if necessary. The goblins are more protective of their mother than themselves. They seek a permanent home for their mother, for once she grows beyond a certain size she will be effectively impossible to move any more, first becoming unreasonably heavy and then physically attaching herself to the inside of a cavern wall.

Below table is intentionally unpleasant.

d12 disgusting orifices:

1. A weeping, yellowed, bloodshot eye
2. A waxy ear
3. A drooling mouth, tongue hanging out
4. A vomiting mouth
5. A snorting, sneezing, crooked goblin nose
6. A smooth fleshy tube that you can't see the end of, pulsating
7. A gaping wound
8. A pustule
9. Skin pores, like the suriname toad
10. No orifice - the goblins just burst out Alien-style, and feeding is a mystery
11. A birth canal
12. An anus

Hobgoblins and Bugbears

Hobgoblins and bugbears are commonly known to be a variety of goblin, though their true nature is known by few. Hobgoblins have been noted to be slightly more human-like - they stand straighter, fight smarter, and seem to sit higher in the goblin hierarchy than your garden-variety goblin. Bugbears have been noted to be more animal-like - they are bulky, hairy, stupid, and can only exert dominance over the other goblins by bullying them into submission.

These observations are no coincidence.

Unlucky victims of a goblin gang are sometimes ritualistically fed to the goblin mother as a celebration of the clan's growth. Human and demihuman victims of these rituals lead to the creation of a hobgoblin, sometimes sharing traits of the original person but never retaining memories or personality. If there is anything remaining of the individual after the metamorphosis, it is hidden deep beneath the goblin savagery that displaces it.

Similarly, bugbears appear to form when the mother is fed a large animal. Bears may be the origin of the name, though bugbears have been identified in bovine, equine, and crocodilian varieties. No such creatures form when the mother is fed its usual diet of small animals such as rats - it is uncertain whether mass is a critical factor or the goblins simply don't perform the necessary rituals with small creatures.

The Goblin Grandmother

It was noted by goblinographers and goblinologists that goblins don't seem to have nearly the regard for their mothers that they ought to. This isn't just a moral criticism; it makes sense that goblins do not fear death when death is not permanent, but what if their mother were destroyed? The goblins try to protect her, but not like their life depends on it. More like it would be a huge pain in the ass to have to roll her all the way back out there again.

This observation led to the discovery of the Goblin Grandmother at the site where the paths of travelling goblin squads converge. A great pit of goblin flesh exists hidden in a valley, far from civilization. You'd notice the odor long before you reached it. You'd be ambushed by goblins soon after that. It is hypothesized that the Grandmother is a large enough creature to physically enter and explore the innards of, and that to stop the goblin menace once and for all, one would have to destroy its heart from within.

The Great Gran̵d̷m̴o̸̱͑t̸͉̍h̶̝̒e̶͙͎͗r

Don't be ridiculous. There is no Great Grandmother, and you'll do well to put that thought away for good. Don't go looking for her now, will you?