But don't goblins eat human babies? – Hungry in Detroit
Hungry, Hungry, Hungry . . . where in the hell did you hear such nonsense? I don’t know what moonbat wingnut commie fascist is giving you your information, but I can assure you, goblins never, ever eat human babies without good cause. And by “good cause”, I mean “ketchup.”
I kid, of course. This is yet another example of the kind of scapegoating goblins suffer every day of their sad, yellow-green lives. Just as in the Olden Dayes the dirt-farming peasants blamed diseased livestock on witches, in D&D they blame missing or dead babies on goblins. Any time your standard Wis 8 Int 8 Commoner couple loses track of a young'n, instead of admitting to the commmunity that they screwed up, they take it out on the poor gobbies.
It’s tragic, really, but the research is out there to back me up. We see that
“In peasant families, where every person was needed to work the fields, infants were sometimes left alone in the home for long periods of time, or in the care of a brother or sister who was as young as 2 or 3. Many accidents befell infants left alone or in the care of other children, helping to account for the high infant mortality rate.”
and
“Peasant mothers who had their hands full with myriad daily chores were sometimes unable to keep a constant watch on their offspring, and it was not unknown for them to leave their infants or toddlers unattended.”
One cannot help but imagine that conversations like the following are far from rare in the D&D world:
“Gundermutton, have you seen Billye?”
“By Pelor’s nutsack, woman, what are you babbling about? I just spent 18 hours in the field trying to till earth with a Hardness of 6 when the damn plow only does 1-4pts of damage. Now I know what you’re thinking, my Strength is 14, and the plow technically should count as a 2-handed –”
“Don’t you think you’re laying on the rules verbiage a little thick, dear? This isn’t Order of the Stick. It’s not even close. Besides, Billye’s missing!”
“Who’s Billye again?”
“Your son. You know, the one that’s still alive. Remember how the . . . goblins got to the others?”
“Ah . . . yes. Do you . . . do you think it might be the same goblins that stole away poor Jimmye?”
“No, no, I checked the well.”
“What about Johnnye?”
“I don’t think so. Chimney’s clear.”
“Steveye?”
“Nope, the pit underneath the privy is clear. I think.”
“Okay, well, Tommye?”
““What did the goblins do to Tommye, again?”
“They lured him into the butter churn and then churned him to death because ‘they’ thought that his screams were actually coming from the milk cream. Interesting that the goblins seem to come a little bit more often when you start downing mead, ain’t it?”
“Oh yeah? Well, maybe it’s the same goblins that ran over Sallye with the plow and then fed her into the meat grinder because ‘they’ actually thought she was a cat!”
“Hey, those goblins work 18-hour days in the fields, woman, they can’t be held responsible when one of our kids goes wandering.”
“Well, don’t blame the goblins that feel the need to have a drink now and then to deal with – wait, what’s that Cerebus has in his mouth?”
“Here, Cerebus! Here, boy! Good dog . . . woman, did you remember to feed him today?”
“He’s your dog, Gundermutton. Besides, when I last checked, he seemed . . . full.”
*Gundermutton takes leg bone from Cerebus’s mouth. Looks at leg bone. Looks at nameless wife. Looks back at leg bone.*
“Poor Billye. Damned goblins . . . sooooo, want to work on the next one?”
In sum, maybe if the average Commoner put a few more skill points into Knowledge: Not Letting My Baby Die Of Exposure (yeah, it’s cross class, suck it up) they wouldn’t have to blame the poor innocent goblins for their mistakes.
Life as a peasant infant was nasty, brutish, and short. But not because of goblins – they know how to exercise restraint in such matters. Which must be tough, because I hear that baby is quite tasty.
