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 Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 11:55 am
I'm not sure if this is the right place for this, but it can't hurt.
I'm writing a fantasy story, and I'm running into some time-line development issues. It's a bit of an involved explanation so please stay with me.
When He finished creation of the world, God gave each of the seven races a particular gift. The Elves received the knowledge of all things natural and magical. The Dwarves were given hands that could work earth, stone, and metal. The Mermaids gift was the song of the seas to communicate through the dark oceans. The Centaurs were bestowed with the gift of prophesy and the ability to read the skies. The Harpies were granted the wisdom of the past, and thus to know all history and languages. The Humans awarded ingenuity that they could survive where others could not.
The Goblins coveted all these gifts and asked God for them all. God was displeased, and cursed the Goblins so that they could see and measure the gifts of others but never own them.
The goblins in my story extraordinary mathematicians ("measuring the gifts of others") and are deathly allergic to gold ("never able to own them"). While humans can come up with ideas like gliders and paddle-boats, goblins can come up with the advanced mathematics to make them happen. As a result, goblins are the driving force behind technology (such as it is in a sword-and-sorcery Fantasy).
At the beginning of my story, goblins have been out of the creation business for about 500 years. Goblins used to be the most valuable engineers and scientists, but their own greed (and doubtless the greed of the rest of the world) literally blew up most of the greatest minds and their greatest inventions. So for the past few centuries, Goblins have been little more than swamp rats squabbling among themselves.
But now a few thinkers are trying to turn that around and bring back the glory days. An essential part of the plot is that while the hoards of evil use very primitive weapons, the forces of good get the advanced stuff but are fewer in number (like 7 heroes all together, including love interests)
So...Finally to my dilemma: While I want to maintain a general fantasy theme, I want my goblins to be VERY different, especially the good guys.
What sort of inventions would be good for the bad guys and what different inventions would be good for the good guys?
And what kind of time line is feasible? My main goblin hero needs to go from scribe to exile to motivated rebel to king in about 10 years max (goblins don't live long and he's already middle aged). Should I have caches of secret inventions from the goblins of ancient times waiting for the right heir? or is that way too cliche?
This is most important to the second book in the series, Goblin Knights. (The first book is almost done.)
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Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 10:17 pm
Goblins have always been able to manipulate machines easily and try to come up with a chief diety of the races it help a bit when a struggle happens.I started working on a story of the such except goblins are mechanics and alchemist.
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Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 10:47 pm
some evil machinery might be primitive bombs or gunpowder (less of a machine, but still might work.)
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Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 9:54 am
What sort of evil machinery? I doubt very much that I'll be able to pull off anything really large, especially considering that my goblins aren't over 3 ft tall. Some explosive might work, but bomb-making is more art than science, and my goblins flourish with science and facts.
Would any of these work: (and if so, what order should they be developed?)
-Tree cannons with ceramic cannon balls
-Crossbows
-Catapults
-Railways (small and primitive to start)
-Paddle boats
-Siege towers
-Boar-drawn chariots/carriages
-Other? I'm sure I'm missing stuff.
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Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 3:38 pm
Doesnt matter how big goblins are its a simple fact that they like exploding things along with machines.
Do the boar drawn chariots they are the simpliest.The tree cannons doesnt seem goblin like, try simple goblin boom powder(crude black powder)
cross bows are good.
Siege towers are the greatest thing and final product of simple science used by goblins
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Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2009 3:57 pm
so what would be a good way for goblins to seige a town without siege towers?
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Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2009 4:41 pm
Boar drawn cannons, the design would be similar to the chariot except the cannons are crude and tend to back fire, along with troops of grunts.
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Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 8:40 pm
Siege towers are too slow when you've got goblin numbers on your side. They breed like rats, so casualties of war really don't hurt the population much. Just have siege grunts in spiked armor loaded into catapults and fling 'em over the walls. If they survive the flight, they can attack from inside. If they don't, the spiked armor still makes them a formidable projectile.
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Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 3:41 pm
Awesome ideas! I love them!
...no one is going to sue me for a share of my measly royalties if I use them in my story, right? sweatdrop
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Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 3:47 pm
Go ahead and use them from writer to writer
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Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 7:52 pm
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Posted: Sat May 30, 2009 11:53 am
besides the necro in the post above, i had an idea.... look up the Goblin tech in Warcraft 3. very similar to yours, with humans, orcs, elves, swords, bows, etc. but then there are 3 minor races which are much more technical The Dwarves: Masters of black powder The Gnomes: Masters of flying machines The Goblins: Masters of metal basically, long story short, the goblins have tech like: the goblin shredder, Goblin Tinker, Clokwerk Goblins, Goblin Zep, etc http://classic.battle.net/war3/neutral/goblins.shtml - Shredder, Zeppelin http://classic.battle.net/war3/neutral/goblintinker.shtml - Goblin Tinker, Clokwerk Goblin Factory, etc
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Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 2:29 pm
I think that the Goblins could use gliders during a seige. They would be fired from steam catapults, similiar to those used by the Navy, that fire them up at an angle and are pulled by Ogres. These gliders would be filled with high explosives or tons of gun powder that are detonated on impact or by a timer. To break through the outer walls they would employ massive tunneling machines, rockets, high explosives, trebuchet's, and of course seige ladders.
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Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 11:07 am
Sounds a lot like the gifts of the races from the Dragonlance series, though I think their little clockwork geniuses were the gnomes, and they suffered a similar affliction - an ability to craft ingenious machines only ever on the verge of completion... usually they just blew up, if my recollections ring true.
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Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 9:52 pm
fire - link besides the necro in the post above, i had an idea.... look up the Goblin tech in Warcraft 3. very similar to yours, with humans, orcs, elves, swords, bows, etc. but then there are 3 minor races which are much more technical The Dwarves: Masters of black powder The Gnomes: Masters of flying machines The Goblins: Masters of metalbasically, long story short, the goblins have tech like: the goblin shredder, Goblin Tinker, Clokwerk Goblins, Goblin Zep, etc http://classic.battle.net/war3/neutral/goblins.shtml - Shredder, Zeppelin http://classic.battle.net/war3/neutral/goblintinker.shtml - Goblin Tinker, Clokwerk Goblin Factory, etc I can now see goblins in Kiss garb, or hair metal look, wielding electric guitars shaped like Greataxes.
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