AuldDragon's AD&D Blog

I’m not sure why I didn’t realize it before, but considering goblins and hobgoblins have their own patron deities, norkers and koalinths should as well. So what would these two deities be like? To start with, both would likely be demipowers; norkers and koalinths are significantly less common than goblins or hobgoblins afterall.

The Norker god would be Chaotic Evil like his followers, and could have the portfolios of savage and unorganized combat, individuality, and eating. He would obey Maglubiyet out of fear, but would be unreliable; the other goblin deities would likely use him and his followers as the lowest of cannon fodder in the endless war with the orcish hordes on Acheron. He would likely hate and despise Bargrivyek.

The deity of the koalinth would be an opponent of both Deep Sashelas and Panzuriel; he would probably live on Baator rather than Acheron, like Bargrivyek. His portfolios could include Oceans, Aquatic combat, and Ambush. I don’t think Nomog-Geaya being his superior would make sense, so he would likely be subservient to Maglubiyet only.

So, as part of my project, I’ve been looking at the existing goblinkin pantheons, and they really feel like they are too small.  The orcish pantheon isn’t too bad, with seven deities (including Dukagsh), but the other pantheons only have four each.

There’s a mention in DMGR4 Monster Mythology of minor bugbear gods of earth and fertility, so clearly we can bump up the bugbears to six there, and the fertility deity would probably work as a female (I kind of feel each one should have at least one female deity…). Obviously, due to the personality of the goblinkin, most of these new deities should have some sort of violent/combat/war/negative take on the portfolios, and many of the typical “good” portfolios would be non-existent, unless they can be twisted (as Luthic’s healing portfolio, in which she only heals warriors after combat). However, I would kind of like to avoid a situation of “this is the goblin version of Luthic, this is the kobold version of Luthic” and that sort of thing, so I’ll need to look at different interpretations, or different twists on the portfolios. Read the rest of this entry »