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Magic and Religion

Goblins tend to be a shamanistic culture, for those that are religious at all. Some explicitly worship the goblin god Maglubiyet, said to be an eleven-foot-tall goblin with ink black skin and flaming eyes. He has many names, some of which include Fiery-Eyes, the Mighty One, the High Chieftain, and the Lord of Depths and Darkness. Worship of Maglubiyet is more common the bigger the goblin settlement – in small villages, the local seer and the unknown forces and spirits that influence the world are more important, but in big cities where religion is less communal, Maglubiyet features more in prayers and divinations.

In the standard sized village, the village seer is considered incredibly important and wise and believed to have the power to connect with or understand mysterious, unseen forces. Seers do not have explicit magical powers – they cannot levitate a twig or cast spells or turn into animals – but they are all universally considered to have some degree of prophetic sight. This manifests primarily in the form of the year-end prediction of the fate of the village, which is said to be a vision that the seer undergoes to anticipate when the next year will hold. Often these are vague or metaphorical enough that there is always a way to conclude the prediction has come true – sometimes, though, the seer’s vision is remarkably and uncannily accurate, and this serves to reinforce the notion that they do possess magical powers of some sort.

Seers often perform the role of advisor and counselor within a village. They are considered to be infinitely wise, and it is more strange for a goblin not to consult with their seer than otherwise. This may explain why they are so good at providing guidance with intra-village politics and interpersonal issues – because everybody confides in them, they have access to the thoughts and motives of all the goblins involved, and can recommend the best course of action. Seers also tend to be the ones turned to for any mental health issues, where they provide a combination of advice and quiet listening. This is considered part of their role as a mediator of the various magical forces and unseen tricksters that are surely to blame for any instability of the personality, but generally comes down to intelligence and people skills.

So is magic real?

It’s hard to say for sure. Many goblin scholars (yes, those do exist in some of the big cities) subscribe to the theory of the magical cycle – that like the warmth of the sun, the flow of magic waxes and wanes in a pattern that influences the world by quietly warming or cooling it. These scholars would say that we are in the cool part of the cycle, and that based on ancient records of gobin sorcerers and shapeshifters, the cycle of magic will begin to grow warm again in something like a hundred seasons.

Magic creatures that still roam the wilds seem to give credence to this theory, and there are some swamps in the goblin lands that emanate mysterious energies assumed to be some of the few pockets of magic remaining from the last hot period in the magic cycle.




No. It's currently not possible for goblins to have true magical abilities. You're welcome to play a goblin that wholeheartedly but incorrectly believes they have magical powers or, perhaps, one that strives to make other goblins believe that they do. If you're interested in this, you'll want to chat with a staff member about a seer apprenticeship, as that's the most suitable role for such a character.