What happens when the monsters level up too? Matthew Whitby, host of the Dungeon Master's Guild House, shares a goblin with power enough to be more than a level 1 punching bag.

Get the full transcript and see the art of Grikk the Many here: https://scintilla.studio/monster-boss-goblin-matthew-whitby

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Meet my guest Matthew Whitby and watch his YouTube podcast "The Dungeon Master's Guildhouse"!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZvHj-LI4-ZO10NCr_tRRzQ

https://www.twitter.com/WhitbyWrites

Music:

"Something Amiss" by Will Savino, www.patreon.com/musicd20

"Pennywhistle" by Jason Shaw, www.audionautix.com

Grikk the Many was once just Grikk.

So very lonely.

There was no place for him.

So he spent years in isolation, Walking aimlessly across barren

wastelands forests mountain ranges.

One fateful day.

Grikk found two identical-looking humans arguing yet speaking in unison, He

found the whole situation confusing.

One serious clubbing with a sharp rock later, the situation was so

much easier to understand attention caught on a glowing ring that had a

reflective surface, the artifact called out to Grikk urging him to wear it.

So he did clutching the ring.

Grikk felt the potential of something.

He never truly considered the chance to be alone.

No more.

The opportunity latched around his mind until he reached out with the ring.

On the third attempt, Grikk stood staring at Grikk One moment later, Greek was

joined by Grikk Grikk Grikk and Grikk Grikk wasn't alone anymore In fact, Grikk

wasn't even Grikk - he was Grikk the Many.

Hello and welcome to Making a Monster, the weekly podcast where

game designers show us their favorite monster and we discover how it works,

why it works and what it means.

I'm Lucas Zellers.

The starter adventure in the last two editions of Dungeons & Dragons began

goblin attack.

These evil little gremlins ambush you, now fight for your barely capable lives!

The heroic fantasy genre gives its audience characters who progress from

stopping the smallest threats, like goblins, to the largest ones, like

demon princes and undead wizards.

But tabletop role-playing games allow their worlds to progress

without the characters' interaction.

These games don't need to wait for players to trigger a quick-time

event or load the next stage like a video game does, which means in these

worlds the monsters can level up, too.

My guest on this final episode of Making a Monster season one created

a series of goblins who transcend the usual first encounter use of

the creature in Runa and Ulfgar's Compendium of Big Boss Epic Goblins.

Hello.

I am Matthew Whitby.

I am an author on the DM's Guild and the host of the Dungeon Masters Guild

House, which is a weekly podcast where I chat with people on the DM's Guild.

But mostly I'm an author for adventures.

And in my many adventures, I'm quite fond of inserting in exciting

monsters or challenges that players might have never faced before.

Of the monsters in those 30 products that you've released,

what's your favorite and why?

Ooh, yeah, this again, this was a tough one.

One of the products that I, I'm really proud of was, was a collaboration on

Runa and Ulfgar's Compendium of Big Boss Epic Goblins, which was essentially a

brainchild that kind of stemmed from the idea of, people like goblins,

but goblins, they run out of like, Threats or, or being like a, anything

meaningful past like level five.

Sure you can, maybe get like some giants and have the goblin scaring

them out, but the goblins themselves aren't in like the big threat.

So that was like a collaboration with myself, Adam Hancock, and Jimmy

Merritt, edited with Ryan Langr.

and between the three of us, we came up with, I think, what was, it was

like, 20 big boss epic goblins.

one on ones that I wrote was, was called Grikk the Many, and it was

a goblin that had a, A particular artifact: the Ring of Many Selves.

Essentially, it was a ring that was designed to, create a copy of

yourself, much like a simulacrum.

However, this artifact in its creation, was, twisted and there were complications.

so in the fact that despite you sort of create a copy of yourself,

both versions of you share the same, subconscious or brainwaves, or like

essentially you create your own hive mind.

This one goblin who wears this ring, who has now created, like

then they're not a singular goblin.

They are a mass of, of goblins.

And out of all the other people, who've had this Ring of Many Selves, Grikk has

somehow managed to sort of overcome it, and become essentially the Master of Many.

what the kind of design ethos was was the fact that it they're there, that

stuff people like about governance.

And, it's the idea that.

That they, they are, that they, if it is like just that sort of like

comedic relief or just, the nature of how goblins are, to sort of show the

potential arc of like, well, I mean, the players are leveling up, the players

are getting to like level 10, 15, 20, and, getting all these possibilities.

I'm surely, there's gotta be some means which goblins to

also follow in their suit.

That's an expectation because at the end of the day players, probably by

the time they hit 15 to 20, they're so used to stomping goblins that if

they come face to face with any of these, any anybody they're going to be

like, Oh, this isn't just the goblin.

This is, at least in Grikk the Many's case of like, "Oh, this is - like a lot of This

isn't - this is an . . . I'll be honest.

This is an excessive amount of goblins

". Lucas: when you were putting this

on your thought process or, other stories or, tropes that you can

identify that you were drawing on?

think I got thinking about the idea of like, what about

like a ? Wouldn't that, wouldn't that just be cool, like to take, a

swarms are fun, fun to deal with.

What if we could somehow like make a goblin swam and then that kind of like

reverse engineering of like, okay, well, how did you get a swarm of goblins?

And I was like, well, if they happen to all share the same subconscious and then

it's like, well, okay, well they need a leader of something and that's great.

Swarm mechanics are one of those things that are in the book that probably

you could be a veteran player of the game and not at all know how this works.

Can you fill us in on what makes a swarm in fifth edition?

Yeah.

So, so essentially it is a kind of like a weird - well it's a stat block

that kind of has, the ability to occupy another space of any other creature.

Typically they're like a, their size is like, for example, the Grikk

swarm, which is essentially, any goblin that isn't Grikk or like one

of the many clones is a Grikk swarm.

They count as a huge form Of small humanoids.

and that's kinda how you sort of identify them.

Combat wise, they typically only have like one attack action.

and that damage is, Is 20 - 4d8+2 - bludgeoning damage or 11 - 2d8+2 If the

swarm is half its hit points or fewer.

So essentially it is a creature that is strength is tied

to its current hit points.

and I believe it's kind of hit points is, is, happening for that.

We have as like 40 D six.

so I think that's probably to equate to.

I don't know if it is 40 goblins.

I don't know how many in a huge, I'm trying to think of logistics

of how many Gobbins you could fit into a huge size because

Depends on how close you pack them, I guess.

I'm curious, what you want players to feel when they encounter Grikk?

Well,

Okay.

I think, I think what Grikk is, is Grikk is an interesting one

because he - they, I guess - they fill that gap of like, of being a, never-ending

horror to almost a comedic, opponent, depending on how it suits your campaign,

because there is the idea of a goblin that just never, there is no end to it.

It's not a case of when , or how Grikk the Many consumes you or overwhelms

you, it's just a matter of time.

Because there are thousands or hundreds of, of every goblin that has different

thoughts, different feelings, different sensations that they are just, insane.

at that point, they no longer fear pain because they constantly feel it.

if you imagine a Grikk swarm, there are goblins at the bottom being smushed

on by the goblins at the top, and, and every goblin is feeling that.

When you kind of think about it, it's, it's pretty messed

up in like the nicest way.

I think as well, if you just see a swarm of goblins, you can't

spot the original Grikk from them.

And that's kind of reflected in their stat block, the fact that they can

willingly hide between swarms, Making them harder just to fall off, pick out,

on that last time, that would make sense.

So challenging.

It's the fact that you can't just single outbreak, there's no end - there's,

there's like there's so many Grikks.

horror and comedy or comedy and tragedy, comedy and those

things kind of go hand in hand.

and yeah, I, I think again, you have the advantage with running campaigns

to lure people in with, with a sort of comical opening, and then when you

think about the realistic situation of kind of what's being presented with,

it's hard not to see that horror.

It's the idea that, at this point, does Grikk even exist anymore

or is Grikk all the Grikks?

Does this goblin have any like sense of self anymore?

Or have they lost themselves in being one of, a thousand identical-looking goblins?

Which I feel like you could draw some parallels and other, maybe,

some, maybe some real life parallels and, maybe again, I'm learning.

Maybe I went deep in this.

Maybe this is my, my subconscious screaming out.

Maybe it is They say that comedy is wide shot and tragedy is a closeup.

So you're right.

We start with the comedy opening and the further you get into it, the

more meaning and emotion you find.

and at the bottom of that, where it flips and where I think you just

left off is, does Grikk, the Many give us a metaphor that we can use to

understand the world that we live in?

On the surface level, I suppose, you can see the

parallels between the lengths Grikk went to in finding a, group to sort

of associate themselves with that.

They've lost all sense of self.

and again, maybe again, maybe if Grikk was, more self-confident and, comfortable

in their own shoes, and possession of sharp pointy rocks, they wouldn't

have stepped the path that led them to being, just one of, one of thousands.

I think, yeah, I, I don't know if that is a lesson in itself.

and I don't even know if that was like an intended lesson from the get go.

I, I it's, that's another thing is like, it's interesting even as to the

author, I honestly don't know if it was just like, "Hey, I just want to

throw some goblin swarms at people," or if like, some sort of subconscious

level, there's me thinking that.

In writing the backstory and you know who this, who Grikk the Many

is, yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe

that is a good question.

You have successfully stumped me.

I don't think I have, honestly, I'm going to keep pretty much all of that.

one more thing about goblins.

D and D uses goblins in a very particular way.

And we've talked about that I wonder if in your experience you've been introduced

to, other iterations or uses of the term goblin or the creature goblin, and, maybe

why they would've gotten into this game.

Ooh.

I guess a certain point, I kind of find kind of interesting about.

At least the, the, the goblins presented within D&D is, is

they are quite versatile.

And you do have the option to just make them like, the sort of child snatching,

just, just diabolically evil, , little gremlins, or you do have them as like,

essentially a, more, self-aware more sort of like "sell-swordy-esque."

And alternatively w in my, like, digging into the lore, the goblins of

the Feywild are completely different.

for example, you, there are got most, some of the goblins within the used

to be evil, aligned creatures that were taken to a, essentially the goblin kingdom

of the wild and converted into goblins, just magically like converted like that.

and it's interesting thing of like, yeah, or like a race of people who are

goblins, but weren't born as goblins

and how that kind of impacts the way they, where they act.

So, I'm, I'm not quite sure if I've answered, answered your question.

Exactly.

other than just saying, I, I, I think I that's why like, if my

goblins is, how versatile they are.

where do you want people to go to find more of what you do or get in touch

with you and the things that you do.

Yeah.

yeah.

So the best place to kind of hear about everything I do is is, is Twitter.

chances are, you will find me on there and life, or like actually, actually

I will tell you that my phone will be in my hand, whenever you send the

tweet at me, and that would be right.

but other than that, if you just search on the DMS Guild for Matthew Whitby, who

I am, yeah, you can find a list of, of, of my products and, my newest products.

textile men is out.

I highly recommend people picking up weed.

Yeah.

A charming little God, God, God, and God S Adventure.

and, over the next few days, my next product, which is Madden Madam

Eva's, Tara coat to throw codec of friends, foes and fortunes,

that's, that's coming out very soon.

So, so yeah.

Yeah.

Please, please watch me follow me on Twitter to hear about all that.

great.

If you want to confuse and amuse the players in your game with Grikk the

Many, you can find him in Runa and Ulfgar's Compendium of Big Boss Epic

Goblins on the DM's Guild and there is, of course, a link in the description.

Matthew and his collaborators volunteered this product to be part

of the, keep playing it forward program, which offers community

copies to gamers at reduced prices.

So people can keep playing, even if money is tight.

So follow that link in the show notes, to get a copy of the compendium at

50 90, or even a hundred percent off.

And also one thing I do with most of my products is I have

the full preview, so they can see the entire book and it's in a sorority.

Well, thanks.

Yeah.

I'm excited to recommend this.

I had a great time reading this book and I'm really excited for people to see it.

Thanks for listening to Making a Monster.

The opening music in this episode is from Wil Savino.

It's called "Something is Amiss."

Find out more at patreon.com/musicd20.

This has been the final episode of making a Monster's first season.

This show has surprised me over and over again in the passion and joy my

interviewees have brought to their craft and the depth of meaning and

cultural scholarship available in the stories that we tell together.

I hope the show has given you the inspiration and the tools to play more

meaningful and memorable games, and I hope you'll join me for season two in 2021.

In the meantime, there may be some bonus episodes.

There's a lot of pieces of these interviews I haven't released yet.

And, I have some upcoming appearances on other podcasts that you can watch for

find it all at scintilla.studio/monster.

And if you want to make the show better in its second season, you can find me

on KoFi at ko-fi.com slash spark otter.