Our Goblins Are Different

Goblins come in various alignments:
Chaotic Perverted (the bad kind), Chaotic Perverted (the good kind), Chaotic Adorable,
and Chaotic Scientificial.

"Goblins don't need to justify their cruel acts. They're evil creatures."

— Grandpa Seth, Troll 2

Goblins in fiction are usually small, ugly creatures which tend to be evil, crabby, and/or mischievous. While they're smaller and weaker than orcs (when the word doesn't refer to the same creature) and trolls (most of the time), goblins may make up for this by being dangerous in other ways. They may manufacture clever traps to trip up the unwary foe, or overwhelm him through sheer numbers. But goblins in folklore and fantasy fiction can differ almost as much as trolls do.

In folklore, goblins were diminutive household pests, or at best wild creatures, and were typically conflated with whatever trolls and/or faeries fit the trope. A stronger form of goblin may be known as a hobgoblin, though the term originally denoted the friendlier variety of goblin (the word "hob" being derived either from the shelf at the back of a fireplace and thus indicating "hearth and home" or from a Middle English nickname for "Robert"). English Puritans later started using the word "hobgoblin", originally meaning a friendlier variety of goblin, to mean "demon", which probably is why Tolkien used the word "hobgoblin" to mean "a bigger goblin". Both goblins and hobgoblins, if they were viewed at all as a mythical race, instead of just monsters or diminutive faeries of the nasty sort, would be generally considered the "dark" version of elves or dwarves in that culture.

When Lafcadio Hearn was translating a lot of Japanese legends into English for the very first time, he tended to use the term "goblin" as a catch-all for a lot of things that we would now call Yōkai, which can result is an exaggerated form of this trope, as a lot of very disparate creature types will be called "goblins".

In fantasy, goblins have gained a distinct purpose: their lack of size and strength makes any evil act they may commit seem comical by default, and thus they tend to serve as the lowest rung of the Sorting Algorithm of Evil, and are usually the first kind of Mook a budding adventurer will fight, essentially making them The Goomba of RPGs. "Hobgoblin" has become the denomination for a stronger variety of goblins (which may or may not be conflated with the orc), typically closer to humans in size. This usage of the word was propagated by Dungeons & Dragons. Generally if you have both hobgoblins and orcs, hobgoblins will be a more "civilised" regimented evil while orcs will be dim, marauding barbarians — though, aesthetically, goblins will be the ones who grab their stuff from the scrap yard while the orcs will buy their equipment (or kill you and take it from your corpse).

Since many depictions of goblins have traits you'd find in certain propaganda, there tend to be some Unfortunate Implications. This is especially the case when their design and mannerisms heavily borrow traits from said stereotypes.

Two trends in modern (approx. 2000s) fantasy is to make goblins have a slightly more fleshed out role by:

Turning them into a Proud Merchant Race with a unique gift for managing your money, or separating you from it. This, in particular, can, lean into the above Unfortunate Implications.
Making goblins masters of technology, often shunned by other races in the setting (with gnomes, dwarves, and humans being possible exceptions). In accordance with the less-than-serious overall image of goblins, their inventions tend to be rickety and unstable, hilariously violent, or they simply explode spectacularly at the slightest provocation.

See also Our Orcs Are Different, for another fantasy species goblins are often linked to, and Our Kobolds Are Different, for another species with similar folkloric origins and use in modern fantasy, as well as Standard Fantasy Races.

Examples:

Literature

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Animation

Shinbi's Haunted House: Going off of Shinbi as an example, goblins are small, green magical creatures who feed off the energy generated by human dwelling places. They're more mischievous than evil, and are cute rather than grotesque.

Anime and Manga

Digimon Frontier has Grumblemon, a weird combination of a gnome and a goblin with Earth based powers, who in the English Dub also has a You No Take Candle speech pattern.
In Goblin Is Very Strong, goblins, especially female goblins, are the hapless prey of low-level adventurers — with the exception of the protagonist, who has managed to reach the level cap.
In The Legend of Snow White, goblins are fire spirits, short in stature and humanoid but with distinctive triangular noses. Their ruler is Prince Gobby, who starts out as a villain who tries to force Snow White to marry him, but has a Heel–Face Turn when he finds true love with a girl goblin named Memole.
Peter Grill and the Philosopher's Time: Goblins are a One-Gender Race who wish to rape members of the other species to breed much like many other examples except here they are all-female and after males, so it's played for comedy. Most of them are not portrayed as traditionally attractive by human standards, but main character Gobuko and some of her cohorts are hot Hobgoblins and she ends up in the protagonist's Unwanted Harem.
The goblins in So What's Wrong With Getting Reborn As a Goblin? have some oddities to them. Alongside their blue skin, rather short lifespans (around a week at most), and no need for sleep (due to these short lifespans limiting the time they have to do everything else), these goblins also have the ability to pass on their "birth spells" and inherit traits that are separate from their base status. These inherited traits cannot be transferred to another goblin after they die, only their base stats. The main goblin, Akira, carries the unique "octogenarian" status, which allows him to live for 80 human years, and he inherits so many traits that the humans start worrying about him becoming a demon lord.

Comic Books

Gold Digger (Antarctic Press): The Gaoblins were once a race that fought with the Dynasty as their willing army. But when their masters ran for quasi-space, they abandoned the Gaoblins to the rest of the universe. In order to hide from the universal lynch-mob from killing them they slaughtered the Eldrich, Trolvic, Atlantian and Krynn. Then disguised themselves genetically as the ones they slaughtered. All except for the ones who resided on the Dynasty's base-station "Oblivion" remained true Gaoblin.
Smut Peddler Presents: My Monster Girlfriend: Goblins in "Rogue-Like" are green humanoid, mouse-like creatures, Balst being the only instance we see.
Spider-Man: The series features a number of villains with goblin motifs (mostly Green Goblins and Hobgoblins). They are usually just super powered humans with gadgets. The only exceptions would be Demogoblin, who was a demon that was once bonded to one of the many Hobgoblins, and the Ultimate Spider-Man (2000) version of Norman Osborn, who could turn into a green brute that bore a closer resemblance to an actual goblin.
Thor (Marvel Comics): Fairly standard short green ones appear living across the ten realms. The fire giant Surtur has a race of children called the Fire Demons that are occasionally called Fire Goblins. Their bodies are constantly on fire, and their height varies.

Comic Strips

Little Nemo in Slumberland: While most goblins in Nightmareland are evil, the Boomps are good goblins who are outcasts in Nightmareland and enemies of the Nightmare King.
Phoebe and Her Unicorn: The goblins are basically civilized, but speak entirely in "blart"s, which Marigold can translate. Their laughter causes apps on phones to crash.
The Twilight Empire: Robinson's War: "Jenrats" are greenish-skinned, pointy-eared humanoids used as lackeys by tyrants and warlords such Lord Ugo and the Witch-Queen. They are often seen lairing inside caves, and are equipped with little besides simple rags and crude knives and shields.

Fan Works

In Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, it is posited by Harry that goblins are just humans under a sort of inherited genetic curse and not, lamentably, an incredibly valuable second data point for the origin of intelligent life. (This is, however, never confirmed in the story, leaving Epileptic Trees to grow).
The Haunted Mansion and the Hatbox Ghost Fan Verse takes a mention of "goblins and ghoulies" in canon, a Marc Davis sketch of a short chicken-footed ghost, and rolls with it. Harking back to the original medieval goblins, these goblins are a type of spirits (though they do have the 'deformed little humanoid' look when visible). They are very mischievous and are a level under demons.
In My Little Warcraft - New Friends after being brought to Equestria and having his hair conditioned, Gai'vahros Dawnbreaker makes an offhand remark about how expensive it is to get a haircut from Goblins. Twilight is initially weirded out by this statement on the grounds that Goblins from Equestria are brutish uncivilized creatures that wouldn't be trusted to open a cupboard for her.
Gai'vahros: No. No, neither would I, my Lady Twilight. They would probably find a way to blow it up.
In the There Was Once an Avenger From Krypton universe, Tales of Arcadia-style animalistic goblins are the main variety, with Harry Potter ones being a subspecies with a more human-like intelligence.
Hopkoblins from We Can Be Heroes are pale-skinned, wide-eyed goblin aliens loosely based on the Hopkinsville Goblin. The males tend to be built like their inspiration thanks to being hairless, tiny, and having long, thin limbs. The females meanwhile are taller and proportioned closer to humans, have hair, and tend to be more muscular. They hail from a ridiculously bleak planet called Dizmol, and as a whole tend to be grumpy, miserable people with mannerisms based on surly New Yorkers.
In With Strings Attached, the goblins of Goblin Valley are "a burnt orange, big-headed, toothy folk, averaging three feet in height." George has to become one, and to his great disgust he discovers that "he was weak, his head made him oddly balanced, his tongue was long enough that he could have made Gene Simmons cry, and almost from the moment he became the thing he started craving meat and got a permanent hard-on from wanting to screw everything in sight. He ended up having to *ping* turn himself into a eunuch and prayed to God he wouldn't get stuck that way".

Films — Animation

Although his species isn't explicitly identified, Creeper from The Black Cauldron fits the usual description, being a small green creature who acts as a complete toady to an Evil Overlord.
Goblins as depicted in The Hobbit (1977) look very odd compared to most stereotypical depictions of goblins, large (at least to a hobbit), putrid creatures, either hugely muscular or fat. They also had bulbous toad-like heads featuring tusks, lupine ears, canine-like noses, horns, and even two throats. This design is recycled in The Return of the King. Also, they are amazing singers.
The goblins in The Princess and the Goblin (1992) have incredibly tough skin, to the point that boulders falling on their head don't bother them and swords bend when they strike. They're incapacitated by even light blows to their feet though, and cheerful singing repels them.
The goblins in Scooby-Doo! and the Goblin King, including the eponymous Goblin King, have the green skin, Pointy Ears, and Sinister Schnoz typical of several depictions of goblins. Unlike most goblins, however, the film's goblins have bat wings and are capable of flight.
Sleeping Beauty (1959): Maleficent's goons are usually interpreted as being goblins, being small, green, idiotic, animal-like (as in pig-like, bat-like, bird-like and crocodile-like) Mooks.
The Hétszűnyű Kapanyányimonyók or Kapanyelű Facika from Son of the White Horse, based on Hungarian folklore, is a small, mischievous, and insanely powerful entity, seemingly made of clouds and lightning — and, in a twist not taken from folklore, is actually God in disguise. While alternatively called "Seven Winged Skull-Size Gnome" or "Seven Hearted Lobahobgoblin" in English, its archaic name actually means something like "Seven Cubit Beard and Skull-Sized Egg/Testicle", with his alternative name meaning "Hoe-Handle Sized Dick". The film mercifully focuses only on the size of his beard.
The goblins in Strange Magic are pretty diverse, ranging from (relatively) small ones with bird beaks to frog-like ones to big muscly scaley versions. Their king is both more humanoid and more insect like.

Films — Live-Action

The Field Guide to Evil: In "What Ever Happened to Paganus the Pagan?", goblins are minor demons from Greek Mythology. They dwell in The Underworld and are only allowed to travel to Earth one day a year, Christmas, where they play tricks on drunken humans, like a low-power version of The Krampus. They're probably meant to be Kallikantzaros, a Christmastime monster from Greek folklore.
The Gremlins of the Gremlins films are basically goblins, though with a very odd life cycle (start off as a fuzzy creature, mutate into a green-skinned furless creature if they eat after midnight, reproduce spontaneously if exposed to water...).
Hiruko the Goblin: The titular goblins are more like spiderlike Big Creepy-Crawlies that like to attach human heads to their bodies.
In Hobgoblins, they're plush-sized furry space creatures that can make your deepest fantasies manifest. They're also incredibly incompetent for monsters. They only manage to kill one guy in the entire film. They even failed to kill one of the main characters!
Peter Jackson's The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit adaptations portray the goblins as small orcs that live in the Misty Mountains. As indicated in supplementary material, the filmmakers envisioned the goblins as originating from remnants of Morgoth's orc armies that fled under the mountains after the end of the First Age.
- The Goblins of Moria featured in The Fellowship of the Ring are green-skinned with large eyes, wear heavy armor, and are very adept climbers. Word of God is that they have a cult worshiping the Balrog as their god, with their armor and weapons modeled after its appearance.
- The Goblin-town Goblins featured in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey are pale, riddled with deformities, and generally more feeble-looking than their Moria counterparts.
Labyrinth features goblins as its villains. Most of them are straight (if rather varied) examples of the trope, except the Goblin King, who looks like... well, David Bowie. Probably why fanon almost universally maintains that Jareth is a fairy, that and he fits the profile extraordinarily well. (An alternative fanon explanation is that Jareth is, basically, the previous Toby. This is seemingly confirmed in Labyrinth: Coronation by Simon Spurrier, although Spurrier says the book is non-canon and has an Unreliable Narrator).
Legend (1985): Darkness' evil minions are goblins. Their chief, Blix, looks the most like a classic goblin, with wrinkled, greenish skin and a giant beak of a nose. Pox however is a furry goblin with a piglike face.
Master Yoda from Star Wars is an alien who has a similar look to a classic goblin, but otherwise he is truly different. He is a wise, benevolent and nimble creature who is only comical when he is Obfuscating Stupidity to test a potential new disciple.
Troll 2, which has nothing to do with Troll (1986) and has no trolls in it, is about goblins in a town known as Nilbog. They are evil vegetarians who can disguise themselves as humans, which they like doing to trick people into consuming some kind of creepy green stuff that turns them into piles of spinach, so that the vegetarian goblins can eat them. The goblins are portrayed by little people wearing potato sacks and masks, which come in a total of three different designs, one of which is hilariously bug-eyed. They also fight with fishing spears, even when they're trying to hunt people.

Live-Action TV

Goblins are used by witches as Familiars in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. They take the form of animals but when being summoned or killed they look like ugly bald Horned Humanoids with Pointy Ears.
Doctor Who: The 2023 Christmas Special "The Church on Ruby Road" features goblins as the Monsters of the Week. They are transdimensional beings who live on the fringes of Earth's dimension up in the sky, dipping in to orchestrate bad luck surrounding select humans as a prelude to kidnapping victims to eat. According to the Doctor, they technically aren't magic but operate on another physical level.
Guardian: The Lonely and Great God: Kim Shin, the title character, is a dokkaebi, the Korean equivalent of a goblin. He's nothing like most Western versions of goblins; he looks like a normal human, but he's immortal and has supernatural powers.
The Mandalorian: Grogu, being another member of Yoda's species, creates a lot of mischief for his adoptive father Din Djardin.
Merlin (2008) has a literal goblin in "Goblin's Gold". It's a small, greenish, bald creature that loves gold and playing tricks on people. It makes several people fart, makes Uther lose his hair and gives Arthur donkey ears. It can take over a person's body and control them, and the only way to get it out is to almost kill the host.
The Noddy Shop has a family of goblins that are tiny, ugly-cute people. The mother and father are mischievous rather than outright mean, while their son, Boobull, doesn't want to be that way.
Phineas from Power Rangers Mystic Force was only half-goblin. But being half troll, both halves combined to make a really ugly guy, according to his explanation of his Backstory.
Star Trek: Just as Vulcans and Klingons are basically Space Elves and Space Orcs, respectively, so Ferengi are very much Space Goblins and may have helped inspire the recent interpretation of goblins as a mercantile race.
Wimzie's House features two goblin children among Wimzie' daycare friends, siblings Jonas and Loulou. They're light green, froglike creatures. Their species has no effect on their personalities, though: they act just like any other kids.

Music

Gloryhammer: On their second album, Space 1992: Rise of the Chaos Wizards, The "Goblin King of the Darkstorm Galaxy" attacks a human-based Imperium with a space battlefleet and a magic crystal that can unleash "evil from the sky.", which he then gives to Evil Sorcerer Zargothrax so he can wreak even more havoc.
Canadian folkpunk band The Dreadnoughts have an instrumental track called "Goblin Humppa". It has a very manic, slightly sinister energy, as befits the title.

Myths and Religion

Hobgoblin is Hob Goblin, or Robert/Robin Goblin, also known as Robin Goodfellow or Puck. He's a cheerful sprite sometimes associated with the Devil. You call him Hob to avoid speaking his name and Goodfellow to avoid speaking offense.
Greek Mythology had the kobaloi, small mischievous goblinoids that liked to trick, scare, and bite people. In addition to them were the kallikantzaros, which were hairy trouble makers that lived underground, but unlike kobaloi, were sometimes described as large and bestial.
The Redcap of Scottish folklore, a short figure wearing a cap drenched in the blood of travellers clubbed to death by him. He requires the blood to survive and can be warded off by reciting a verse of The Bible or with a crucifix.
The toyol of Malaysian Mythology is a ghost in the form of a baby with fangs, green skin and pointed ears who steals things from humans. They can be stopped by scattering buttons, sweets, coins, toys or marbles on the floor because they will stop and play with them.
The Hopkinsville Goblins, a group of cryptids (generally assumed to be aliens) alleged to have terrorized a family in rural Kentucky. They were described as having glowing yellow eyes, large pointed ears, big heads and spindly limbs in addition to being three feet tall and Immune to Bullets.
The dokkaebi from Korean Mythology. They are sometimes known as "Korean goblins" and "dokkaebi" is often translated as "goblin" in English.
A lot of the Yōkai concepts from Japanese folklore, when translated into English by Lafcadio Hearn, were rendered as "goblin".

Podcasts

The Account, a podcast audio drama, features Nyro Guillome, a modern-day goblin squire who possesses a keen sense for magic and considerable one-on-one fighting finesse. She's also considered traditionally attractive, though the all-audio show makes it difficult to confirm that.
Dice Funk: The Blackhearts are led by a goblin simply called The Fox. While short, he has no problem holding a unicorn over the side of a ship with his strange red hand. Then there's the sword sticking out of his neck....
In Past Division, the goblins have been severely buffed from their canon Dungeons & Dragons counterparts, and also experience an increase in height.

Pro Wrestling

Kobald, the sewer dwelling goblin of CHIKARA.

Roleplays

Adylheim has goblins that can only be seen through the corner of the eye, and spend much of their time seemingly moving small objects around randomly. Oh and touching them is very, very bad luck.
In the Dagorhir LARP, goblins and orks are a collective ("the greenskins"). Although the orks are the larger and more powerful folks and typically wield more authority and influence, the Big Boss is currently a goblin. Consequently their "cunnin' plans" tend to involve less brute force and more silliness. With the exception of a few, they are predominantly cannon fodder. Note that the spelling of "ork" with a K is intentional. Also note that here the difference between "goblin" and "ork" is predominantly a question of size, and that they are otherwise functionally identical.
In the NERO LARP, goblins are green, small and have orange mohawks. Depending on the average player level of the franchise the can range from significant threats in large numbers to comedy relief. Hobgoblins are reddish-brown and have more hit-points and are less likely to be used as comedy relief.

Tabletop Games

Bleak World: Goblins are part of the Jotun race and are generally speaking the most destructive, they believe that the Jotun were kicked out of heaven because they were to weak and seek to prove that this is no longer the case by raiding and killing all across the Earth.
Broken System by Luke Gearing turns them into starving, feral children from razed cities, either by mundane war or by something else. The book leaves it ambiguous if it's a physical transformation as well, or if they're just Wild Childs.
Changeling: The Lost has the hobgoblins, things that live in the dimension between Earth and Faerie. They're not quite as powerful as the True Fae, but they operate by the same rules. They're also extremely diverse, ranging from Will-o'-the-Wisps to kelpies to cunning merchants to gigantic trapdoor spiders.
- While hobgoblins are monsters from the Hedge, it should be noted that "goblin" is a word signifying not the type of creature, but a type of behavior, so to speak. "Goblin" can refer to any fae being who is opportunistic and disloyal (whether a Changeling or a hobgoblin of any sort), or someone who works for a Goblin Market. There are also a lot of Changelings that could be described as "Goblin-like", especially those of the "Wizened" seeming.
- In Changeling: The Dreaming, on the other hand, the closest thing to goblins are the Nocker kith, wiry and foul-mouthed individuals with a tendency towards mad science (and Explosive Instrumentation). In folklore "nockers" or "knockers" are more or less the same as kobolds. Goblins later appeared as their own race, one of the Thallain, and part of the Shadow Court. They have the unique ability called "Mayhem" that lets them make improbably destructive weapons out of just about anything.
The Chronicles of Aeres has two kinds of goblin. Standard goblins are an Always Chaotic Evil created by literally wringing every last drop of goodness from the soul of a gnome or halfling, creating a feral, barely-sapient creature motivated purely by hate and spite. If they live long enough, they grow into Orcs. In comparison, Drauglirs are gnomes who were mutated by exposure to Black Magic; they're surly, avaricious and have a very "goblinlike" appearance, with sickly green skin and haggard builds, but they're one of the non-evil races of the setting, and hate the Vulgraks for turning them into their new state. Drauglirs are known as master trap-builders, and can also briefly assume a form of living obsidian.
Chronopia: Most goblins are vassals of the Blackblood Empire serving as nimble scouts and cannonfodder. But from various jungle tribes there are Dual Wielding Swordmasters, the desert-dwelling shock troop Crimson Blades with their two-handed falchions and also the empire has goblins riding Ripper-Beasts, vicious landbound bird-reptile hybrides somewhat reminiscent to the prehistoric Axebeak.
- There is one free tribe of goblins who grew powerful enough to become their own faction. The Swamp Goblins are a primitive tribe who are well-versed in herb and insect lore - allowing them to tame the beasts and master the use of poison. The Swamp Goblins are also allies with the Elven House, Yellow Lotus.
The Dark Eye: Goblins are creatures with reddish-brown fur. They still are clever, dangerous in large numbers and often get bullied by larger races like orcs. Instead of wolves, they ride wild boars, which is also how they depict their mother-goddess. In the latest edition of the game, goblins (along with orcs and lizardmen) became a playable race.
In Dragon Dice, goblins are a race that is equivalent in strength to any of the other races. They are composed of the elements of Earth and Death, and find their home in the swamps of the setting. Instead of the usual warg or wolf mounts for their cavalry, they have trained leopards to serve as mounts.
Dungeons & Dragons:
- The goblinoids, as they are referred to in-universe, are a broad family of related species and one of the most common and diverse categories of both sapient humanoids and enemy types; while generally similar insofar as they share a humanoid body plan, large and pointed ears, long arms and unpleasant dispositions, they otherwise cover a good deal of this trope's uses and variations:
  - Goblins proper, being small, cowardly, and sneaky critters, are the most common and most "basic" type of goblinoid and usually fit the bill of first-level adventurer fodder.
  - Hobgoblins, the second of the three main goblinoid species, are larger and more orc-like, and tend to be militaristic and intelligent. They also despise goblins, seeing them as weak and contemptible runts — when a hobgoblins encounter their weaker cousins, they typically either conscript them as cannon fodder, enslave them, or just wipe them out. In Eberron, hobgoblins used to control most of the main continent. They had an empire that fell due to extraplanar and human invasions. In the current situation, goblinoids range from working-class laborers to scholars or well-to-do merchants. There's also a hobgoblin-ruled country that tries to recreate some of the old empires' splendor. Goblins and bugbears were also an integral part of the empire, although they were not the ruling class.
  - Bugbears, the third main species, are even bigger and generally hairier, and are brutal, savage thugs who enjoy attacking from ambush. They rarely form their own societies, generally either living alone, joining hobgoblin warbands as hired muscle, or taking over goblin tribes by force.
  - Of course, with Eberron having no such thing as Always Chaotic Evil (except for planar/fiendish creatures), goblinoids are not always evil. While they do practice slavery, goblinoids are also more tolerant of other races than humans themselves (they will allow worthy humans, dwarves and even halflings to join their clans with full citizenship if they are badass enough).
  - Other goblinoid species — generally either rare, setting-specific, obscure or all three — include norkers ^note, nilbogs^note, varags^note, vril^note, dekanters^note, bhukas^note, forestkith^note, sunscorch hobgoblins ^note and many others.
- Besides the goblinoids proper, there's a tremendous number of small humanoid races that could fit the "goblin" profile, and might even be called goblins in other worlds. Among others, there are meazels^noterunty subterranean creatures that prey on other humanoids that share their caves, tasloi^notearboreal green-skinned diminutive humanoids that can be either hostile or friendly towards others, xvarts^notetribal three-foot-tall blue-skinned cave-dwellers that can be described as evil Smurfs, phanatons^notecreatures resembling crosses between a tarsier and a flying squirrel, with prehensile tails, dark creepers^notestunted humanoids with goat legs, highly adept at sneaking around their underground homes, meenlocks^notehairy, vaguely arachnoid humanoids who reproduce by turning captives into more of their kind (pre-5th Edition) or who come into being as manifestations of humanoids' fears (5th), blindheims^notesubterranean, froglike bipeds with glowing eyes, and many many more.
  - Kobolds (small lizard-like creatures related to dragons, Retconned from the original scaly but mostly doglike humanoids) serve a similar role as goblins insofar as providing cheap adventure fodder for low-level players, but can be somewhat more dangerous to unwary heroes due to their aligning to this trope's affinity for artifice far more than true goblins — especially where Booby Traps are concerned.
  - Among The Fair Folk, there are mites (small, pathetic goblin-like creatures that live underground and have a strong affinity for arthropods) and redcaps (essentially as they are in fairytales — murderous little imps who enjoy dipping their hats in the blood of their victims).
  - Ravenloft has "goblyns", humans transformed by a curse or spell into scaly, fanged brutes who unquestioningly obey the evil master who transformed them. Gremishkas, furry snarling pests resembling rabid monkeys, are more animalistic than either goblyns or goblins, but match the fairy-tale "goblin" concept, being small aggressive creatures that enjoy thievery and sabotage.
Exalted: Hobgoblins are the least of The Fair Folk, serving their more elegant kin and creators as footsoldiers, raiders and servants, although the Fair Ones' retreat from Creation after their failed invasion left many hobgoblin bands stranded in pockets of Wyld energies and cut off from the rest of Fair Folk society. They're always monstrous and misshapen in appearance, although beyond this their shapes can vary wildly based on their makers' whims or the dominant elemental influences of the areas where they make their home — hobgoblins in the swamps of the South may take the form of dark, red-eyed stalkers in the fog, while ones from the Northern snows may bear thick coats of white hair and long ivory tusks.
Fiasco: Goblins in the fanmade playset Goblin Uprising are ambitious, reckless, significantly less smart than they think they are, unscrupulous and not overly concerned with morality: in other words, perfect Fiasco characters. They ride spiders, breed rats to eat, form alliances with virtually anything up to and including a brood of goo monsters, create explosives, and practice strange magics such as "kleptomancy" (divination by theft), Torog's Uncontrollable Explosive Flatulence, and the summoning of random planar beings.
Four Against Darkness: They are weak minions who can take bribes to go away. Goblin swarmlings act as vermin.
Gobblin' focuses entirely on the creatures. They're obnoxious little creatures that are commonly green, but vary in color, size, and shape. They actually have a slow but powerful Healing Factor that lets them reattach or regrow body parts, though the majority of them are unaware of this fact and may flee at the first sign of danger. They were considered annoying and useless (but dangerous) enough to be banished entirely from their universe and dumped into a post-apocalyptic Earth. They happen to love it there and start to rebuild it as their own world.
Godforsaken: Hederar are goblin-like humanoids native to the Comerelk jungle, small of size and selfish of spirit. They dress in furs and skins, and use crude tools and weapons of sharpened wood or stone. They eat flesh and greedily lust after shiny treasures of any kind. They live in small, wandering bands and sometimes capture and force other creatures, like wolves or hyenas, to serve them. They also each have a unique, and mostly random, magical ability that they can innately access.
GURPS, being a generic system, can offer various sorts of goblin. For example:
- GURPS Goblins features an entire alternate Earth exactly like ours circa the 1830s, but inhabited only by goblins — a parody of Regency England. These particular goblins are extremely varied, being shaped by the exact forms of mistreatment they suffer in childhood, but are alike in being base, crude, and vulgar, as well as standing up to cartoon levels of interpersonal violence.
- Banestorm features goblins as short, green humanoids, immigrants from the mostly arid desert world of Gabrook. They are intelligent, civilized and naturally curious, and actually fit well enough into human society. Hobgoblins are their larger, dumber cousins; while a few live among goblins as servants, most remain hunter-gatherers living in small bands in the wilderness.
- The GURPS Dungeon Fantasy line (with its standalone spin-off The Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game) is a GURPS implementation of "standard" tabletop fantasy games, and hence has goblins and hobgoblins in their standard role as the foot-soldiers of evil. However, it is possible to play an exceptional goblin or hobgoblin as a character.
- GURPS Fantasy Folk: Goblins and Hobgoblins reviews the range of goblinoids from legend, fantasy, and games, and details four types of goblin, some drawn from previous GURPS books (the "mean" dungeon fantasy type, the smart type from Banestorm, dim-witted but nigh-indestructible comedy goblins, and quite formidable, quasi-folkloric "spirit" goblins) and two types of hobgoblin (another "mean" dungeon fantasy type and the surly versions from Banestorm).
In Ironclaw goblins are really different. Also known as Morrignai and one of the few creatures in the setting that can truly be called monsters, they look like eight-foot-tall wolves with the heads and wings of ravens. With their strength and magic resistance just one can seriously threaten an adventuring party. According to Phelan legends they used to steal children and other horrific things but ages ago the druids went to war with them. Both sides barely survived the conflict and have largely left each other alone since then, but the goblins still foster a deep hatred for the tribes.
Iron Kingdoms: Multiple different breeds of goblin, or goblin-like creature anyway, show up.
- Gobbers, the "standard" goblin of the setting, are a widely spread, intelligent and peaceful (for the most part) race that can be found all over Immoren, often becoming traders, alchemists and mekaniks.
- Boggers, a larger and more aggressive strain of the Gobber race, are more hostile towards other races, but are territorial rather than outright malevolent.
- Pygmy Trolls, or "Pygs", are the Trollkin equivalent of goblins, being small, weak versions of the common Trollkin who are fully aware of their puny physiques and so compensate for it with brains; they form the most adept gunners, scouts and ambushers of the Trollblood forces.
- Skorne, the setting's equivalent of hobgoblins, are a distinctly Asiatic-looking race of Lean and Mean human-sized Hordes from the East who shun religion, believe in The Nothing After Death, and have a Proud Warrior Race culture backed up by a unique form of pain-fueled Blood Magic.
Magic: The Gathering: Goblins, most often present as the standard fantasy breed of diminutive, destructive green-skinned and big-eared humanoids, are the characteristic creature — a creature type that shows up multiple times each set as several smaller common creature cards — of Red, the color of chaos, emotions and impulsive behavior. They're not evil, though, just rowdy and destructive^notein fact, being the face of Red mana means many more recent stories have some of them demonstrating surprising friendliness and emotional intelligence, and serve as the game's comic relief race.
- Goblins from early sets tend to be portrayed as much more dangerous and malicious than in their later portrayals. The goblins of Terisiare, in particular, waged a long series of wars against the continent's human kingdoms during the period of cooling temperatures and dwindling civilization covered in The Dark. The Terisiarean goblins also include a couple of distinct sub-breeds in the form of Marsh Goblins, bald and floppy-eared goblins with short tails that even other goblins shun "thanks to certain unwholesome customs they practice", and Scarwood Goblins, a larger and more cunning kind only found in certain deep forests.
- Most worlds' goblins fit this schema fairly closely, including those of Dominaria, the setting's main universe, as well as those of the City Planet Ravnica and the metallic world of Mirrodin... before it was destroyed by the Phyrexians, anyway.
- Many other worlds, however, have rather more unusual goblins:
  - Rath has Moggs, a genetically engineered strain of goblin which is larger, stronger and has a distinctive ridge on its head. They're still not very intelligent, though.
  - The Kyren goblins of Mercadian Masques were inversions of the normal stupid headstrong goblin: They are the true rulers of Mercadia. They're actually more evil than most other MtG goblins.
  - The Akki of the Japanese mythology-influenced plane Kamigawa are based on the kappa of Japanese folklore. In fact, the concept has often been described as "fire kappa". In the Time Skip between original Kamigawa block and Neon Dynasty, they've acquired a bit of a Mad Scientist streak along with a fondness for Tim Taylor Technology (as pictured in the page image).
  - Lorwyn boggarts are more adventuresome and intelligent than most, but have a total lack of care for life—their own or others'. Shadowmoor boggarts are nearly mindless eating machines. Shadowmoor also has hobgoblins, who are basically angry hobbits with fangs; spriggans, sizeshifters who can turn from weedy runts into towering colossi; murderous redcaps; and stream hoppers, bizarre creatures with a single leg, arm, and eye. All are classified as goblins in the game.
  - Goblins on the Alaran shard of Jund are ratlike creatures who simply live to be eaten by the dragons that dominate the shard.
  - Fiora's goblins are slightly larger than goblins on other worlds, with hunched backs and the males usually sporting beards. They're actually fairly smart when allowed to be, but are treated as a Fantastic Underclass by the humans of Paliano.
  - Tarkir's goblins are hairy, aggressive and dim little critters who are primarily associated with the Mardu Horde. There's a variant breed with white hair who dwell in the snowy areas that serve as home to the Temur, but the majority of goblins are either Mardu or neutral.
    The Mardu all enjoy war, but only the goblins make a game of it. — Flavor Text for Mardu Scout.
  - Ixalan's goblins, in keeping with the Age of Sail/New World theme of the set, more greatly resemble monkeys, are covered in fur, and have prehensile tails. They are still mischievous and are mostly pirates.
  - Lost Caverns of Ixalan also introduces Deep Goblins, an unrelated species of anglerfish-like Morlocks. Despite their scary appearances and affinity for Black mana, they live largely peaceably among the Malamet, though neither have much love for surface-dwellers.
  - Eldraine, a plane inspired by Arthurian myths and the tales of the brothers Grimm, is home to redcaps much like Shadowmoor is — in this case, they're vicious, barbaric wilderness-dwellers who were chased out of civilized lands long ago, dye their hats with the blood of their victims and ride giant weasels.
- In terms of actual gameplay, most Magic goblins are small, cheap creatures that lend themselves well to Zerg Rush tactics or to use as convenient sacrificial fodder. Some even come with relevant abilities built right in.
MÖRK BORG: Goblins are the result of a viral curse that roams the land. Anyone who can't kill the goblin that attacked them, even if the blow didn't connect, will become a goblin in three days, going insane as the Goblin curse locks them into their mind and forces their now-mutated body to kill. They're also mixed with Threatening Shark in that they're humanoid versions of the real-life Goblin Shark.
Pathfinder: There are goblins and many off-shoots.
- Goblins are dangerously stupid pyromaniacs who loathe dogs and horses (the feeling is mutual), are terrified of writing (it can steal your soul!), and sing horrible merry songs about eating babies. They also have a subrace called "monkey goblins" who use their hand-like feet and prehensile, rat-like tails to live an arboreal life. They serve as the franchise's Mascot Mook, and are included among the base playable races of Second Edition alongside the traditional humans, elves, dwarves and half-elves and half-orcs, which operate under the assumption that players are taking the role of one of a small but growing minority of goblins who are attempting to integrate more into civilization.
- Hobgoblins are as militaristic as the Dungeons & Dragons norm but are so universally ambitious that they can't hold an army together for long, being an entire race of Starscreams. Despite this, two hobgoblin nations exist, although both are fairly recent. Kaoling, in Tian Xia, was established following the collapse of the empire of Lung Wa a century or so before the setting's present time, and is known for its incredibly treacherous and cutthroat politics; Oprak, in the Mindspin Mountains of the primary setting, is established after the events of the Ironfang Invasion adventure path as a homeland for hobgoblins in particular and monster races in general, and is held together by the iron will of its ruler, General Azaersi.
- Bugbears are psychotic Serial Killers who live for the smell of fear and are unnervingly good at hiding in places nothing that huge should be able to fit... like behind your door or under your bed.
- The kijimunas of Tien-Ma, which appear in the Jade Regent adventure path, are red-headed, very human-looking goblins who inhabit coasts and rivers. Absent-minded practical jokesters, they love to fish and play pranks and would probably be written off as harmless, if annoying, goofballs were it not for the fact that their tricks can lead to injuries or even death. Fortunately, they don't usually intend to kill people (corpses are boring; you can't play tricks on a corpse), and they actually have a well-earned reputation for supplying food to villages suffering from famine. Like regular goblins, they have an irrational attitude towards a specific race of animals, which in their case manifests as a deep fear of octopuses — though they're not very fond of spiders, either. They're actually based on a real Japanese Yōkai.
- Grindylows, meanwhile, are basically aquatic goblins that mingle a blue-skinned goblin with an octopus, mermaid style, though they're considered aberrations rather than goblinoids. They love octopi, but possess the typical goblin antipathy for a certain animal species-in this case, squids.
- Goblins and hobgoblins are both statted as playable races, and balanced against humans. Which means that competent members of their kind make capable adventurers... or enemies that can wreak havoc on a party that underestimates them.
- Outside of the true goblinoids, there are a number of fey creatures inspired by folkloric goblins, such as the small, pathetic mites and the murderous redcaps who stain their hats red with the blood of their victims.
Rifts:
- Psi-goblins are psychic goblins brought to Rifts Earth as enforcers and soldiers for the Federation of Magic. They are cruel beings who hate anything and anyone beautiful, and are expert and eager torturers.
- The demon goblins of Wormwood are ugly, vicious humanoids native to another dimensions, from which they were brought to Wormwood by the sorceress Salome; as Salome also freed them from the rule of a cruel alien intelligence, they are fanatically loyal to her. They are cruel killers and cannibals who feed on their own kin. They may be distant kin to the goblins of Rifts Earth and the Palladium Fantasy world, but are much stronger and more organized than them.
RuneQuest: Goblins are actually a type of elf. Also called Red Elves, they are short, plant-based humanoids who only live for a few months and are born as diminutive adults with full mental faculties in place.
Shadowrun:
- "Goblinization" is the term used for the phenomenon of adults turning into orks or trolls when the metatypes first emerged.
- Actual goblins are dwarves infected with HMHVV Type I, the virus that turns humans into vampires. Goblins are emaciated, hairless beings with only minimal intelligence, immune to fire and vulnerable to iron. They eat raw meat, often from sapient beings.
- Hobgoblins are something else entirely, being a regional variant of ork native to the Middle East and Central Asia. Hobgoblins are wirier and skinnier than other orks, have greenish skin tones (orks usually just have human colorations) and solid black eyes, and have a very strong sense of personal honor that demands that they obtain payback for any slight done against them.
The Small Folk: Goblins are one clique among the titular Small Folk. They aren't especially evil, but they are aggressive and angry, with an attitude, and often wear baseball caps (back to front).
Tabletop Game/Splinter: The Voormis. They're horrible, yellow, misshapen proto-men who invoke an instinctual feeling of revulsion and horror in other sentient life-forms. They're born as small, rat-like creatures and gradually attain a near-human form as they age.
Symbaroum: Goblins' origins remain a mystery to most men, save that they emerge from the enormous forest of Dazovar, and feel compelled to return there at around the age of 30 to die lonely deaths in the wilderness. Those that don't take to banditry or treasure-hunting sometimes find work as day laborers, but tend to repulse others with their inherently juvenile and rambunctious behavior. They are also the larval forms of trolls, and a goblin who fulfills their "death drive" uninterrupted begins to pupate in the woods; those that survive the process either become warlike, horned trolls or — for reasons unknown — large, malformed blank slates known as ogres.
Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game introduced hobgoblins to Azeroth long before they existed in the video game continuity. Here, they were depicted as goblins subjected to an alchemical "augmentation" that transformed them into hulking brutes favored as bodyguards and soldiers with vastly enhanced strength and toughness, but diminished brainpower. These hobgoblins look like giant purple-skinned goblins with claws who secrete acid from their skin.
Warhammer: Goblins are small, weak, cowardly and cunning and probably a good deal cleverer than the orcs, having been the ones to come up with catapults and bolt throwers. They are extremely weedy, and as such usually spend their lives being bullied by any Orcs in the area, when they're not simply being bullied by a bigger Gobbo (and that's assuming they don't just knock you over the head and eat you). In Greenskin armies, goblins infantry is largely limited to being cannon fodder and blunting cavalry charges; others act as skirmishing troops and light cavalry, and as the primary beast handlers of the hordes. The main route for advancement among goblins is magic use, as goblin shamans can rise to some considerable prominence even over orcs by using supernatural power to make up for their physical weakness. Additionally the typical goblin has a phobia of elves that's acute enough to affect them in battle.
- Goblins are very widespread and adaptable, and numerous distinct variants — mostly cultural, but in some cases with clear physical differences as well — exist throughout the world, besides the "common" kind seen alongside Orcs.
  - The Night Goblins are an underground-dwelling sort mostly found deep beneath mountain ranges. They breed mutant (and carnivorous) mobile fungi and ingest magic mushrooms that turn them into frothing, super strong madmen, and are fond of trickery and ambush. They've dwelt underground so long that they find sunlight painfully bright, and always wear distinctive black robes and pointed hoods when aboveground.
  - Forest goblins live deep within the Old World's forests and worship spiders, and frequently turn up riding spiders that range from "wolf" to "townhouse" scale.
  - Hill Goblins, also known as Great Goblins, are unusually large and aggressive Goblins found in hilly areas of the Badlands, and can grow to be almost the size of an Orc.
  - Very early editions include Red Goblins, a particularly evil kind created by ancient wizards as servants and agents. The Red Goblins still follow their ancient masters' goals, although whether these still live isn't known.
  - Grom the Paunch is a very unusual goblin. King of his people, he had eaten troll flesh and that experience warped him. He's now the size of a Black Orc and just as strong and he's regenerates similar to a troll. And due to eating a lot of elves, he no longer has the goblin fear of them (he actually thinks they taste good).
- Snotlings are even smaller, weaker and stupider than other goblins. (An' dat's saying somefing!) They can construct ramshackle steam-powered chariots, and, since the average snotling has a vocabulary of five words and has only just figured out that being kicked hurts, nobody has any idea how they do this.
- Hobgoblins are a bit like big (human sized) goblins, but are even more deceitful and prone to backstabbing. They have their own civilisation (a Mongol style khanate far to the east of the Old World), but are mostly seen in their role as slave drivers working for the Chaos Dwarfs — which is part of the reason even other greenskins will have nothing to do with them. This is something of a downplay on how they were originally portrayed. In the older hardback book editions, Hobgoblins were not quite as tough as Orcs, but far more disciplined, and not only dressed like Mongols but also rode around on animated stone temple dog guardians of the Chinese style. They were also more humanlike in build and size, and were the only goblinoids in Warhammer to be able to grow hair. Now they're just bigger goblins, and the animated stone temple dog guardians have found their way into the roster of the actual counterpart Chinese faction.
- Gnoblars are large-eared and -nosed Goblinoids who get bossed around by the Ogres, as the latter are marginally less likely to eat them than other creatures are and hanging around Ogres provides a modicum of safety from other dangers. They mostly live in the Mountains of Mourn and their foothills, but maps of the Badlands also mention Gnoblar tribes existing there. There are also mentions of Boglars, swamp-dwelling Gnoblars who live in the Marshes of Madness in the southern Badlands.
Warhammer 40,000: Gretchins and Snotlings — collectively called "Grots" — are the setting's version of goblins, being weedier, thinner and shorter relatives of the Orks who are routinely bossed around, kicked, and occasionally used as helpers, ammo caddies, ammo, missile guidance systems, mine-clearing equipment, human... er, Grot shields, practice targets, and emergency food supplies by those same Orks. They are, however, a fair bit more important than that suggests.
- Gretchin are societal organisers, making sure everything runs okay behind the scenes; Orks are noted many times as not having much energy for anything other than war. During the sporing process, Grots arrive before the Orks, actually making sure the Orks have a society to inhabit when they show up. They are in most part responsible for the entire Orkoid race's domestic and commercial (non-war related) endeavours. There are even Grot entrepreneurs called "Dodgas" who seem to mostly have the talent for ripping off other Orkoids. Grots are rather understated in most Ork fluff, because their importance is less reflected in matters of warfare, and so is unsurprisingly not particularly well explored in 40k.
- Snotlings also have more importance, although most of it is implied. It seems Snotlings have some use in keeping the Squigs in check, and were at one point originally the most dominant and intelligent part of the race, but are now merely childlike.
- Of course, there is also the Grot Rebellion...

Theatre

Arguably the most famous goblin in all fiction is Puck, also known as Robin Goodfellow or Hobgoblin (Hob being possibly a nickname of Robin), from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. A version of the aforementioned folklore character, he's a cocky shape-shifting trickster who disdains mortals. He performs a role somewhat reminiscent of Cupid in making people fall in love with each other for his own amusement.

Video Games

Absolum: Most of the goblins you meet and fight are fairly typical in how they look and act, at first. But then you learn that they grow from (very specific) trees, they're all born as adults, and most of them will die exactly within the year; a few very particular goblins instead grow beyond that in size and wisdom until they become something you'd mistake for orcs, but this is rare enough that you only meet four goblins that've made it that far. They're also tribal, but fairly intelligent and very protective of their forest, for obvious reasons.
In Age of Wonders, goblins generally have cheap and weak units that make up for their weaknesses using poison. They are a filthy and evil race that prefers the underground, and they love to cause destruction and chaos even if it means they have to blow themselves up while doing it. They also have a twisted sense of aesthetics, as they hate the smell of perfumes, and try to stink up their caverns as much as possible by means such as wearing old socks as long as possible. Also, one goblin hero's profile describes her as a magic user who is skilled in altering her appearances, and she chose a form most hideous and repulsive to other goblins to strike fear into them. She happens to look like a slightly funny-looking little girl.
In the Real-Time Strategy game, Armies of Exigo, Goblins are diminutive, greenskinned hunchbacks, who have a tribal culture, and fight with boomerangs. They form a part of the Beast-Man hordes, alongside the Kobolds, Ogres, Trolls, and Lizard Folk, and can be mounted on the backs of the cow-like Boron for greater effectiveness.
Atlantica Online, going by the original myth, has goblins as a sort of demon that looks much like humans and are extremely strong for their level, completely inverting the usual portrayal.
Battle for Wesnoth: Orcs and goblins are technically the same species; goblins just happen to be born very small. Since orc society believes in Might Makes Right, the smaller and weaker goblins are forced to live under the boot of the bigger and stronger orcs, who rely on goblins to perform most menial tasks when they're not sending them into battle as cannon fodder.
Claritas - Dungeon Crawler RPG: The Goblin Bomber hero is an explosives expert, able to set fire traps and even use nuclear bombs.
Conker's Bad Fur Day has goblins called goblings as common enemies and NPCs. The first variation is water gobling, a green goblin that is found near water and wears a spiked ball for armor. The second kind are trash talking goblins made out of fire. The next two are a friendly lizard like monk goblin and an allied purple goblin who unknowingly wears a pack of TnT on his back. An unnamed, invincible, flamethrower-using gobling is also present in one level.
Corruption Of Champions: Goblins are a One-Gender Race of short ^note They're only 2-4 feet tall. , alcoholic, sex-crazed monster babes who wear nothing but a few Stripperiffic leather straps across their large waists that lets them show off their Impossible Hourglass Figure. While they largely serve as The Goomba of the game, along with imps, Tamani (and especially her children from the player) can put up a strong fight if you're unprepared. The Revamped version of the game introduces goblin Assassins, Warriors, and Shamans to present more challenge for a decently leveled player. The majority goblins are Always Chaotic Evil and lustful due to them being one of the many victims of the demon's abuse of the world; a small few, like Lumi the alchemist, show how the goblins were once great engineers and alchemists in the past.
Diablo III: Treasure Goblins act as Metal Slimes, running away from the player once engaged and escaping through a portal if not killed quickly. Despite the name, they are actually demons and servants of their corpulent queen Greed, one of Azmodans Sin Lieautenants. She could give The Great Goblin a run for his money though.
Goblins in DragonFable and AdventureQuest Worlds are known as Sneevils. They're pretty annoying low-level minions that like to steal things, especially boxes. Sneevils do love their boxes.
Dragon's Crown, Goblins, while small and physically weak, are culturally advanced enough to use magic and create things like weapons, armor, and bombs. They usually serve as the Mooks of the orcs, though the art book mentions that this is just what they want everyone to think. They're also technologically advanced enough to design a massive Cool Airship and continuously rebuild the Gargoyle Gate after your character destroys it. Also, while they're very aggressive, they are more than willing to ally with other species, including humans, when it benefits them. This was the case with Lima Ray the Witch, who they actually worshiped as a living goddess after she helped them against elf persecution, which led to the glory days of the goblins when they caused mayhem all around with the help of her powerful magic.
Dragon's Dogma: According to the Official Design Works for the game, goblins are evil tree root spirits. As such they have roots growing out of their heads which become longer and more plentiful as they get older. They're also a One-Gender Race that reproduces asexually by planting a tree deep inside a dungeon and then watering it with human blood until young goblins sprout beneath.
Dragon's Wake: The first intelligent enemies (as opposed to wild animals) that the player is able to fight are goblins that attack a village of friendly lizardfolk.
Dungeon Crawl
- Goblins serve as basic low-level enemies found mostly in the early levels of the Dungeon, as well as hobgoblins, their (slightly) stronger kin. Apart from a couple uniques (wand-wielding Ijyb and underling-flinging Robin), goblins tend to be weak opponents that are soon overshadowed by the gnolls and orcs and ogres and such that start appearing on later floors.
- Later versions introduce playable goblins in the form of coglins, a mechanically-inclined subsect of goblins that have taken to crafting mechanical exosuits for themselves. Their exosuits allow them to wield two one-handed weapons at once (including ranged weapons), but it takes them time to swap out weapons or rev up to full strength in battle. While they are unique in player species in being unable to wear jewelery (as it would interfere with their exosuits), they can eventually invent a randomized gizmo that serves the function of a basic set of jewelery along with having some unique properties of its own.
Dungeon Maker II: The Hidden War's goblins are more closely related to the modern portrayal of orcs: big, burly green guys with big clubs. The game's actual orcs are boar people.
Dungeon Siege:
- In the Legends of Aranna expansion, goblins aren't found until the end of the game, where they are one of the most powerful enemies around. Whereas in the original Dungeon Siege, goblins inhabit an Elaborate Underground Base containing a variety of spectacularly anachronistic Steampunk machinery, weaponry, and magically-powered battle robots. Contrast the goblin footsoldiers, who are weak, fight with melee weapons and dress in loincloths, all the while fighting beside goblinoids that are wielding flamethrowers, lightning guns and gatling guns. This makes it more likely that the goblin leader—who is bespectacled, has hair, speaks Hulk and can teleport, all unlike his brethren—is responsible for the existence of the facility.
- Dungeon Siege III marks the return of the goblins, having been absent entirely from II. After the defeat of the mad leader of the goblins in the original, a more civilized group of goblins took over and gained citizenship in Stonebridge, creating a Steampunk renaissance. Two of them are even on the city's ruling council at the time of III. There are still enemy goblins you have to face, but they're rogues and mercenaries rather than the evil madmen fought in the original.
Dwarf Fortress goblins are vicious brutes that attempt to snatch babies, besiege fortresses, and generally cause mayhem and consternation to an ill-prepared fortress. They are ostensibly the evil race in Dwarf Fortress, although dwarves under the player's control are often even worse. They're notably biologically immortal and have no need for water or food, which means only disease and violence can kill them. Notable for their Equal-Opportunity Evil; stolen babies are raised as goblins, with no prejudice against them, and it's not unheard of for "goblin" civilizations to have only a handful of "true" goblins alongside a majority of culturally-goblin snatched babies and their descendants. As admirers of power and supernatural ability, they are most often found ruled by demons in all but very young worlds. In fact it's heavily implied that goblins are a sort of 'lesser demon' race, since worlds generated without demons will also lack Goblins...on the surface, and instead replace demons in the Underworld.
The Elder Scrolls:
- The series in general has Goblins which are a primitive and violent humanoid race found across Tamriel and Akavir. They have a primitive language and tribal social structure, and worship a god known as "Muluk", who is theorized to be the Daedric Prince Malacath. Depending on the tribe, they may be led by a Warlord (also known as Warchiefs, typically the biggest and strongest Goblin in the tribe) or by a magic-using shaman (who can be male or female). They frequently come into conflict with any other races they cross paths with, though have been known to live peacefully with the Orcs. They are also frequently enslaved by other races to serve as labor. There are numerous varieties of Goblin, with some regional differences. On average, they stand 3-5 feet tall, though historically, a race of giant Goblins native to the Alik'r Desert in Hammerfell stood over 8 feet tall. They typically have green-skin, yellow eyes with slitted pupils, a hunched-over posture which sometimes includes a full blown hunchback, pointed ears, and fangs. Though significantly less intelligent than the Men, Mer, and Beast Races of Tamriel, Goblins do show some signs of intelligence. They are known to farm creatures in a primitive fashion, including Tamriel's Rodents of Unusual Size as a food source and giant spiders as beasts of battle. They re also known to salvage weapons, armor, and other items created by the other races for their own use. Goblins have appeared in almost every game in the series including Arena, Morrowind (only in the Tribunal expansion), Oblivion, The Elder Scrolls Online, and the spin-off Action-Adventure game Redguard.
- Skyrim instead has the Falmer in this role, crossing over with Morlocks. The Falmer were once the graceful Snow Elves, close relatives of the Altmer (High Elves). However, an ancient war with the ancestors of the Nords brought down their civilization and nearly drove their race to extinction. In desperation, some turned to their Dwemer cousins for aid. The Dwemer took them in, but on the condition that they eat toxic fungi which blinded and mutated the Falmer into the barely sapient, goblin-like creatures they are today.
- The Rieklings of Solstheim are small, Ugly Cute, blue-skinned humanoids somewhat resembling ice goblins. They have their own primitive society (which includes hoarding the detritus of other races which they then apparently worship), are capable of speaking Tamriellic (though mostly in a You No Take Candle fashion), and have tamed wild boars to ride as mounts. The Nords of Solstheim have long believed that the Rieklings are the descendants of the Snow Elves, but other sources make it clear that they are a unique species in their own right.
Goblins in Evil Islands are small, brown humanoids, armed with spears or slings, who speak in a You No Take Candle manner. They're pretty much The Goombas of the game, being the weakest intelligent enemies in the game (although they're somehow able to pose a threat to the human village, probably by outnumbering the villagers).
Hobbs in the Fable Series fit the "diminutive, semi-intelligent scavengers" mold.
Many goblins, like those in Final Fantasy XI, are perfectly willing to sell their mother for a nickel. The Moblins of Vana'diel, however, seem more in line with a religious sect than anything else. A Steampunk sect, mind you.
- In the early Final Fantasy games, goblins were little ugly humanoids with knives who existed to give Level 1 Adventurers their very first experience points. Something either goblin-like or named a Goblin appears in pretty much every installment in the series. They are known for the "Goblin Punch" attack (usually falling under Blue Magic) which traditionally does weak physical damage with a powerful bonus if the attacker and target are the same level.
- In the Final Fantasy XIII games, goblins and their ilk appear to be cyborgs of some sort, with large metal weights for hands, wheels for feet, and a massive hole in the middle of their body.
- In Final Fantasy XIV Goblins are portrayed as widespread and somewhat nomadic due to losing their original homeland. They're considered hoarders, but also engineering geniuses; building intricate forges, crafting bombs (which are safer for the user than the more volatile variants made by the Kobolds), being experts in creating and melding Materia, and crafting and various tools and environments which occasionally push the fantasy setting all the way into Steampunk. They are perhaps the most integrated Beastman race with the spoken races (second possibly only to the Moogles). There's also the Illuminati, a sect of goblins obsessed with hoarding technology for themselves and relentlessly hunt down anyone who may try to share any of their findings with the other races, even the culinary sciences.
Final Fantasy XVI has goblins as lean, vicious little bastards that try to shank Clive with their knives. Unlike typical Final Fantasy goblins, they have an extra pair of ears, and digitigrade legs that end in Handy Feet. The Gigas is basically an oversized goblin twice the height of a grown man.
Flash of the Blade has goblin enemies (they're even named as such in-game!) in a cavern, who looks more like Mole People with glowing yellow eyes and a permanent Cheshire Cat Grin on their faces.
The goblin mage Mozu from Gigantic is the only one of her species seen so far. She's a tiny, purple creature with long ears, a catlike face, a long tail and hands and feet with three digits each. While not exactly malicious, she's definitely mischievous and has a penchant for thievery.
Gobliiins is an Adventure Game series starring "goblins" as the playing characters, but they all look like small pointy-eared humans... except one that is purple and has a pteranodon-like head.
The goblins in Goblin Commander were created by a wizard for the sole purpose of constructing a Great Machine, whose function they do not clearly understand. They come in five subraces, with different jobs: the Stonekrusher clan mines metals for the machine, the Hellfire clan harvests wood for the machine, the Stormbringer clan researches magic and energy for the machine, the Plaguespitter clan grows poisonous herbs to fuel the machine, and the Nighthorde clan's purpose is unclear until late in the game.
Griswold the Goblin:
- The titular Griswold is your regular run-of-the-mill green-skinned goblin with pointy ears, a big nose, and an eye for valuables. He's out on adventures to seek valuables, helping many people along the way and running into new adventures and minigames along the way. He also has a habit of occasionally farting and scratching his butt.
- There's another goblin named Gavin, also fitting Griswold's description, who kidnaps local store owner Oscar (planning to sell him along with everything else in his store that the former took over) and has quite the soft spot for his elusive chicken, chasing him throughout the series.
The Asura in Guild Wars and its sequel have the general appearance down, with small statures, large floppy ears, and razor-sharp teeth. However, they're a Proud Scholar Race that utilizes Magitek technology into their weapons, architecture, and everyday lives. They're also generally on the side of good, even if most of them are insufferable, and are just as tough as their larger allies.
In Tin Man Games's Gary Chalk's Gun Dogs, the Masker Goblins are a nation of cannibalistic Barbarian Tribes who wear masks to denote their affiliation. They are actually quite dangerous even to the main character. Taking a note from '80s Warhammer Fantasy Battle, the Masker Goblins are only a tad weaker and smaller than a human, additionally while most of their technology is crude and primitive - they're masters of swordsmithing, with even a basic goblin sword being better than what early Steampunk humans usually make. Finally they're often mounted on a creature, typically an ostrich-like Stilt Bird, with one exceptionally dangerous Masker Goblin riding an Ogrish creature known as a Dweeb. Luckily for the Empire, there are more peacable if hot-tempered Masker Goblins willing to trade rather than fight.
Goblins are basic troops in a few Heroes of Might and Magic games, usually aligned with the barbarian factions. In Heroes of Might and Magic V they're pretty much a race of Butt Monkeys, prone to cowardice, often used as sacrifices for the orc shamans, and a source of both food and ammunition for the cyclops.
- They also show up as a playable race in Might and Magic VII. They're roughly the size of a human, a bit dumb (though not excessively so—most of the goblin NPCs show no sign of being dumber than the average human NPC), and while most of the non-player (both monster mobs and actual characters) goblins are bad guys, or at least vaguely aligned with the bad guys, nothing hinders player goblins from aligning with the other side.
Hytale: Goblins are one race of Mooks found in the underground of the Emerald Wilds.
King's Quest: Mask of Eternity has boar-like goblins.
Last Armageddon has an entire playable party of monsters, one of which is a Goblin.
The Legend of Zelda: The various Blins play with this in various ways:
- The Legend of Zelda I describes Moblins as goblins with bulldog heads (although they have pig heads in the newer games). While most are just generic monsters, a few have defined personalities. Most of the Moblin characters are comical Card Carrying Villains. A friendly Moblin in the first Zelda is known for the phrase "IT'S A SECRET TO EVERYBODY".
- Notably as the series continued Moblins began to become more orc or even troll-like. So the smaller Bokoblins (which first appear in The Wind Waker) were brought in to fill the goblin role instead. They typically have hunched statures and large, pointed ears, and are usually on the weaker end of enemy progression.
- Another branch of the family is introduced in Twilight Princess called the Bulblins. Basically they're the smaller variety of their King Mook, King Bulblin. They don't seem to be too different from the Bokoblins aside from being green, riding pigs and dressing in black.
- Miniblins are the smallest members of the Blin species. They're little gremlins with pitchforks who make a weird honking noise often in unison. And infinitely respawn.
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom adds another blin to the family. The Horriblin seems to be an even more goblin like varient. They're subterranean or cave dweling which hints to a tolkienesque aversion to sunlight. And rather than the pig-like snouts of the other blins in this game and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild the Horriblin has a far more goblin like face.
- Some games have the lesser-known Goriyas, dog-headed goblins who wield boomerangs in battle.
- Introduced in The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, the Minish are diminutive, magically-inclined, long-eared creatures very similar to the traditional folklore hobgoblins. Unlike Blins, most Minish are docile and peaceful, if unwilling to engage with wider human societies.
In Loop Hero, goblins are lesser sapient species that live in tribes and sustain their living by pillaging from other species. Goblins are incredibly clever and are extremely adept at copying humans if it aids in their survival - one goblin even managed to pass himself off as a cloaked human - but they are incapable of creating new ideas or innovating on old ones. They also need to follow a strict heirarchy behind a leader; if a tribe leader dies, they collectively pick a random goblin and gorge them with food so that they quickly grow into their new leader.
The Lord of the Rings Online: Goblins are listed as orc-kind, but are smaller and craftier than their bigger and more brutish orc brethren.
Mass Effect: The Vorcha are basically goblins IN SPACE! Like the standard fantasy race, they're small, ugly creatures that everyone else in the universe considers a pest. Aria, the leader of a Vorcha heavy area, even explicitly refers to them as goblins.
Miitopia: Goblins are short hunched figures with big heads, Pointy Ears, and a Gag Nose. Comes in many flavors including plain, Mage, Red, Forest, Mecha, and Space.
Neverwinter Nights 2: In addition to standard D&D goblins, Storm of Zehir features jungle goblins called batiri. They play the role of stereotypical primitive tribes: stone tools and weapons, body paint, people-eating. They're also larger and more muscular than the common goblin.
Of Orcs and Men has Styx, as well as other goblins as weaker enemies. Interestingly, Styx is apparently the only one to show any intelligence; other goblins in the game are unintelligent to the point of being viewed as animals. It's later revealed that Styx is the original goblin and was once an Orc was transformed due to dabbling too much with magic. All others are simply magically-spawned clones.
- The prequels Styx: Master of Shadows and Styx: Shards of Darkness show that the original Styx, the one who was once an orc, was killed by a perfect clone of himself he constructed to free him from prison. This Styx, is the player character, and the one who goes on to be the Styx seen in Of Orcs and Men.
Ōkami has the imps taking on the standard goblin role, including that of being merchants who will sell to Amaterasu despite being her enemy. These weak, mischievous creatures wear a paper mask and fight using musical instruments, they also vary in power level based on their color (green, red, yellow, blue and black). Especially different are the blue and black imps, the blue ones will travel by Kite Riding and the black use the surrounding skulls of earlier victims as laser-firing Attack Drones.
Overlord: Though not specifically identified as such, the minions fit the goblin archetype quite well, being an Always Lawful Evil species that gleefully follow the titular Evil Overlord. They are split between four tribes, each having their own skills. Although still ugly, their simple-minded loyalty and eagerness to smash and put things on their heads give them an Ugly Cute quality.
- In the first game a member of the Order of the Red Dawn actually refers to them as goblins when explaining to the titular character why he will not be let inside their "establishment".
- Notably, despite all of the above evidence indicating the minions to be goblins, Overlord: Fellowship of Evil lists a "Goblin Helm" as a cosmetic item with the description saying that it was taken from a dead goblin. This at least implies that there are a race of goblins separate from the minions (though apparently minions and goblins are enough alike to be able to wear the same equipment).
Paladins: Ruckus is a tiny goblin miner who hails from a gold mine called Splitstone Quarry. While only knee-high to a human, he's a Gadgeteer Genius who repurposed his mining Mini-Mecha into a war machine that he rides into battle.
Piratez: Although the mod mostly avoids the term "goblins", they seem to not only be called this (at least sometimes), but they seem to be pretty widespread around the planet. The most obvious goblin group is the Lokk'Naar tribe, which is the most immediate contact for the pirates. It is unclear if they are related to the Ratmen, or if they are mutants at all (as opposed to being an extraterrestrial race, for example).
Pokémon:
- Sableye is a mischievous, cave-dwelling, kobold-like Pokémon who feeds off of gems.
- Impidimp, Morgrem, and Grimmsnarl all have the Pointy Ears, Sinister Schnoz, and general mischievous behavior commonly associated with goblins. Because of its green skin, Grimmsnarl in particular resembles several versions of the Green Goblin. The line also ties into folklore about goblins sitting on humans' chests and harming them while they're sleeping, as some of their Pokédex entries mention this.
- Tinkatink, Tinkatuff, and Tinkaton look like adorable sprites, but they're effectively redcaps in every other way, being ultraviolent dwarfish humanoids who will savagely beat and attempt to murder anyone unlucky enough to encounter them with their hammers.
Goblins are a recurring enemy in Raging Bless, serving as The Goomba. There's also an upgraded, purple-skinned, two-headed goblin enemy late into the game far more dangerous than their one-headed regular brethren.
Rogue has Ur-Viles, a type of goblin leader (not sure of the source), represented by a capital U. They show up towards the end of the game, and are very dangerous-being hard to hit, and hitting hard in return.
RuneScape: There are two main types of goblins — surface goblins and cave goblins. Green surface goblins are less intelligent than pale green cave goblins. It turns out that surface goblins' lower intelligence is because of their lifestyle, not their natural intelligence which reaches human level.
- Surface goblins are considered pests by humans, and if there are humans, goblins are not far away. Goblin bands will usually raid remote dwellings, but shortly before the events of the game they invaded Lumbridge and killed many of its residents. This gave rise to a group, Humans Against Monsters, which seeks to exterminate all goblins. Goblins always work in groups.
- Hobgoblins are present too, although in here, they're the result of goblin and ork interbreeding. Hobgoblins are less civilized than goblins.
- Goblins were natives of the plane of Yu'biusk, a fey like place. However, during the God Wars, they were pulled off of it, and Yu'buisk was brought to ruin by Bandos, god of war, whom they were forced to serve (and refer to as "big high war god"). After the wars, the influence of Bandos faded and they began to fight amongst themselves with no stronger ruler. The cave goblins/Dorgeshuun are the descendants of a tribe that realised they were being used as Cannon Fodder by a sadistic deity, defied him and fled into the caves beneath what would become Lumbridge.
In Super Snail by QCplay Limited, there's a very traditional group of goblins with the usual magic-wielding shaman and wolfrider. However they're living in the year 2023 and deep underground past a number of subway stations into their own dungeon. Each one of those goblins is also essentially a Boss enemy that can easily kick Super Snail's ass.
Terraria: Goblins seem to be a combination of many of their various forms. The majority are seen in invasion events, and come in warrior, mage, archer, peon, thieves (who don't actually steal anything), and if in hardmode, summoners. You can also find the occasional scout on the outer edges of the world at random, and a peaceful NPC goblin tinkerer trapped underground after defeating at least one invasion. According to him, he was abandoned for telling them they weren't actually approaching from the right direction.
Goblins in "Those Games" 1 and 2 are expendable creatures that appear as recurring opponents in the games. In general, they have a similar stick figure body as the player characters, but they have a more distinctly goblin-like head and are colored green. Goblins will taunt the player when you lose.
- In the first game's "Pin Pull", goblins will charge at the player character when the latter is open. However, they can be killed easily by dropping rocks or bombs on them or letting a troll kill them.
- In the second game's "Knock-Back Shooter", goblins appear as the weakest enemy type, requiring only one ball hit to be killed. They also do a little dance in their idle animations.
- Goblins also appear as enemies in both the number-based games. Goblins can be killed by the player only if their assigned number is lower than the player's number.
Valheim: Fulings are small, goblin-like beings that live in the Plains biome. They are amongst the deadliest creatures in the game (Plains being the initial endgame biome) and mistaking them for a standard nuisance-level mook will not end well for you, especially if your world seed puts Plains where a player might encounter it early on.
Vindictus: You first encounter goblins on the quests from Boat 3, which take you to the destroyed town of Ainle, which you usually only reach at around the 20s in level. They're pale monsters roughly the size of humans that used to be part of the Fomors that make up your general enemies, but are now under the control of vampires. They are very slow, but their clubs which have nails through them pack quite a punch. The bosses among them are larger than humans and have such names as Servant of Twilight and Servant of Hell, with the only named one of the bunch being their leader, Information Chief Kalis, a big red goblin warrior who wields a scimitar, and who quickly earns the players' hatred when he brutally murders poor Ellis just before the boss fight in the fourth quest.
Warcraft goblins are smaller than orcs, but also have some knowledge of technology, particularly that which explodes. They first showed up in WarCraft II as the inventors of the Horde. They were characterized by their suicidal insanity and seem to be fighting for kicks. In WarCraft III goblins left the Horde, becoming a neutral force (they sell items and utilitarian mercenaries). They also gained a greedy side and more self-preservation tendencies, though some still were completely insane. By World of Warcraft they have been developed into their own culture and society that is concentrated within a dozen or so businesses. They are hedonistic, materialistic, mercenary and commercialized, with a fascination with nice gadgets (until they blow up) and a dog-eat-dog social structure. Kind of like living in Atlantic City under Mob rule, but on steroids.
- The lore later established that goblins started out a bit more like goblins of old, dumb as a stump and used for dumb muscle. They were a slave race used by trolls native to Kezan, but the Kaja'mite the trolls had the goblins mine mutated them over time, making them intelligent and allowing them to overthrow their troll lords and become the bastards we know and love.
- Hobgoblins made their official debut in the Cataclysm expansion, appearing as large go-fers and worker bees resembling ogres. Goblins themselves usually refer to them as brutes and look unkindly upon them. The other races have taken to calling them Lumbering Oafs and the name has started to stick, even in official ability text.
- A new variant of goblins, gilgoblins (also nicknamed "gilblins"), was also introduced in Cataclysm. Gilgoblins are an aquatic subspecies with fins and the ability to breathe underwater. By Battle for Azeroth, they are characterized by being diametrically opposed to the normal goblins, being level-headed, altruistic, and communal, instead of reckless, only out for themselves, and greedy. Sadly, they frequently also suffer as a Slave Race, this time to the Naga.
Wild ARMs: Gobs, properly introduced in the third game, are short, stocky greenish-gray humanoids, who always sport the trademark Slasher Smile. They generally act as small-time bandits or petty thieves, but in 4 they hold the distinction of being the only enemy type subject to Level Scaling.
WildStar: The Chua are tiny, psychopathic, adorable furballs who are also extremely intelligent scientists and mechanical geniuses.
ZanZarah: The Hidden Portal: The Goblins in Zanzarah are green-skinned humanoids whose home is the swamp village of Dunmore. They are explorers and adventurers, who are friendly to other species.

Web Animation

Homestar Runner: A goblin appears in every Halloween toon, but most of the time it just "looks around and does a dance" except for that time he saved Homestar from a zombie sheep.
Explored by JoCat in his Crap Guide to Goblins, discussing and illustrating several variations. His particular take on them, called Craplins, is the 'low level cannon fodder that happens to be adorable' type, falling squarely into Mascot Mook territory, complete with plushies.

Webcomics

Goblins from the Porn with Plot webcomic Anathema are dark-skinned humanoids with Pointy Ears and Cute Little Fangs, and a More Dakka approach to Anti-Air (their flak cannons are so big they're difficult to maneuver). Gas Mask, Longcoat uniforms.
Subverted in Apple Valley where Gabbie, one of the main characters is a perky, attractive, cloyingly cute goblin girl. As she is frequently the subject of a fair amount of fan-art and one of the only characters to come even close to being drawn naked, there may also be a bit of Author Appeal at work here, too.
In Cun-Cun & Santi, it is implied that goblins surged after an apocalyptic world flooding, and apparently are now the dominant species on Earth, despite humans still existing. Recurring characters Norber and the President are examples of goblins in the comic.
Cursed Princess Club:
- Princess Gwendolyn is a subversion. Her green hair and skin, pointy ears, Scary Teeth, and overall inhuman appearance strongly evoke a classical goblin. But despite looking so inexplicably different from her siblings (two Princess Classic sisters and a Pretty Boy brother), there's no indication that she's anything but human. Plus, she's a Nice Girl who completely lacks the evil or mischievous attributes of typical goblins. With that said, she does occasionally get mistaken for a goblin by people who don't know her well (whenever they aren't mistaking her for a Witch Classic).
- Played straight with the goblin who cursed Saffron. He was a classical green-skinned, pointy eared, diminutive goblin who was also an Evil Sorcerer to boot. He attempted a Grand Theft Me on Saffron, but the spell didn't work as planned and instead gave the prince an Evil Hand (one with a knobby and discolored appearance resembling a goblin hand).
The goblins in Dragon Mango are small, green comic-relief villains who raid nearby farms for chickens and get beaten up by the titular protagonist. They are ruled by Junior, the goblin king who does not look like David Bowie (this is lampshaded at one point) but is considerably bigger, buffer and tougher than his kin. (He uses steroids). They later pull a Heel–Face Turn when they realize that humans are willing to give them chickens and anything else they want in exchange for some of their Worthless Yellow Rocks they have all over their mountain kingdom, and eventually found a powerful bank and get accepted among the civilized people.
In Drowtales, humans and orcs are considered by many elves to be types of goblins. While it hasn't been fully detailed, goblinoid species seem to be a generalized term for humanoids that aren't of elvish origin—perhaps apart from the ferals.
In The Dwarfs, the Spirit and the Sorceress, the Goblins are small green humanoids with a crooked nose and a big treasure room. They worship a dark spirit known as Zoso, who shares their passion for precious gems, and live in a network of caves near the Dwarfs' forest.
In El Goonish Shive, goblins are not (so far) known to exist. However...
- In the RPG from "Who is Ellen?", they were apparently created as a parody of the mortal races, by a god who wanted to "punish their arrogance" by highlighting all their worst traits. They are born with innate abilities in weaponsmithing and, for some reason, cookery (it's speculated that the god meant them to be alchemists). They're also the cannon fodder mooks in the premade scenario Ellen is running, which gives them absolutely no motivation beyond being evil beings who would probably work for a bad guy. (Ellen adjusts this).
- In the Magickal Cards tournament in "Hope", Jay has a goblin-themed deck, including a Goblin Matriarch. Tedd questions whether the Goblin Matriarch is a "monster", pointing out she didn't choose to have fangs and claws and would have them even if she was the most caring of goblin mothers, whereas a human with a sword decided to pick up a sword. (George, overhearing, thinks to himself that this is a wonderful sentiment, and it's a shame that the lore about Magickal Cards goblins doesn't actually support it in any way.)
The Embodiment of Sins: The goblins in this series behave more like stereotypical orcs: they're roughly human-sized Proud Warrior Race Guys who follow the strongest of them and violently pillage human settlements for loot, which they view as The Right of a Superior Species. Physically they're green-skinned humanoids with long ears and noses and eyes with horizontal slit pupils. They also never stop growing throughout their lives, which they group in life stages: from birth, "Toh-Yhul" to about age 40, Saht-Ria, they're similar in size to humans, but Bah-Rin (age 41-80) go up to twice the size of humans, Rah-Jha are triple the size, and Rah-Saksha are taller than a tree.
The goblins of Far to the North are VERY different. For starters, they're at least seven feet tall, can smell blood, have eyes like hawks, and possibly scales. According to one of the characters they were crafted specifically by dragons to kill Saengorian slavers with their insane archery, so they instantly shoot anything that's male and has dark hair. This becomes a serious problem for the protagonist's half-Saengorian nephew...
Flaky Pastry features Nitrine, a goblin gifted from birth with brains and abilities far beyond those of her fellow goblins, apparently part of their Gadgeteer Genius caste (and royalty).
Goblin Hollow features goblins that are small, fuzzy, have enormous pointy ears, improbably small functional wings, and are (though it's not obvious in the black and white strip) bright green. They are also capable of turning selectively invisible (though this can be thwarted by either an infrared camera, or blacklight, which makes them glow), and of teleporting (or "poiting" as they call it). Their lifecycle is similar to that of a cuckoo: after the female goblin lays her eggs, they will leave them either where an ideal "goblin parent" will find them or in close proximity to them. The unborn goblin basically reads the mind of whomever is near the egg: first their mother, then their "adoptive parent", absorbing knowledge and adding them to their own goblin race memories so that they are basically born full grown, mentally and physically. They are VERY loyal to their adoptive "parents" and will accompany and protect them throughout life... though their mischief often makes their foster parent wish they weren't QUITE so doting.
The Goblins: Life Through Their Eyes webcomic started out with goblins as being a Villains Out Shopping look at The Dungeons & Dragons world from their point of view. It has since mutated into a full blown Deconstruction of the normal D&D world and Character Alignment system.
- Alignment system is played straight in this webcomic: many villains even detect as Evil, and they are, well, evil—very much so. It is just that the main cast of goblins is Good and they are opposed by Evil, but self-righteous, humans.
  - And yet there is a mysterious paladin — Kore — who still retains his class powers despite murdering innocent children and cripples just because they are of monster races or even just had friendly contact with them. It's eventually revealed that he's trapped the souls of others within his body, allowing him to access their alignment at will. He's also something of a Tautological Templar, genuinely convinced that every monstrous race is an abomination that needs to be slain — along with those who show sympathy to them.
- A few comics showed a glimpse of an alternate universe where goblins are similar to but oh so very different from those in the main universe.
In Grrl Power, the character Prinrin is a stereotypical gorgeous goblin shortstack and advanced tech genius/engineer. While she is the only goblin to make an appearance in the comic, it is presumed that she is typica for goblins In-Universe.
One of Jenny's alternate selves glimpsed in Chapter 2 of Jenny and the Multiverse is a goblin of some kind, with pointy ears, green skin, dark-green hair, and a small pointy nose. Like all other Jennies, she's wearing a scarf and goggles.
Goblins in Kill Six Billion Demons are very different; they're a (vaguely) batlike race who have no eyes and see through smell and echolocation. They were originally created to clean and maintain Throne’s numerous sewers and waterways, but ever since the deaths of the gods, they've grown into a Proud Merchant Race with their own clan-based society that founded the first guilds. They have three biological sexes, but asking a goblin their gender is considered very offensive for reasons known only to them. They're also explicitly not Always Chaotic Evil; the main goblin our heroes interact with, Omun Vash, is a crime boss, but most others are shown living normal lives. They're not really small either, with most being more or less human-sized. The above-mentioned Omun Vash is closer to typical goblin size, but again, he's pretty clearly an outlier and seems to have the goblin equivalent of dwarfism, judging by his proportions.
Goblins in Modest Medusa are alien explorers who colonized Yeld's moon. They keep their advanced tech to themselves and have to wear masks to breathe in Yeld's atmosphere, so no one is sure what they look like but they clearly have large, green ears and think tails.
The "goblin" from NIMONA is a tall humanoid woman with pointy ears and no hair.
The Director: I know an abomination when I see one.
Nimona: Yeah, sure. What are you, a goblin?
The Director: That's none of your business. [Beat] Shut up.
In Nixvir it is explained in the lore that goblins are actually morbidly obese because their ancestors suffered severe bone loss. Thus, while 85 pounds is not necessarily a healthy weight for us, it's actually a healthy weight for them. Goblins have not appeared in the series or any other series associated with it thus far.
The Order of the Stick has one high-ranking villain, Redcloak, who is actually just a goblin with a lot of character class levels.
- Goblins are different from goblins in standard Dungeons & Dragons, being medium sized as opposed to small.
- There are also the orange-skinned hobgoblins, many of whom were recruited to serve in the villains' army during the Battle of Azure City. The two subraces have not gotten along very well historically, but this is something that they have been trying to remedy or at least hide away as part of Redcloak's attempts to create to create a unified goblinoid nation. There are also bugbears, large and hairy goblinoids that live in the far north and are often ignored by other goblinoids and the goblin god alike.
- Though focused primary on the "good" races, Order of the Stick begins to seriously deconstruct goblin-based tropes, especially in Start of Darkness. Over time Redcloak is revealed to be a Well-Intentioned Extremist Anti-Villain who thinks Utopia Justifies the Means, while the paladins are portrayed as Knight Templars from his point of view (due to the paladins' belief that the race's Evil alignment justifies the slaughter of their women, children, and other civilians).
Roommates is a Mega Crossover prominently featuring Labyrinth so Jareth is the King of the Goblins, he is also called the King of the Unwanted, which means goblin is a catch all term for all creatures no other supernatural ruler would take (the stupid, the weak, the weird, the slow, etc. up to the dangerously unstable, which is Jareth himself). They are also indestructible as it's part of the very concept they personify. It's also revealed that this wasn't always the case, because magical rulers are Fisher Kings. Under his predecessor the Goblins were basically The Fair Folk just uglier, and under their first king little more than Always Chaotic Evil monsters.
The goblins of Swords are short and covered in fur, with cloven hooves, Pointy Ears, and yellow Monochromatic Eyes.
Van Von Hunter: Volume 2 has the "darkness-loving goblins" in that world as "elves" corrupted by demonic magic. Hollow-tree, cookie-baking elves. Who still make great baked goods. They make AMAZING brownies. Which are Comfort Food to the Sidekick, and Really Good to a pack of zombies that snaps them out of a hunger from brains in Volume 2 (the zombies then want the brownies instead). The brownies have made a king reconsider not having them operate in his kingdom (where they could do great business selling their baked goods).
In Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic, goblins are not considered truly Evil by most other monsters; they're only just "sorta bad" (It can be argued that they lack the mental capacity). Gren Razortooth is the principal goblin character, who has been cast out by the rest of her clan after falling in love with Bob the Beholder.

Web Original

The NSFW game Corruption of Champions has goblins as a common Mook-class enemy. They're a One-Gender Race of Cute Monster Girls, being described as 4ft tall, green-skinned, voluptuous, elf-eared humanoids, and their backstory is that they used to be genius alchemists and mechanics before The Corruption. Now, they're a race of pregnancy-fetishizing, hyper-fertile and incest-indifferent nymphomaniacs, who roam the wastelands looking for phallus-equipped partners to fertilise them. They're a basic low-level enemy, though there's also some named ones. Lynette is a goblin matron who peacefully runs a salon in the mountains (and will eventually start giving free business to a player who proves a willing lover), whilst Tamani is a stronger goblin who's happy to simply ask the player first before having sex (she will still try to rape the player if they refuse), and Abylon is a minor civilized goblin who shows in Tel'adre.
One subculture, borne out of social media is goblincore, which, as the name suggests, uses goblin-like imagery. Odd collections, celebration of aspects of nature not typically seen as attractive, and giving off a chaotic-if-benevolent nature-loving vibe are considered part of the subculture's aesthetic.
In The Midgaheim Bestiary, goblins are a type of boogeyman, a family of The Fair Folk which also includes orcs, bugbears, and trolls and specializes in forming connections between Fairyland and the mortal world, allowing the fairy world to consume small portions of mundane reality to maintain some measure of internal stability. The goblins themselves are descended from frogs, and still strongly resemble them. Several types exist:
- True goblins are an extremely common strain of fairy, many of which have been cast out of the fairy world for one reason or another. Large goblin populations thus exist in the mortal world, where they often come in conflict with humans over living space. They're also the most technologically adept breed of fairy.
- Hobgoblins are a smaller variety of goblin and are particularly skilled in enchanting objects. They're more tolerated among other fairies as a result, and often work as servants and enchanters in fairy courts.
- Grindylows are partially neotenic goblins who never fully leave the tadpole stage, retaining their tails into their adulthood and never growing hind limbs. They're aquatic and more solitary than goblins and hobgoblins, and have little culture of their own.
- Boggarts are lanky, horned goblin relatives who specialize in forming connections between human houses and Fairyland, allowing house spirits to move in afterwards. These spirits do not, as legend states, turn into boggarts if slighted — rather, they simply ask the original boggart to come back and teach the humans a lesson. While boggarts aren't particularly cruel or sadistic, they do greatly enjoy scaring people out of their wits.
The "smolrobots" Twitterfeed has Goblinbot as part of a Dungeons & Dragons subtheme. Gets a focus page on the smolrobots Patreon, which says "goblin is a trope, not a species" (that trope being, essentially, The Goomba; a goblin is any creature that's "up to no good" but "dies or runs away when you poke it with anything sharper than a sponge") and Goblinbot doesn't have a culture or society because portrayals of such always have Unfortunate Implications.
It's the platonic ideal of its purpose, which is to be a little guy who is causing problems.

Websites

The Hero Forge site offers four variants of goblins among their species presets: fairytale goblins (bearing long noses and ears), feral goblins (with sharper and more ragged features), goblinoids (with wide faces and more triangular ears), and hobgoblins (human-sized, and resembling their depiction in Dungeons & Dragons).

Web Videos

American High Digital: A student in "What I Auditioned For Vs What I Got" somehow manages to get a role as a goblin despite them not existing in the source musical. This seems to consist of painting her face green and harassing the other cast members.
Bedtime Stories (YouTube Channel): The "Kentucky Goblins" two-parter detailed the titular creatures of the Kelly-Hopkinsville Encounter and other strange beings that may in fact be the same. Unlike the traditional goblin, these creatures appear to be aliens. Part 2 suggests they're in fact The Greys and that features such as the giant ears are actually part of a helmet.
Critical Role: Goblins in Tal'Dorei have run the gamut as the setting has evolved, starting as Always Chaotic Evil wretches explicitly called vermin (Campaign 1), to being supernaturally-compelled to do harm by a sometimes-breakable curse (Campaign 2), to being more-or-less normal citizens, just short and green (Campaign 3). Orcs followed a similar trajectory, as Matt Mercer and other involved creators wanted to move away from portraying whole races as inherently evil.
Hallowed Worldly hasn't made the nature of its goblins entirely clear yet, but they can definitely pass for human. They belong to a supernatural hierarchy of some sort, which hasn't been depicted on screen.
Mahu: In "Frozen Flame" the citizens of the Goblin Republics are actually a civilized people rather than just groups of mindless barbarians.

Western Animation

Adventure Time: Goblins are small and ugly as usual, but (with a few individual exceptions like their Jerkass former king Xergiok) they aren't evil at all, and in fact are very easily intimidated and have a ridiculously rule-bound attitude to life.
American Dragon: Jake Long portrays goblins like an underground mafia, but they generally don't get much screen time. Hobgoblins later show up in the second season as your average club-wielding thugs.
Fangbone!: Goblins are small and green with little fangs, hair like that of a troll doll, and slime excreted from their skin that makes them immune to fire and lava. They're not evil, but the inhabitants of Skullbania consider them pests due to their love of filth and habit of infesting homes. They also have a natural predator in the form of a giant anteater-like monster called a Goblin Gobbler.
Franklin: The goblin in the Franklin and the Green Knight story "The Quest of the Green Knight" is called a goblin but really doesn't look or behave much like a traditional goblin at all, other than being somewhat on the small side. He's rescued from a traditional-looking griffin by the Green Knight, after which he gives him advice on how to find the object of his search: cherry blossoms that can bring spring. Appearance-wise, if anything, he looks like some sort of buck-toothed, long-tailed anthropomorphic rodent.
Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal: In "Feast of Flesh", Spear encounters a tribe of cannibalistic, cave-dwelling goblins who lack eyes because of their subterranean lifestyle.
Gravity Falls features the Gremloblin, which is half-goblin and half-gremlin.
In the Legend of the Three Caballeros episode "Stonehenge Your Bets", goblins are green-skinned humanoids, imprisoned in another dimension beneath Stonehenge, who like fighting, building unlikely war-machines, and telenovelas. They look not unlike Creeper from The Black Cauldron, especially the less warlike Worm.
LEGO Elves: Secrets of Elvendale: Goblins are cute little creatures who are normally harmless. When Cronan mind controls them into serving him, they're too incompetent to be a real threat.
Little Bear features particularly benign goblins: little men with long white beards who wear tall, pointy hats, and who aren't evil, ugly or creepy, just mischievous, especially on the Halloween-like holiday of Goblin Night. Basically they're gnomes who just happen to be called "goblins" instead.
My Little Pony:
- My Little Pony 'n Friends:
  - In "The Magic Coins, Part 2", while crossing the Jewel Desert, Megan and the ponies are ambushed by a group of aggressive goblins. These are depicted as squat, blue-skinned, long-armed and neckless humanoids, and are terrified of bright lights.
  - "The Golden Horseshoes, Part 2" has some very different goblins. The ones encountered here are large, burly green humanoids who tower over Megan, and tend to be ugly and deformed in various unique ways — one has three short horns and flat-topped head, another has flabby wide lips, and a third has an almost beak-like snout. They live underground and are greedy, hostile and argumentative beings, stealing from others and refusing to ever give anything away.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: They aren't actually called goblins, but the diamond dogs fit the niche to a T. They seem to come in sizes tiny and huge (well, huge compared to a pony) but are all hunched over and fanged, talk with a hissing, Gollum-esque inflection, live underground, wear utilitarian metal armor and carry weapons, mine heavily, and are quick to abduct surface creatures.
The Real Ghostbusters: Goblins are humanoid child-like monsters servants of Samhain.
Several Spider-Man shows feature the Green Goblin as a recurring villain. However, he's not true goblin; he's most often shown to be an enhanced human wearing a costume that makes him look like a goblin or a human injected with a serum that turned him into a green-skinned, goblin-like creature.
Star vs. the Forces of Evil: Goblins are the fairly standard diminutive, green skinned, pointy nosed and long eared type, but considering the only evil thing Roy ever did was overprice his Goblin Dogs and pelted the group with food truck merchandise, he's otherwise a fairly decent person.
Trollhunters: Goblins are herd-based, Gremlins-esque trouble makers from the Darklands. Should any of their kind die, even if the "culprit" didn't actually do it, the Goblins swarm them and issue payback on them "ten-fold". Luckily, they're dumb enough to blame the vehicle if one gets run over, and not the driver.
The Woodlies: While it got lost in the English translation, the original German title reveals the protagonists are goblins (Kobolde). They are furry beings no bigger than a squirrel, capable of human speech and with human level intelligence, and can walk on all fours or just their hind legs and use their front paws as hands.

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