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Thaco: We are NOT jumping off this roof to our deaths!
(long pause)
Thaco: We're jumping off THAT roof to our deaths. It's got a tree.
The webcomic Goblins : Life Through Their Eyes follows the adventures of a band of, well, goblins, as they fight off evil Player Characters. It's a role reversal of the typical RPG adventure Dungeons And Dragons, though the familiarity from the game generally isn't required to understand what's going on, from the standpoint of members of a cannon-fodder goblin tribe, five of whom (Thaco, Chief, Big-Ears, Complains-of-Names and Fumbles a.k.a. Seņor Vorpal Kickass'o) become Player Characters, and a sixth one (Dies-Horribly) goes on a solo adventure arc quite against his will. Features incredible world-building (including quite a few whole-cloth, background creatures with detailed biologies) and characterization, particularly of the villains. One of the goblin characters, Big-Ears, is a rare instance of a truly gentle, heroic and noble paladin; while the paladin status of the most opaque and brutal villain, Kore, thus far is one of the most foreboding mysteries (the most obvious answer being "he's not a paladin, he just says he is").
The comic doesn't give its characters too long a period of getting used to their newfound abilities as heroes. Goblins thrusts its main characters in over their heads almost immediately, locks them into a course of action they can't possibly handle, and then calls into play a series of oddities, Deus Ex Machina, coincidences, character-driven actions, more Deus Ex Machina, and Chekhov's Guns that collectively get the heroes into a position where they might possibly be able to escape their impossible predicament. Because it didn't seem like they'd get into this much danger this quickly, the story instantly became edge-of-your-seat reading.
The comic is also known for its extremely slow update schedule, juggling three plots at the same time, spending literally months on irrelevant mook battles, and skipping comic updates to advertise products.
Fairly very extremely Fairly gory, often late, but not to be missed. And don't give up after a few strips, because it really, really, really does get better. By several orders of magnitude.
For goblins in general, see Our Goblins Are Different.
See also: Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic
Goblins provides examples of:
- A Wizard Did It: Literal, in the case of K'seliss and Saral Caine — probably, anyways.
- Recent strips imply this may be the case with Goblinslayer as well.
- And, of course, the many magical items used randomly throughout the plot that vastly overshadow everything else in Power Level.
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Well, it is an RPG world, but a sewer with sculptures in it is pushing things a bit...
- Although you would be surprised — many sewers started out as catacombs, or even buildings. In medieval-style towns like that one, it would seem reasonable that the sewers are more sepulchre then anything.
- Acceptable Targets: Basically Dellyn's excuse for his torturous atrocities.
- Always Chaotic Evil: Seemingly a deconstruction of the trope. The Goblins and such are portrayed as creatures who are just trying to survive in a world where they are seen as mere XP Fodder.
- It's also justified in the case of the Elite Guard: Thaco compares the Elite Guards' motivations to those of the standard city guard, and for the rest of the comic, it's okay to assume that the Elite Guards are Always Lawful Evil. Ears the Paladin confirms this with his Detect Evil ability.
- Angrish: A mild case of it, in terms of speechless anger When the Chief has just prayed to his God that there'd be no guards around the corner this is his reaction.
- Archive Trawl: Not a huge one, but definitely worthwhile.
- Are You Pondering What Im Pondering
- Arrow Catch: Thaco in this comic. Not surprising, considering he's a Monk, but still a Crowning Moment Of Awesome (or a big Anti Climax depending on your point of view).
- Artificial Limbs: Dies-Horribly's arm, possibly Dellyn Goblinslayer's as well.
- Badass: Tempts Fate; K'Seliss
- Battle Aura
- Baleful Polymorph: A good reason not to use the random-effect magic shield Complains picks up. Alternately, a good reason TO use it if utterly and hopelessly outnumbered.
- Beware The Nice Ones: Big Ears, a genuine Lawful Good paladin (without any Knight Templar or Lawful Stupid characteristics, though occasionally falls into Honor Before Reason), doesn't like it when Takn uses his friend as target practice.
- Big Bad: Multiple of these, one for both of the major plot arcs, and another even bigger bad who seems likely to be a part of the comic's culmination.
- Big Damn Heroes: This happens a few times.
- One example is when Ears comes back to save the other goblins from the plant-possessed orcs.
- Break the Cutie: Fumbles. Poor, poor Fumbles.
- Buffy Speak: "... There is battle happening right now all around me and I'm stuck in this pathetic hut like some... hut... stucky... thing!"
- By the Lights of Their Eyes: A favourite effect of Thunt's, used to great effect throughout.
- Cerebus Syndrome: Initially the comic was mostly about making jokes based on various D&D tropes and conventions, and had absolutely No Fourth Wall, with the adventurers explicitly being characters in someone's role-playing game. Quite soon it grew way more serious in tone and began developing the fourth wall, although various Dn D mechanics are occasionally referenced by characters. The player characters haven't been seen since.
- Do remember that Tropes Are Not Bad, because with this comic — especially if you're not a pen-and-paper gamer — the early joke strips form the annoying breaking-in period before the story Grew The Beard and became worth reading. The dramatic shift has been excellent to date, and as the author has stated that he plans the story well in advance, it might be assumed that this story will only get more awesome as it goes.
- The player characters have returned, and are still blatantly PCs.
- Challenging the Chief: How The Goblinslayer got his job as captain of the town guard.
- Character Level
- Chekhov's Gun: The random effect magical shield.
- Chekhov's Skill: Deflecting arrows.
- Complete Monster: Dellyn Goblinslayer and Kore.
- Contractual Genre Blindness: Such things as not using the weapons the tribes keep as treasures for P Cs is considered a sacred tradition amongst goblins. Complain-of-Names is banished for being Genre Savvy enough to use the weapon.
- Min Max and Dellyn Goblinslayer have both complained about the main characters subverting this trope. Dellyn even calls Thaco's classing into a PC class the most perverted thing that he's ever heard of.
- Cool Old Guy: Thaco
- Crowning Moment of Awesome: All of the magical items get these on a regular basis. The characters... less so, although Thaco certainly qualifies.
- K'Sellis's handling of Noe.
- Most of what Ears does after he gets his armor. Most notably, clearing out an entire crowd during the rescue of Fumbles.
- Note: He's a paladin, and one of the finest examples of that class you'll ever find. So the way he lies to get people to flee is a strong moment of characterization that proves Good doesn't have to be Stupid.
- Crazy Awesome: Tempts Fate. Sure, part of it is that he's Thunt's donation scheme and thus, people would have to stop supporting Thunt's artistic endeavors to kill him off, but he practically gets off on danger and excitement.
- Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: This particular story arc involving a blind ogre and his paraplegic, mute Kobold companion. See Tearjerker.
- Crowning Moment of Funny: Tied in with Speak Of The Devil, this strip, particularly the lampshading of "Who else saw this coming?"
- Cute Monster Girl: Saves-a-Fox
- Cute Mute: Yala
- Cutting the Knot: Pan the ogre at the gate.
- Deus Ex Machina: Every major plot arc so far gets resolved through randomness that just happens to save the hapless protagonists.
- The Shield of Wonder spams Ex Machinas of both the Deus and Diabolus variety every time it blocks a strike.
- Disability Superpower: Dies' arm is a Shapeshifter Weapon and an Empathic Weapon. Similarly, Goblinslayer's tree half can do some major damage and produce its own wooden weapons. It remains to be seen whether it's a disability per se or just a standard superpower, though.
- Might be a Disability Superpower in that it's an artificial limb with augmentary powers — it's been revealed that only the arm and that half of his face have been replaced.
- The Dog Bites Back: Fluffles the Owlbear, instead of attacking the goblin group, savages his "master".
- Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night: One guard gives one to his men right before battling the party as a rare villainous example.
- Dumb Muscle: Minmax, who (as befitting his name) has Min/Maxed himself to have ridiculous combat stats but cannot even read (he gave up literacy for a bonus).
- Dungeon Bypass
- Empathy Doll Shot: Inverted (cruelly) with the doll Fumbles tries to return to the elf girl Aldyria in Brassmoon.
- Evil Weapon: Inverted with the Axe of Prissan. It's a container for an archdemon capable of destroying the world, but is itself a good-aligned Empathic Weapon that will only give its full power to a Paladin, and refuses to harm one.
- Eye Scream: Done once for comedic effect — the later times not so much.
- Face Palm: Plenty.
- Fate Worse Than Death: For Dellyn Goblinslayer — ignominy.
- Kin the Yuan-Ti begs for death upon being recaptured by the guards.
- Fluffy the Terrible: Fluffles the Owlbear.
- Fridge Logic: Experienced by Dies Horribly in this strip.
Dies Horribly: "This egg is bigger than both of the doors. How'd they get it in here?"
- Game Master: One of the Player Characters encountered early on is a Cleric of the Dungeon Master, Herbert.
- Genre Savvy
- Half Human Hybrid: Readers believe, due to his appearance and the implications on this page that Saral Caine is one. Dellyn Goblinslayer is one as well; from his appearance, he looks like he might be a treant/human hybrid. The Yuan-Ti Kin declares he was changed into his present state by a wizard.
- Given the most recent evidence, he might be a Half Human Hybrid only in the same way a cyborg is — he looks to be a Half-Golem (a D&D template where an existing creature has golem limbs grafted onto it, kind of a Magitek cyborg).
- Hannibal Lecture: "You're some random human I fought in the early levels of my adventuring career. You're a random encounter."
- Heroic BSOD: Fumbles was driven catatonic by Dellyn's tortures. Even after the party escapes, he's still not out of it.
- High Octane Nightmare Fuel: The various horrific mutilations inflicted by Dellyn on his victims. Samples include Yala, a female kobold whose legs and tongue have been cut out; a kobold whose upper snout was hacked away; a hobgoblin with half of his face nothing but raw, bloody meat...
- The drow/orc/whatever woman's injuries trump all of those by wide margin. All the skin and flesh of her back, peeled away... ick.
- And that's nothing compared to the effects of the random shield during the major fight. Highlights include: a soldier being slowly transformed into an ogre and then stabbed to death by his terrified sergeant; said sergeant's armour being made bigger, more impressive, and most of all heavier, to the point that it eventually crushes him to death inside (look out for his eyeball popping out); a man slowly and, from what he says, agonisingly turning into a mass of snakes. This is all punctuated by cries of "What's happening to me?!" Good luck sleeping.
- light wounds anyone?
- Hit Points: Only mentioned when people are close to zero or in the negatives.
- Hoist By His Own Petard: The guard who "trained" Fluffles.
- Honor Before Reason: Big Ears. It's pretty much his Badass Creed.
- Humans Are Bastards: Humans in general are portrayed in one of three ways: outright evil (Dellyn Goblinslayer and the Elite Guard), dumb (Minmax), or ignorant and prejudiced (the townsfolk of Brassmoon).
- Humans Through Alien Eyes: This page and the one preceding it. See also, Squick.
- Impaled With Extreme Prejudice: Dellyn Goblinslayer, on a piece of broken pipe.
- Incredibly Lame Pun: That's no moon... groan.
- Info Dump: One of the overpowered artifacts is introduced out of the blue with a large wall of text. Duv, the White Terror, is also introduced with epically sized speech bubbles.
- Informed Ability: For a Paladin that inexplicably retains his power despite acting like a Complete Monster, Kore doesn't demonstrate a paladin power once. Hmm...
- Intercontinuity Crossover: Tempts Fate vs the Predatory Alien Creature Which Is Legally Distinct from Some Other Kind of Predator
- Ironic Echo: Thaco: "Now, Dellyn... Bleed for me."
- Jerkass: Takn might well be the first completely unsympathetic monster character shown so far in the comic.
- Jigsaw Puzzle Plot
- Karmic Death: See Hoist By His Own Petard, among others.
- Knight Templar: Kore, to the extreme.
- Lampshade Hanging: A lot of this goes on about D&D rules.
- Lawful Stupid Chaotic Stupid
- Leave Him to Me: Dellyn versus Thaco.
- Little Kid Lover: Minmax is referring to a woman's charisma score, not age. The populace seems to think differently.
- Luke Nounverber: Dellyn Goblinslayer; Forgath Bladebeard
- MacGuffin: The Orb of Bloodlight. None of its powers have been enumerated thus far, but it's apparently strong enough to give Duv absolute mastery of the goblin race.
- Made of Plasticine: Seemingly all human guards, especially the more current storyline.
- Made of Iron: As a result of playing D&D Hit Points straight. Important characters can be run through by several spears and swords, but still survive, and injuries rarely have any lasting effect. However, it's worth noting that the author has developed a custom set of critical hit and fumble tables that can indeed result in lasting or permanent injury, incapacitation, and many other things. These are highlighted with Complains' broken arm and during the sewer fight between Thaco and Dellyn Goblinslayer.
- Masochist's Meal: Yumyuck moss.
- Meaningful Echo: "I would sacrifice anything for a chance at his throat."
- Meaningful Name: Pretty much every single goblin, intentionally, due to their naming traditions. Some more subtle instances of it also occur, such as a player character resembling a Japanese samurai named Baka.
- Mood Whiplash
- Monster Hybrid: K'seliss — or at least, that's what is suspected.
- Most Common Superpower: Drowbabe and her replacement character. Lampshaded by Minmax to likely be the product of some lonely teenager who barely knows what women are like.
- Since Drowbabe2 isn't (literally and deliberately) falling out of her top, it's possible that Drowbabe's player is learning — a little. Maybe.
- Munchkin: Minmax
- My God What Have I Done: Forgath, after the slaughter of the goblin village. Fumbles, too, after accidentally injuring an elf girl. That's why he goes to Brassmoon, after all — despite having been rather explicitly warned that it's the home of the Goblinslayer, and having witnessed Thaco's PTSD reaction to the idea of anyone in the GAP going there.
- Nobody Poops: Parodied, subverted, and then inverted in an Enemy Chatter conversation the audience is allowed to listen to.
- Not Worth Killing: Dellyn to Thaco, which is basically a Fate Worse Than Death for the former.
- Given the way the next book is starting, this might indeed come back to bite him in the ass.
- Neck Snap: Fluffles' mercy kill.
- No Fourth Wall: Intermittently throughout, since the characters are aware of the nature of their universe, and the rules by which it runs.
- No OSHA Compliance: Someone conveniently left a lot of broken rusty pipes sticking out of the water in the sewers.
- Oh Crap: Dellyn's reaction when he realizes just what Thaco has been doing during the battle.
- Old Master: Thaco again.
- One Size Fits All: Can be assumed thanks to the Dungeons & Dragons setting, but shown explicitly when Big Ears claims the Axe of Prissan from Saral Caine, and the accompanying magic armour resizes to fit him.
- Our Goblins Are Different: The goblins are the good guys this time around.
- Well, at least some of them. The only way to consider Duv even remotely sympathetic by this point is to take her backstory (told in the first person) as the whole truth. Even then, she behaves awfully like a beginning Evil Overlord, with a self-admitted sadist, Riss, as her Dragon. Either way, though, it's more character development than goblins usually get.
- Overused Copycat Character: Mocked, roundly.
- Parody Satire Pastiche: The intro to Tempts Fate 9 is a brilliantly skewered parody of To Catch a Predator, complete with lampshading by Tempts.
- Politically Incorrect Villain
- Prophetic Names: Lampshaded, Subverted, Averted and generally played with by the various Goblin tribes mentioned.
- Psycho for Hire: Dellyn Goblinslayer, a sadist who justifies his brutality through the fact that he's doing it to supposedly Always Chaotic Evil creatures and that (his idea of) Utopia Justifies The Means. Riss, maybe — he doesn't even try to deny taking the interest in suffering of others.
- Put on a Bus: The adventurers who slaughtered the goblin tribe in the beginning pretty much just went off into the wilderness and haven't been seen from since, although their involvement in future events is not only foreshadowed, but prophesied.
- Role Playing Game Verse
- RPG Mechanics Verse: The comic uses a heavily houseruled D&D ruleset. The author has even gone out of his way to state that all the combat results that may seem like an Ass Pull are indeed legitimate.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Kin's first speaking page — high intelligence causes her to use unnecessarily long words when nervous. Or that's her excuse, at least.
- Schedule Slip: Oh so very much.
- Screw Destiny: Saves-a-Fox's motto.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: The Axe of Prissan is a powerful paladin weapon that contains a nigh-unstoppable demon. The axe needs to be recharged regularly (by being used to kill evil things) or the demon will escape and probably cause The End of the World As We Know It.
- Shoo Out the Clowns: Harshly averted, as Fumbles walks headlong into disaster rather than away from it.
- Shout Out: To Pirates of the Caribbean in this strip.
- Slasher Smile: Evil humans can contort their faces in some... interesting ways.
- Smite Me Oh Mighty Smiter: Chief, the cleric, has a moment of this when an unanswered prayer shoves him too far.
- The So Called Coward: Sort-of example with an ogre (?) who literally has "coward" written on his forehead by torturers. Guess who's staying to cover the escape for others?
- Speak of the Devil: Noe
- Squick: The Shield of Wonder and its myriad gory ways of killing people.
- Stat O Vision
- Talkative Loon: Asks-Nonsense. Even if some of his questions are actually rather puzzling... (how do you know?)
- Take My Hand
- Tear Jerker: The small plotline involving Pan the Ogre and Yala the Kobold. She falls off and they both freak out when they realise the other is missing and he starts to cry because he can't find Yala. Don't worry, he does.
- Also, Fumbles being paraded through the main square (with his forehead covered, of course), being made out to be a vicious monster, and then beaten nearly to death by a random bypasser. In fact, pretty much everything to do with Fumbles from the point when [[spoiler:he nearly kills a little girl by accident.
- Kin being abandoned when she falls from the wagon after helping everyone escape.
- Thanks for the Mammary: Happens to Tempts Fate in the Realm of Naked Mudhoney Covered Babes... With three girls. In one panel.
- The Dragon: Saral Caine, Riss. One has already been... dealt with.
- The Guards Must Be Crazy: Averted here.
- Token Evil Teammate: Signs show Takn to be this.
- Torture Technician: Dellyn Goblinslayer (see also Shoo Out the Clowns, Break the Cutie) and the Fat Guard who "trained" Fluffles.
- Unsound Effect: TELEPORT NOISE! (As per the order of Marvel Comics Legal Departament the noise is most definitely not "Bamf". Nor is it "Snikt" or "Thwip".)
- Villain with Good Publicity: Dellyn Goblinslayer, known by the town as Captain of the Town Guard who is nonetheless confirmed as having an evil alignment.
- The Voiceless: Klik
- Weaksauce Weakness: Ordinary blood burns Klik like acid.
- What Have I Become: Complains, about three seconds after the crucial moment.
- Why Dont Ya Just Shoot Him: The guards end up discussing how Dellyn's obsession with personally killing Thaco is a liability.
- What Measure Is A Mook / What Measure Is A Non Human: The comic is obviously pretty much BUILT on goblins being considere as evil by humans and killed as such without remorse.
- Who's on First?: The summon guide appears any time his name is spoken outside of his presence. His name is "Noe". I'm sure you can see where this is going.
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