So, I get where Goblins and Bugbears come from. Goblins are pretty ubiquitous at this point, and Bugbears are the scary monster hiding in the woods(very hide-behind), but what mythological thing inspired the way D&D presents Hobgoblins?
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Hey y'all, I'm Okashido and I'm super into D&D. I like making characters(to the point where I have a doc about 100 pages long filled with character ideas.), am an aspiring actor in college, and also consider myself a storyteller and actor at the table. I enjoy making characters with backstories and watching them play off of other people. I roll with the punches and am a great Improviser. I can DM, but think my strengths lay in being a Player most. Hope we can all have fun and maybe play some games.
Back in the day when the original monster manual was being developed they searched for all the mythical monster names they could find and then attempted to give each one a developed monster. Since Goblins and Hobgoblins are so similar linguistically, the developers decided to make the lore link up in some manner. They decided the goblins were the rank-n-file infantry/archer soldiers and the Hobgoblins were the officers and the trained army, like the Roman Legions instead of the auxiliaries. Then someone decided to throw the bugbears in the mix and you got your shock troops.
The list of monsters and magic items has seen little modification since the AD&D days of the Monster Manual, Fiend Folio and Monster Manual II. The HP, monster descriptions, AC, abilities and all that have been adjusted, but few new monsters have been added to the total.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
They also do a good job of filling the classic Tolkien-esque Orc niche IMO (which, not coincidentally, were a lot more like what D&D calls goblinoids in a number of ways). D&D Orcs have diverged considerably from Tolkien's original vision, being either chaotic pillagers or just another kind of humanoid depending on the setting and edition, but hobgoblins are nice to have when you need to fill the niche of disciplined foot soldiers in the mould of the Uruk-hai.
The confusing part for me is that the term Hobgoblin referred to small magical creatures akin to elves or goblins that lived in your home. That's somewhat where the "hob" part of their name comes from, is that there was a part of the hearth called the hob. Though it was also used later on as a shorthand for goblins as a whole, I was just confused how the term for house spirit came to be attributed to the rank-and-file soldier types in D&D. If it's just grabbing a name and slapping it onto another monster type, I suppose that works but I'd be a little disappointed.
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Hey y'all, I'm Okashido and I'm super into D&D. I like making characters(to the point where I have a doc about 100 pages long filled with character ideas.), am an aspiring actor in college, and also consider myself a storyteller and actor at the table. I enjoy making characters with backstories and watching them play off of other people. I roll with the punches and am a great Improviser. I can DM, but think my strengths lay in being a Player most. Hope we can all have fun and maybe play some games.
The confusing part for me is that the term Hobgoblin referred to small magical creatures akin to elves or goblins that lived in your home. That's somewhat where the "hob" part of their name comes from, is that there was a part of the hearth called the hob. Though it was also used later on as a shorthand for goblins as a whole, I was just confused how the term for house spirit came to be attributed to the rank-and-file soldier types in D&D. If it's just grabbing a name and slapping it onto another monster type, I suppose that works but I'd be a little disappointed.
You're right it's largely assigned out of ignorance, no fidelity to the source language. Let's also realize Spiderman's Hobgoblin being a sort of bigger badder adversary than the Green Goblin (sorta Goblin 2.0) likely had more influence than the actual language origins ("oh "hob" is sorta like "bigger goblin" ok then..., now about this eyeball monster, yeah eye of the beholder, dude". The creators of D&D were more on the "fantasy trip" that was a washing machine of Tolkien and Moorcock, and Dune and comic books and heavy metal and maybe Lovecraft and some Aleister Crowley, etc, than they were folklorists.
But you may be interested in the Fey Hobgoblin UA that may lean more toward the folklorist origins. At least it's not so much militant but more a creature that prides hospitality and community.
The confusing part for me is that the term Hobgoblin referred to small magical creatures akin to elves or goblins that lived in your home.
One thing you have to understand is that historically, one culture’s “elf” is another’s “goblin” is another’s “gnome” is another’s “troll.” Meanwhile, other cultures also had “goblins,” “elves,” “trolls,” and “gnomes” too, but they weren’t necessarily (or even usually) similar to their cross-cultural namesakes in any way.
Just look at what an “elf” was in different cultures. In Englad, “elves” were friendly little house spirits like Dobby. In Ireland they were of the Tuath Dé, which literally translates to “tribe of gods.” Meanwhile over i Scandinavia, “elves” were more like those depicted in Tolkien’s works. They were mighty warriors who could gut a person like a fish faster than the person could blink. They were also good and noble, willing to grant boons to worthy, respectful petitioners. Half of the population of Iceland still believe in Elves, and many folks still petition them for help or guidance, similar to how most of the other half of Iceland prays to the Christian God.
That “tribe of gods” I mentioned, the Tuath Dé, they were also somewhat similar to the Olympians of Greece in a lot of ways, including having had to overthrow a preexisting race of ”monstrous” godlike entities. The Tuath Dé overthrew the Fomoreans who were kindasorta a bit like the Titans who were overthrown by the Olympians. The Fomoreans we’re also sortakinda like how Trolls were depicted in some cultures. (Other cultures depicted trolls much like goblins, dwarves, or elves. The Fomoreans were also a lot like the “demons” of Japanese lore. And in Japanese culture, “demons” are more or less “evil spirits,” and the spirits aren’t entirely different from the spirits known to the People of the First Nations in the Americas…. (I could keep going, but hope I don’t have to.)
[REDACTED]
The mighty Scandinavian elves went from being comparable in height with humans, to being tiny little things, just about the right size to bake cookies in a tree. At least the ones that didn’t end up as slave labor making toys for all eternity so an obese serial B&E expert with a cookie addiction and a penchant for putting things in other peoples houses could get his rocks off once a year.
The Norse “Dwarves” started out as a race of mighty giants, and ended up with their name me being synonymous with “small,” and their “might” become more grumble than gusto.
The mighty “tribe of gods,” the Tuath Dé that had saved all of Ireland from the Fomoreans… they ended up as capricious wee folk who grant wishes if you can catch them. Their leader, a mighty warrior called King Lugh went loony and was thereafter referred to as “Mad Sweeney.” Now he has a job pushing shugarbombs on kids as an eye opener, like their junkies. (How the mighty have fallen.) In fact, most of the population of Ireland has little to no connection to any of the lore from their own land that predates the rise of Christianity in Ireland. Oh, yeah! That priest, the one who drove Sweeney mad and was so successful at driving all of the gods out of Ireland…. He is celebrated with gusto every February for being so successful at driving the snakes out of Ireland. (Snakes, gods, whatever. 💁♂️)
Sensing a pattern?
Make it physically smaller and by association “weaker.” ☑️
Make them hide underground away from His light. ☑️
Replace “mighty” with “quirky, grumpy, capricious, eccentric, buffoonish, etc.” ☑️
Record new version in writing as the only permanent record. ☑️
Come to think of it, that’s the same outline agents, publicists, managers, and “image consultants” use in their playbooks for how to make celebrity’s and politicians come off like their 💩 don’t smell like ours. And how to burry whatever might leak that doesn’t fit that narrative.
Starting to see why it was usually easier for GG&Co. to pick a name from a compiled list, create a monster to fulfill whatever niche needed filling, and then slap some lore on it to (hopefully) make it feel like the name they appropriated and monster they invented out of whole cloth fit together?
now about this eyeball monster, yeah eye of the beholder, dude".
A small number of the early(ish) D&D monsters were unique inventions The Beholder is the most famous of them.
D&D was originally an adaptation of compilation of Houserules that David Arneson was using for his Chainmail campaign.
Chainmail was a “Medieval Fantasy Miniature Wargame” published in 1971 by Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren. It was developed by Gygax expanding on Perren’s rules for a "Medieval Miniature Wargame,” and adding a Fantasy supplement.
But Perren’s medieval ruleset was basically just his “homenrew/houserules” for a game called Siege of Bodenburg that was published in ‘67/8 by a guy named Henry Bodenstedt.
So essentially, D&D was Arneson’s homebrewed adaptation of his own houserules for a game that was essentially an expansion and revision of another set of houserules for another game (by someone completely uncredited.)
It was an adaptation of a revision of an update for a knockoff of a forgery. 😉
Since it went MWG->MWG->MWG->TTRPG, everyone was already used to using miniatures. That is what the “M” in “MWG,” stands for after all. So when Arneson adapted his houserules from working for military units to working for single “Player Characters,” (which was more-or-less the first genuinely original step since Bodenstedt‘s original work), it wasn’t long before people were back to using minis in combat.
But it was still basically built off of the Chainmail chassis. Chainmail‘s fantasy supplement was only 14 pages, and it included “Heroes” and “Wizards,” so there really wasn’t a ton of room left for “Fantasy Creatures,” and it already was using some of that space for essentials like Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and Dragons. Needless to say, they ran out of stuff to fight relatively quickly. That was when they started compiling a list of fantasy creature names and slapping rules on them. To get ready for the next session, and slowly adding on out of necessity.
A guy named Terry Kuntz played in GG’s game for a couple of months in 1974 and soon after he invented the Beholder as his homebrew. As the story goes, he went to the toy store and bought a bag/box/tube of little plastic monsters. One of them was a floating meatball with a mouth, an eye, and a bunch of eyestalks all over it. He showed his ‘brew to Gygax who absolutely loved it, Gygax just tweaked it a little and then published it in his Greyhawk supplement the following year. To this day it the most iconic monster in D&D, and one of the most valuable pieces of IP attached to the game. (That’s why WotC doesn’t include beholders in any SRDs.)
That 👆, that right there, all of it… that’s is why I say “Homebrew is the heart and soul of D&D.”
A guy named Terry Kuntz played in GG’s game for a couple of months in 1974 and soon after he invented the Beholder as his homebrew. As the story goes, he went to the toy store and bought a bag/box/tube of little plastic monsters. One of them was a floating meatball with a mouth, an eye, and a bunch of eyestalks all over it. He showed his ‘brew to Gygax who absolutely loved it, Gygax just tweaked it a little and then published it in his Greyhawk supplement the following year. To this day it the most iconic monster in D&D, and one of the most valuable pieces of IP attached to the game. (That’s why WotC doesn’t include beholders in any SRDs.)
That 👆, that right there, all of it… that’s is why I say “Homebrew is the heart and soul of D&D.”
Ahem,
Believe the legend.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
To this day it the most iconic monster in D&D, and one of the most valuable pieces of IP attached to the game. (That’s why WotC doesn’t include beholders in any SRDs.)
Well, there are creatures that show up across fantasy RPGs and even anime that are clearly inspired by The Beholder from D&D. I mean, there is also the creature from Big Trouble in Little China that was all but a D&D Beholder. They just can't call it a Beholder.....
Even now, it's really just that beholders in unlicensed fantasy fiction can't be referred to by name. As far as I know, WotC doesn't have the authority to blacklist anything that even looks like a beholder in non-WotC affiliated works. Some works get pretty tongue-in-cheek about it too, like how Goblin Slayer had a beholder-proxy which was literally addressed in-dialogue as "one of those creatures that can't be named".
Even now, it's really just that beholders in unlicensed fantasy fiction can't be referred to by name. As far as I know, WotC doesn't have the authority to blacklist anything that even looks like a beholder in non-WotC affiliated works. Some works get pretty tongue-in-cheek about it too, like how Goblin Slayer had a beholder-proxy which was literally addressed in-dialogue as "one of those creatures that can't be named".
They could potentially try if Hasbro somehow thought it was smart (I might add, Lorraine Williams fell into that trap when she tried claiming TSR had the exclusive right to Paladins and Rangers). It depends on which entity they want to tangle with, though. Goblin Slayer is ultimately owned by Sony Japan IINM (through all the web of companies) and if they thought defending their "not-Beholder" was worth the hassle, they could potentially be a big enough 800lb gorilla to mount an effective "Bring it!" counter-suit. Or you could be a small time company and just be REALLY lucky and have a judge that looks at the case and goes "Dismissed with Prejudice" since "not-Beholders" have shown up in multiple media forms without TSR (and now WotC/Hasbro) defending their IP.
The confusing part for me is that the term Hobgoblin referred to small magical creatures akin to elves or goblins that lived in your home. That's somewhat where the "hob" part of their name comes from, is that there was a part of the hearth called the hob. Though it was also used later on as a shorthand for goblins as a whole, I was just confused how the term for house spirit came to be attributed to the rank-and-file soldier types in D&D. If it's just grabbing a name and slapping it onto another monster type, I suppose that works but I'd be a little disappointed.
You're right it's largely assigned out of ignorance, no fidelity to the source language. Let's also realize Spiderman's Hobgoblin being a sort of bigger badder adversary than the Green Goblin (sorta Goblin 2.0) likely had more influence than the actual language origins ("oh "hob" is sorta like "bigger goblin" ok then..., now about this eyeball monster, yeah eye of the beholder, dude". The creators of D&D were more on the "fantasy trip" that was a washing machine of Tolkien and Moorcock, and Dune and comic books and heavy metal and maybe Lovecraft and some Aleister Crowley, etc, than they were folklorists.
But you may be interested in the Fey Hobgoblin UA that may lean more toward the folklorist origins. At least it's not so much militant but more a creature that prides hospitality and community.
I actually just stumbled upon this and thought I’d drop a note. Does the face on the mask look familiar…?
Larvate - Putto^
The larvate was an enigmatic spiritello. This putto was shown in mischievous antics playing bogeyman, scaring companions by wearing the Silenus mask and often playing with Mars's helmet or shield. The putto behind the mask was called a larvate
The mask was the ugly face of Silenus, who was the hairy debauched satyr companion of Bacchus. The larvate represented empty fright - those frights we feel that are unfounded and without real cause. They are involuntary conflicts and desires that prey on the human heart. Ralph Waldo Emerson referred to these frights as "hobgoblins of little minds." They could be serious as our fear of death or lesser childish ones- the point was they were frights that haunt us but we can do nothing about them. Also our' fears may be greater than the reality of what we fear. A great description of the larvate is, "The mask pretends to cover something tremendous and terrifying, but which is really nothing" - just a little putto playing pranks. When the larvate was used in love, bacchanal or dream scenes, he created tension, possibly anxiety and sexual arousal. Interestingly, the word larvate is used today as a medical term for a disease that is masked.
Seeing as Hobgoblins are my favorite D&D race, I thought I'd chime in on things, albeit a bit late perhaps. Among all the things already mentioned that the word "Hob" can mean, one of the older meanings of the world is "elf", so technically they'd be "elf-goblins", which makes a bit more sense as the hobgoblins are the most civilized of the goblinoids. I'd recommend looking up the Goblinoids in the Eberron setting. They are quite different and a lot more interesting.
According to Tolkien himself, Orc is just another name for Goblin, just in a different language. Think "A rose by any other name…"!
Also, in Old French 'Gobelin' (goblin) is synonymous with the German 'Kobold', though AD&D makes a huge differentiation.
All this actually means is the D&D does not always follow the mythology.
Another problem, Goblins in D&D are variously described as medium humanoids or medium fey. If you attest to the mythology that Goblins are descended from elves turned evil and cursed by elven gods, then they are fey. If you prefer the mythology that they are a species of corrupted human, then they are humanoid. Pick one (fey or humanoid) and stick with that in your campaigns, as neither fits fully with Tolkien's depiction.
So, I get where Goblins and Bugbears come from. Goblins are pretty ubiquitous at this point, and Bugbears are the scary monster hiding in the woods(very hide-behind), but what mythological thing inspired the way D&D presents Hobgoblins?
I always liked their "samurai" look in Monster Manual from old school Monster Manual.
So in my world, goblins were the primary "base" goblin race - and during a war with Monks & Samurais, the goblin god stole the ascending souls of Samurais - and created Hobgoblins and with the Monk souls made Iron Shadow Hobgoblins.
According to Tolkien himself, Orc is just another name for Goblin, just in a different language.
Tolkien based Orc on 2 sources: Orcneas (an undefined creature from Beowulf) and Orcus, a Roman/Etruscan God of the Underworld (who maybe eventually became conflated with Pluto). He used Goblin in The Hobbit because it was a children's story and Goblins were more commonly known since they were faeries of mythology. However, he also DOES mention Hobgoblins...
"Before you could get round Mirkwood in the North you would be right among the slopes of the Grey Mountains, and they are simply stiff with goblins, hobgoblins, and rest of the worst description. Before you could get round it in the South, you would get into the land of the Necromancer; and even you. Bilbo, won't need me to tell you tales of that black sorcerer. I don't advise you to go anywhere near the places overlooked by his dark tower!" - The Hobbit
What's funny is that Hobgoblins being associated with a larger breed of Goblin was basically a Tolkien invention because the OPPOSITE is true in fairy tales: they were rather smaller.
'What's funny is that Hobgoblins being associated with a larger breed of Goblin was basically a Tolkien invention because the OPPOSITE is true in fairy tales: they were rather smaller."
So true. The Germanic hobgoblin was a combination of 'hob' (small spirit) and goblin (a mischievous being).
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So, I get where Goblins and Bugbears come from. Goblins are pretty ubiquitous at this point, and Bugbears are the scary monster hiding in the woods(very hide-behind), but what mythological thing inspired the way D&D presents Hobgoblins?
Hey y'all, I'm Okashido and I'm super into D&D. I like making characters(to the point where I have a doc about 100 pages long filled with character ideas.), am an aspiring actor in college, and also consider myself a storyteller and actor at the table. I enjoy making characters with backstories and watching them play off of other people. I roll with the punches and am a great Improviser. I can DM, but think my strengths lay in being a Player most. Hope we can all have fun and maybe play some games.
Back in the day when the original monster manual was being developed they searched for all the mythical monster names they could find and then attempted to give each one a developed monster. Since Goblins and Hobgoblins are so similar linguistically, the developers decided to make the lore link up in some manner. They decided the goblins were the rank-n-file infantry/archer soldiers and the Hobgoblins were the officers and the trained army, like the Roman Legions instead of the auxiliaries. Then someone decided to throw the bugbears in the mix and you got your shock troops.
The list of monsters and magic items has seen little modification since the AD&D days of the Monster Manual, Fiend Folio and Monster Manual II. The HP, monster descriptions, AC, abilities and all that have been adjusted, but few new monsters have been added to the total.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
They also do a good job of filling the classic Tolkien-esque Orc niche IMO (which, not coincidentally, were a lot more like what D&D calls goblinoids in a number of ways). D&D Orcs have diverged considerably from Tolkien's original vision, being either chaotic pillagers or just another kind of humanoid depending on the setting and edition, but hobgoblins are nice to have when you need to fill the niche of disciplined foot soldiers in the mould of the Uruk-hai.
The confusing part for me is that the term Hobgoblin referred to small magical creatures akin to elves or goblins that lived in your home. That's somewhat where the "hob" part of their name comes from, is that there was a part of the hearth called the hob. Though it was also used later on as a shorthand for goblins as a whole, I was just confused how the term for house spirit came to be attributed to the rank-and-file soldier types in D&D. If it's just grabbing a name and slapping it onto another monster type, I suppose that works but I'd be a little disappointed.
Hey y'all, I'm Okashido and I'm super into D&D. I like making characters(to the point where I have a doc about 100 pages long filled with character ideas.), am an aspiring actor in college, and also consider myself a storyteller and actor at the table. I enjoy making characters with backstories and watching them play off of other people. I roll with the punches and am a great Improviser. I can DM, but think my strengths lay in being a Player most. Hope we can all have fun and maybe play some games.
You're right it's largely assigned out of ignorance, no fidelity to the source language. Let's also realize Spiderman's Hobgoblin being a sort of bigger badder adversary than the Green Goblin (sorta Goblin 2.0) likely had more influence than the actual language origins ("oh "hob" is sorta like "bigger goblin" ok then..., now about this eyeball monster, yeah eye of the beholder, dude". The creators of D&D were more on the "fantasy trip" that was a washing machine of Tolkien and Moorcock, and Dune and comic books and heavy metal and maybe Lovecraft and some Aleister Crowley, etc, than they were folklorists.
But you may be interested in the Fey Hobgoblin UA that may lean more toward the folklorist origins. At least it's not so much militant but more a creature that prides hospitality and community.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
One thing you have to understand is that historically, one culture’s “elf” is another’s “goblin” is another’s “gnome” is another’s “troll.” Meanwhile, other cultures also had “goblins,” “elves,” “trolls,” and “gnomes” too, but they weren’t necessarily (or even usually) similar to their cross-cultural namesakes in any way.
Just look at what an “elf” was in different cultures. In Englad, “elves” were friendly little house spirits like Dobby. In Ireland they were of the Tuath Dé, which literally translates to “tribe of gods.” Meanwhile over i Scandinavia, “elves” were more like those depicted in Tolkien’s works. They were mighty warriors who could gut a person like a fish faster than the person could blink. They were also good and noble, willing to grant boons to worthy, respectful petitioners. Half of the population of Iceland still believe in Elves, and many folks still petition them for help or guidance, similar to how most of the other half of Iceland prays to the Christian God.
That “tribe of gods” I mentioned, the Tuath Dé, they were also somewhat similar to the Olympians of Greece in a lot of ways, including having had to overthrow a preexisting race of ”monstrous” godlike entities. The Tuath Dé overthrew the Fomoreans who were kindasorta a bit like the Titans who were overthrown by the Olympians. The Fomoreans we’re also sortakinda like how Trolls were depicted in some cultures. (Other cultures depicted trolls much like goblins, dwarves, or elves. The Fomoreans were also a lot like the “demons” of Japanese lore. And in Japanese culture, “demons” are more or less “evil spirits,” and the spirits aren’t entirely different from the spirits known to the People of the First Nations in the Americas…. (I could keep going, but hope I don’t have to.)
[REDACTED]
Sensing a pattern?
Come to think of it, that’s the same outline agents, publicists, managers, and “image consultants” use in their playbooks for how to make celebrity’s and politicians come off like their 💩 don’t smell like ours. And how to burry whatever might leak that doesn’t fit that narrative.
Starting to see why it was usually easier for GG&Co. to pick a name from a compiled list, create a monster to fulfill whatever niche needed filling, and then slap some lore on it to (hopefully) make it feel like the name they appropriated and monster they invented out of whole cloth fit together?
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
At this point, D&D is pretty much it’s own mythology. Trying to map real world myths onto D&D monsters will at best get you mixed results.
A small number of the early(ish) D&D monsters were unique inventions The Beholder is the most famous of them.
Since it went MWG->MWG->MWG->TTRPG, everyone was already used to using miniatures. That is what the “M” in “MWG,” stands for after all. So when Arneson adapted his houserules from working for military units to working for single “Player Characters,” (which was more-or-less the first genuinely original step since Bodenstedt‘s original work), it wasn’t long before people were back to using minis in combat.
But it was still basically built off of the Chainmail chassis. Chainmail‘s fantasy supplement was only 14 pages, and it included “Heroes” and “Wizards,” so there really wasn’t a ton of room left for “Fantasy Creatures,” and it already was using some of that space for essentials like Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and Dragons. Needless to say, they ran out of stuff to fight relatively quickly. That was when they started compiling a list of fantasy creature names and slapping rules on them. To get ready for the next session, and slowly adding on out of necessity.
A guy named Terry Kuntz played in GG’s game for a couple of months in 1974 and soon after he invented the Beholder as his homebrew. As the story goes, he went to the toy store and bought a bag/box/tube of little plastic monsters. One of them was a floating meatball with a mouth, an eye, and a bunch of eyestalks all over it. He showed his ‘brew to Gygax who absolutely loved it, Gygax just tweaked it a little and then published it in his Greyhawk supplement the following year. To this day it the most iconic monster in D&D, and one of the most valuable pieces of IP attached to the game. (That’s why WotC doesn’t include beholders in any SRDs.)
That 👆, that right there, all of it… that’s is why I say “Homebrew is the heart and soul of D&D.”
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Ahem,
Believe the legend.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Well, there are creatures that show up across fantasy RPGs and even anime that are clearly inspired by The Beholder from D&D. I mean, there is also the creature from Big Trouble in Little China that was all but a D&D Beholder. They just can't call it a Beholder.....
Sure, but prior to 1997, WotC had nothing to do with D&D, that was all TSR and it would have been up to them to decent Theo IP back then.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Even now, it's really just that beholders in unlicensed fantasy fiction can't be referred to by name. As far as I know, WotC doesn't have the authority to blacklist anything that even looks like a beholder in non-WotC affiliated works. Some works get pretty tongue-in-cheek about it too, like how Goblin Slayer had a beholder-proxy which was literally addressed in-dialogue as "one of those creatures that can't be named".
<cough> Cacodemon <cough> You'd think Sandy Petersen would've known better.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
They could potentially try if Hasbro somehow thought it was smart (I might add, Lorraine Williams fell into that trap when she tried claiming TSR had the exclusive right to Paladins and Rangers). It depends on which entity they want to tangle with, though. Goblin Slayer is ultimately owned by Sony Japan IINM (through all the web of companies) and if they thought defending their "not-Beholder" was worth the hassle, they could potentially be a big enough 800lb gorilla to mount an effective "Bring it!" counter-suit. Or you could be a small time company and just be REALLY lucky and have a judge that looks at the case and goes "Dismissed with Prejudice" since "not-Beholders" have shown up in multiple media forms without TSR (and now WotC/Hasbro) defending their IP.
I actually just stumbled upon this and thought I’d drop a note. Does the face on the mask look familiar…?
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Seeing as Hobgoblins are my favorite D&D race, I thought I'd chime in on things, albeit a bit late perhaps. Among all the things already mentioned that the word "Hob" can mean, one of the older meanings of the world is "elf", so technically they'd be "elf-goblins", which makes a bit more sense as the hobgoblins are the most civilized of the goblinoids. I'd recommend looking up the Goblinoids in the Eberron setting. They are quite different and a lot more interesting.
According to Tolkien himself, Orc is just another name for Goblin, just in a different language. Think "A rose by any other name…"!
Also, in Old French 'Gobelin' (goblin) is synonymous with the German 'Kobold', though AD&D makes a huge differentiation.
All this actually means is the D&D does not always follow the mythology.
Another problem, Goblins in D&D are variously described as medium humanoids or medium fey. If you attest to the mythology that Goblins are descended from elves turned evil and cursed by elven gods, then they are fey. If you prefer the mythology that they are a species of corrupted human, then they are humanoid. Pick one (fey or humanoid) and stick with that in your campaigns, as neither fits fully with Tolkien's depiction.
I always liked their "samurai" look in Monster Manual from old school Monster Manual.
So in my world, goblins were the primary "base" goblin race - and during a war with Monks & Samurais, the goblin god stole the ascending souls of Samurais - and created Hobgoblins and with the Monk souls made Iron Shadow Hobgoblins.
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Tolkien based Orc on 2 sources: Orcneas (an undefined creature from Beowulf) and Orcus, a Roman/Etruscan God of the Underworld (who maybe eventually became conflated with Pluto). He used Goblin in The Hobbit because it was a children's story and Goblins were more commonly known since they were faeries of mythology. However, he also DOES mention Hobgoblins...
"Before you could get round Mirkwood in the North you would be right among the slopes of the Grey Mountains, and they are simply stiff with goblins, hobgoblins, and rest of the worst description. Before you could get round it in the South, you would get into the land of the Necromancer; and even you. Bilbo, won't need me to tell you tales of that black sorcerer. I don't advise you to go anywhere near the places overlooked by his dark tower!" - The Hobbit
What's funny is that Hobgoblins being associated with a larger breed of Goblin was basically a Tolkien invention because the OPPOSITE is true in fairy tales: they were rather smaller.
'What's funny is that Hobgoblins being associated with a larger breed of Goblin was basically a Tolkien invention because the OPPOSITE is true in fairy tales: they were rather smaller."