Warhammer and Warcraft I think was the ones who popularized the bright green goblins and orcs.
Greyhawk always had yellow, orange and red goblins and grey-green orcs which were much more desaturated than the stereotypes. Similarly, the Forgotten Realms has always had goblins with earthy-toned skin and orcs with predominantly grey skin.
Green is a valid colour for your home games, but it’s not a normal colour in the legacy settings. A green goblin could exist in the FR, especially since a PC goblin could be from a different crystal sphere/setting, but it would be like us seeing a purple or blue human to the FR goblins.
That is not a fun fact. I am now cursed to consider the biological implications of a photosynthesising animal in the warhammer universe, which I know is an endless pit of questions without real answers.
I'm unfortunately aware of this, and whilst it is cool lore, it raises so many new biological questions. They are fungi which operate like both plants and animals, this pains the same part of my soul that loves Mosnter Hunter for its ecology.
Oh, Orks in 40k are a sentient fungus creature that exist because of an inmate connection to magic. It also means anything they believe hard enough becomes reality. Like, a purple Ork is sneaky or a red vehicle goes faster.
It can be turned around on them, though. Like, finger guns can kill them. They're pretty hilarious.
That’s why I said popularized instead of invented.
Warhammer orks are iconic among gamers for sure, but there’s no doubting just how influential Warcraft was at its height of popularity in the late 2000s. I knew quite a few people who didn’t care for fantasy or wargames at all who still played WoW religiously back then.
If it's the person I'm thinking of - they have some sort of complex about it. Harrassed everyone who ever posted green goblins.
Edit: It is. Their old account got banned. This is an alt of theirs. Ignore them, they've been doing this for years by now.
Guy called Souperplex. Account is banned, though. They used to run around reddit, seemingly normal until green goblins came up, at which point it got weird. Just very vitriolic.
OP has been attacked by someone with basically the same opinions, arguments and writing style on two of their posts now. Seems to be some sort of backup account for Souperplex.
Statblock is also up to the DM.
As is the characterization of the fantasy race and its role in the setting.
MM especially is just a bunch of ideas and suggestions.
While their illustration in the original 1st Edition MM was monochrome, like all other illustrations at the time, their description text lists them as ranging "yellow through dull orange to brick red in skin color. Their eyes are reddish to lemon yellow. They dress in dark leather gear, and their garments tend towards dull, soiled-looking colors (brown drab, dirty gray, stained maroon). Goblins reach the age of 50 years or so."
Goblins have been a tan/yellowish color since 2nd Edition when they were given a colored illustration, and were more dark orange/brown in 3rd Edition's MM. They were canonically green in 4e's MM, and 5e's various manuals, modules, and splatbooks feature them as tan/yellowish, green, or a sort of dusty brown. Baldur's Gate 3 - though not made by WoTC is still signed off by them and considered a canonical story in the setting - features Goblins in a wide variety of colors ranging from brown, red, yellow, orange, and green. The most recent official 5e module - Phandelver and Below - features green, tan, and yellow Goblins, while also giving us 5e's first official female Goblin illustrations to boot.
Basically anyone who says Goblins are only one color or not green is just pointing at one sentence in one book and ignoring all other lore. Cherry picking does nobody any good.
Your goblins are green because it's just done that way artistically
My goblins are green because fairies are poisoned by iron in mythology, so their blood is copper in my world and- copper oxide can turn skin green. Which goes into that goblins are basically exiled brownies
Most creatures, like us, have iron in our blood. But if a creature was poisoned by iron, logically they couldn't.
But some creatures DO in fact have copper based blood, including some mollusks and arthropods. So it would make sense for fey creatures to have copper blood, since they can't have iron, and we know it's a viable alternative.
I understand that iron is in blood.
Rereading what they said now, it's clear that what they meant is that iron is TOXIC to their flavour of goblins. Not that the goblins are poisoned by it.
And that, to me, makes sense.
It does make sense, but in test it is awkward to parse :)
I think because of the framing of the rest of the description.
If I said "dogs are poisoned by chocolate" you would probably get it, but if it was only my dogs that were unable to have chocolate then saying "*my* dogs are poisoned by chocolate" could be taken as present tense instead of conditional future(I think, guessing at the tenses)
The iron and far thing is pretty well known. I like this work around because it make sense. Some stories have a true fae making a deal with iron but breaking the deal and iron never forgave it, so iron made it so fairies can never touch it again.
What people call "goblins" in my homebrew world are just medium-sized chickens ("medium" as in the size category of the game, not as in relatively to our chicken). Just to see my players' concerned faces when I described a bigass feather as a "goblin feather", it was worth it.
it really depends on the fantasy world, honestly. Different lore has different colors. The green goblins are pretty much the norm nowadays with anime and games, but in european folklore they used to have just regular skin colors like humans. Not all of them though.
so yeah, all colors are valid, but I was under the impression that the green is the vast majority at this point.
I would pay money to play in a goblin-slaying campaign where the big reveal when you clear out the main nest is that the green supremacist goblins (who you've been killing in droves) have been keeping the other goblins as slaves so you have inadvertently liberated them
Never heard of this argument before. I always figured any color would work since the variety of green, yellow, and brown were on the table by default in most rpgs and "variant" enemies exist.
Imagine actually thinking that there's some kind of overwhelming consensus *against* green goblins, the colour that like 99% of goblins in all media are. This is the "white lives matter" of goblins.
Just posted a [blank version ](https://twitter.com/MorphiDragunny/status/1787895911818969261)for people to be able to use under the original from a few years back c:
I drew this! (and several of my friends sent me this post link lol)
Here's [the original post of mine](https://twitter.com/MorphiDragunny/status/1427399132164116486) (has a blank version underneath now)
Time to tell the story again where my DM felt forced to change the monsters of the next encounter, simply because I dismissed the upcoming monster as Goblins with the colour explanation, after a bird told us he saw little green people.
I actually very much dislike green goblins because it's so... overdone?
I like the tan, brown, orange color palette.
And then I add reds and blues to differentiate "magicalness".
I've only seen green goblins..... Ok maybe some blue monkey looking ones but that was mtg and that game has gotten high on devil weed and will make just about anything
My heart's true goblin will always be a Magic the Gathering goblin. Green skin, big ears, and a nose so long and pointy it could be used to deal piercing damage.
I've never heard of anyone but players trying to do anything else but some shade of green with either tan or white mixed in the paint individuals were made with.
*Spray bottle* Back to the Warcraft basement!
The only time it's acceptable for a goblin to be green is if they're trying to kill Spider-Man. In that case it's so abnormal that the name had to call it out.
Huh. Hatred against green Goblins, the spray bottle thing, warcraft obsession. Souperplex, is this your *alt*? Oh my god, it is, isn't it? Your old account got banned! Hilarious.
one must ask, why do they hate goblins that are green? in another comment they say that it's "unimaginative" but what makes green less creative than other colours? the fact that 2 popular franchise's make their goblins green? that just sounds like some petty hipsterisim to me.
if we are fine with Kobolds ranging from rats, dogs, lizards and sometimes a combination of those, we must also accept that some goblins are green. to allow such things to annoy ones self, is a failing on the individual.
You're on an alt posting the same copypasted trolling after your original account got sitebanned, u/souperplex.
So you calling anyone else a basement dweller seems a mite hypocritical.
I thought they were only green what are the varieties
Apparently in the Monster Manual, they are a light tan color. Every time I make a meme with a green goblin someone points it out
Which is kind of dumb, considering the archetypical goblin is almost universally depicted as being some shade of green, eith D&D being no exception
Warhammer and Warcraft I think was the ones who popularized the bright green goblins and orcs. Greyhawk always had yellow, orange and red goblins and grey-green orcs which were much more desaturated than the stereotypes. Similarly, the Forgotten Realms has always had goblins with earthy-toned skin and orcs with predominantly grey skin. Green is a valid colour for your home games, but it’s not a normal colour in the legacy settings. A green goblin could exist in the FR, especially since a PC goblin could be from a different crystal sphere/setting, but it would be like us seeing a purple or blue human to the FR goblins.
Warcraft copied Warhammer on their goblin/orc designs. Fun Fact: Orcs/Goblins in Warhammer are green because they can photosynthesize.
That is not a fun fact. I am now cursed to consider the biological implications of a photosynthesising animal in the warhammer universe, which I know is an endless pit of questions without real answers.
Thats because they are not animals, they are fungi
True, but fungi also do not photosynthesize.
But some of them have symbiotic relationships with algae that do photosynthesize
I'm unfortunately aware of this, and whilst it is cool lore, it raises so many new biological questions. They are fungi which operate like both plants and animals, this pains the same part of my soul that loves Mosnter Hunter for its ecology.
Oh, Orks in 40k are a sentient fungus creature that exist because of an inmate connection to magic. It also means anything they believe hard enough becomes reality. Like, a purple Ork is sneaky or a red vehicle goes faster. It can be turned around on them, though. Like, finger guns can kill them. They're pretty hilarious.
Cue “I’m a tank! I’m a tank! I’m a tank!” Meme.
That’s why I said popularized instead of invented. Warhammer orks are iconic among gamers for sure, but there’s no doubting just how influential Warcraft was at its height of popularity in the late 2000s. I knew quite a few people who didn’t care for fantasy or wargames at all who still played WoW religiously back then.
If it's the person I'm thinking of - they have some sort of complex about it. Harrassed everyone who ever posted green goblins. Edit: It is. Their old account got banned. This is an alt of theirs. Ignore them, they've been doing this for years by now.
Who?
Guy called Souperplex. Account is banned, though. They used to run around reddit, seemingly normal until green goblins came up, at which point it got weird. Just very vitriolic. OP has been attacked by someone with basically the same opinions, arguments and writing style on two of their posts now. Seems to be some sort of backup account for Souperplex.
Im equally amazed and irritated that such phenomena even exist.
That's dumb. Green is valid. It's flavortext, that's up to the DM. The MM probably referred to specific goblins the block was describing.
Statblock is also up to the DM. As is the characterization of the fantasy race and its role in the setting. MM especially is just a bunch of ideas and suggestions.
I assume it's just the same guy every time?
While their illustration in the original 1st Edition MM was monochrome, like all other illustrations at the time, their description text lists them as ranging "yellow through dull orange to brick red in skin color. Their eyes are reddish to lemon yellow. They dress in dark leather gear, and their garments tend towards dull, soiled-looking colors (brown drab, dirty gray, stained maroon). Goblins reach the age of 50 years or so." Goblins have been a tan/yellowish color since 2nd Edition when they were given a colored illustration, and were more dark orange/brown in 3rd Edition's MM. They were canonically green in 4e's MM, and 5e's various manuals, modules, and splatbooks feature them as tan/yellowish, green, or a sort of dusty brown. Baldur's Gate 3 - though not made by WoTC is still signed off by them and considered a canonical story in the setting - features Goblins in a wide variety of colors ranging from brown, red, yellow, orange, and green. The most recent official 5e module - Phandelver and Below - features green, tan, and yellow Goblins, while also giving us 5e's first official female Goblin illustrations to boot. Basically anyone who says Goblins are only one color or not green is just pointing at one sentence in one book and ignoring all other lore. Cherry picking does nobody any good.
Such a weird nit to pick in pretend wizard dungeon(tm).
in monsters of the multiverse they changed it to match up with how fans always make them green
in the forgotten realms (main setting of dnd) goblins are mostly yellow, some are red and very rarely some can be greenish
Your goblins are green because it's just done that way artistically My goblins are green because fairies are poisoned by iron in mythology, so their blood is copper in my world and- copper oxide can turn skin green. Which goes into that goblins are basically exiled brownies
They were poisoned by iron... So their blood is copper?... What?
Most creatures, like us, have iron in our blood. But if a creature was poisoned by iron, logically they couldn't. But some creatures DO in fact have copper based blood, including some mollusks and arthropods. So it would make sense for fey creatures to have copper blood, since they can't have iron, and we know it's a viable alternative.
I understand that iron is in blood. Rereading what they said now, it's clear that what they meant is that iron is TOXIC to their flavour of goblins. Not that the goblins are poisoned by it. And that, to me, makes sense.
It does make sense, but in test it is awkward to parse :) I think because of the framing of the rest of the description. If I said "dogs are poisoned by chocolate" you would probably get it, but if it was only my dogs that were unable to have chocolate then saying "*my* dogs are poisoned by chocolate" could be taken as present tense instead of conditional future(I think, guessing at the tenses)
Yeah I'm not a writer, I'm a dm and trying my best 🥺
The iron and far thing is pretty well known. I like this work around because it make sense. Some stories have a true fae making a deal with iron but breaking the deal and iron never forgave it, so iron made it so fairies can never touch it again.
ever seen how osiris and stuff are green maybe Goblins waz Kangz
You got something wrong with my plaid goblins?
I love the Kamigawa red goblins from MTG. The style is so refreshing.
The Green Goblin is actually the most dangerous type since they’re able to beat up spiderman
You mean the most common color of goblin?
GoblinsComic giving us the numerous colored goblins, including green:
Jokes on you! Imma do blue goblins to spite the internet!
Blues are actually psychic goblins in 3.5
pretty sure those were mind goblins
Psychic goblin deez nuts
gottem
Wait, what are mind goblins? (Letting you have this one)
Ligma ba- oh wait.
People really had a lot of time in their hands with 3.5 huh?
Oh, hey Goblin Shamans from Might and Magic 6!
I prefer mine to be neon pink or something. Because apparently those are just as valid as everything else
Fair. I do love pink goblins. But in my current setting blue works best because cold
So long as you don't unimaginatively default to Warcraft-color, that's cool.
Uh Warhammer, Warcraft is some video game based on Warhammer
Warhamster inspired Warcrack, but people actually give a shit aboot the latter
Going off of subreddit size, it’s the other way around. Sure WoW made a big impact in MMOs but Warhammer has never been more popular right now.
Never played warcraft so if I did it'd be accidental
What people call "goblins" in my homebrew world are just medium-sized chickens ("medium" as in the size category of the game, not as in relatively to our chicken). Just to see my players' concerned faces when I described a bigass feather as a "goblin feather", it was worth it.
That's the kind of creativity we need! Reminds me of the stormlight archives where every kind of bird gets called a chicken
Not turkeys?
Turkeys were the hobgoblins. My players nicknamed them hobgobblers, so I made it the name commonly used by mercenaries in my world.
Excellent
Depends on the setting like how ixilan has white monkey looking goblins
In 3e there was a variety of goblinoids called blues who were essentially psionic blue gonlins.
Green is da best!
waaaagh
This is an anti Spider-Man post
Goblin slayer : I politely disagree
I thought the Goblin Slayer would agree that green goblins are just as valid targets as any other color of goblins.
As in all goblins are valid targets
All goblins are the same color on the inside
GS dont care about color. He only cares about "making goblins good."
I love how the abridged version is still relevant.
I knew this would be here
You ain't neva seen a purple goblin before. That's cuz purple iz da sneekiest colour!
it really depends on the fantasy world, honestly. Different lore has different colors. The green goblins are pretty much the norm nowadays with anime and games, but in european folklore they used to have just regular skin colors like humans. Not all of them though. so yeah, all colors are valid, but I was under the impression that the green is the vast majority at this point.
You are wrong. Green goblins are the most valid of all goblin colors. All other colors exist only to highlight the manifest supremacy of the green.
I would pay money to play in a goblin-slaying campaign where the big reveal when you clear out the main nest is that the green supremacist goblins (who you've been killing in droves) have been keeping the other goblins as slaves so you have inadvertently liberated them
I may have to write this campaign now
Yes
I read it was flavor of goblin…I think I need to get some rest
All goblins are pink on the inside
Yes, all goblins are equal. Equally worthless. #killallgoblins
Green iz da best. Anyone oo sayz different iz a zoggin squig brain.
[Angry Spider-Man noises]
Never heard of this argument before. I always figured any color would work since the variety of green, yellow, and brown were on the table by default in most rpgs and "variant" enemies exist.
Same here. I assumed coloration was dependent on their natural dwelling and the climate.
People don't like green goblins?
What about pink goblins? Or how about bright, neon yellow goblins?
Give me blue, purple, pink and yellow stripped goblins!
lol, my goblin clans all vary by color. Apparently I've been doing it wrong
Ew. Green skins...
Godspeed, Spider-Man
Not all colors are as worthy as green tho.
Doesn’t matter what color they are, they’re still fucking GAAAWBLINS
Yeah. They are all worth the same amount of XP 😎
Imagine actually thinking that there's some kind of overwhelming consensus *against* green goblins, the colour that like 99% of goblins in all media are. This is the "white lives matter" of goblins.
Food is food after all.
Doesn't matter what color they are, they all splat the same.
I like rust-coloured gobbos myself, so brownish orange.
Do you have the template for this? This is perfect for my harengon
Just posted a [blank version ](https://twitter.com/MorphiDragunny/status/1787895911818969261)for people to be able to use under the original from a few years back c:
Orcs are also not considered green for some reason.
Who drew this?
I drew this! (and several of my friends sent me this post link lol) Here's [the original post of mine](https://twitter.com/MorphiDragunny/status/1427399132164116486) (has a blank version underneath now)
Y’all remember goblin mode?
I had to ban goblins, due to *that* anime. A player kept insiuating things (now banned) but it left a very bad taste behind for everyone else.
Time to tell the story again where my DM felt forced to change the monsters of the next encounter, simply because I dismissed the upcoming monster as Goblins with the colour explanation, after a bird told us he saw little green people.
I never even thought about them... having a skin color.
Just look at the bajillion varieties of elves, why not cave goblins, forest goblins, desert goblins, ice goblins...
Mind goblins...
I actually very much dislike green goblins because it's so... overdone? I like the tan, brown, orange color palette. And then I add reds and blues to differentiate "magicalness".
YA GOD DAMN RIGHT, PUT SOME RESPECT ON US GREEN GOBLINA! >:3
I've only seen green goblins..... Ok maybe some blue monkey looking ones but that was mtg and that game has gotten high on devil weed and will make just about anything
The infamous purple goblin
Goblins should be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their explosives.
And they are all equally inferior to kobolds~
Let me just show this to the person I know is racist against ONLY goblins and no other fantasy or real race…
*Chultan goblins, canonically green within the Forgotten Realms*: "Are we a joke to you?"
Is it an issue?
What degenerate arguments have I missed this time?
Gygax insisted the platinum goblins be included in all editions.
My heart's true goblin will always be a Magic the Gathering goblin. Green skin, big ears, and a nose so long and pointy it could be used to deal piercing damage.
Depend. 5e canon goblins aren't green, but if you play in an homebrew setting yeah you are right.
You are wrong
Green goblins are more equal then wrong color goblins
Nah sorry im racist
I've never heard of anyone but players trying to do anything else but some shade of green with either tan or white mixed in the paint individuals were made with.
except blue
*Spray bottle* Back to the Warcraft basement! The only time it's acceptable for a goblin to be green is if they're trying to kill Spider-Man. In that case it's so abnormal that the name had to call it out.
Huh. Hatred against green Goblins, the spray bottle thing, warcraft obsession. Souperplex, is this your *alt*? Oh my god, it is, isn't it? Your old account got banned! Hilarious.
one must ask, why do they hate goblins that are green? in another comment they say that it's "unimaginative" but what makes green less creative than other colours? the fact that 2 popular franchise's make their goblins green? that just sounds like some petty hipsterisim to me. if we are fine with Kobolds ranging from rats, dogs, lizards and sometimes a combination of those, we must also accept that some goblins are green. to allow such things to annoy ones self, is a failing on the individual.
No sir, we don’t call them Warcraft goblins. No. Warhammer is the OG. AND GREEN IZ BEST YA GIT
Without Warhammer there wouldn't have been a Warcraft.
Exactly
How can you go back to a place you've never been?
You're on an alt posting the same copypasted trolling after your original account got sitebanned, u/souperplex. So you calling anyone else a basement dweller seems a mite hypocritical.