The Goblin Wars

Timeframe:

12,000 to 10,000 years before current date

Major Theaters:

Tir an Nathracha - the Land of Snakes

The Nathrachan Theater was a region where the goblins faced scattered opposition and scored significant victories, ensuring that even after their defeat, goblin enclaves and strongholds would persist in the region for more than ten millennia. 

Tir an Fashach - the Land of Wilderness

While a theater of large goblin successes, these would be predominantly temporary as the goblins who tried to fortify the region found themselves pitted against nature itself and their temples and fortresses were toppled by storms, natural disasters, and the fury of the Land of Wilderness.

Tir an Scathanna - the Land of Shadows

After a few initial skirmishes, Scathanna was the first goblin fortress region, though it was not uncontested. The prevalence of chaotic evil dungeons, monsters, and other powers that call the land of Shadows their home forced the Goblin Dynasty to tie down a large portion of their forces to protect the homeland, and the Dynastic hold over the region was broken after the Last Battle by a triggered eruption of Lichelight and Doomguard marshalling a pogrom against the goblinids

Tir an Beithigh - the Land of Beasts

Another theater of significant goblin victories, they would have held the greatest amount of land in Fashach if it wasn't for the Ancient Beasts, titans, and other monstrous creatures that refused alliance, parlay, and in some instances refused to die even when outnumbered 10,000 to 1. The rapacity of the wars here were devastating to the Elfin kith, and caused many of the Elfin races to vanish from the DungeonVerse or fade into obscurity.

Exclusion Zones

Tir Lauchmhar - the Precious Land

The Precious Land was able to withstand the Goblin Wars, mostly through its large and long built castle tradition. The goblins were ill-prepared for early siege warfare, though by the middle and later Goblin Wars they were well versed in siegecraft. This prevented them from inflicting serious damage in the region or establishing strongholds.

Tir an Bas - the Land of Death

The goblin efforts in Tir an Bas enjoyed early successes and drove most of the an Bas folk to the edge of the continent before they rallied and rebounded. Tihomir earned his title of Goblin Butcher for the campaigns he found against the goblins. Dribinsov Vizonar would finance and organize seven different campaigns to ensure the genocide of goblins within the boundaries of Tir an Bas.

Tir Artach - the Frozen Lands

No force has ever been successful in trying to take the mountains at the center of the world and the Axis Mundi. The goblins tried, and paid exorbitantly for the attempt. Entire armies entered the passes and were never seen again. The ancient and terrible things that slumber in the frozen passes fed well in those years and the era of the Goblin Wars was notable for the brutality of the winters experienced. Feed the Great Winter Worm and you get a furious and merciless winter.

Result:

Strategic Defeat of the Last Alliance of Free Races

Decisive Defeat of the Triple Axis

Catastrophic Defeat of the Goblin Dynasty of Zol'dox, the Hazencrest Persecutor, the Ruincage Overlord, the Demolisher of Hopes and Dreams, the Dark Lord.

Alliance Commanders

Ballion, Inquisitor of Iron (Dwarf)

Sheasemane Bruss, Storm Warden (stormfolk/storm giant)

Trakkado Gaaz, Illuminated Shield Paladin-General (human)

Alwee Highbraid, Mallorn Woodhoven Witch-Queen (Elf)

Oszianges the Uniter (tau)

Bamecan the Unruly (centaur)

Felmive Blossomheart (dryad)

Wummu, Cinderspark Guardian (faerie)

Monnosi, the Spiteful (Naga)

Gerden Dollog, Shoreshaper Warlord (merfolk)

Nueba of the Tarda'ad Vanguard (minotaur)

Kittiq, Avatar of Catastrophe (undead)

Dribinsov Vizonar, the Golden (noble human)

Tihomir the Goblin Butcher (tundra human)

Elden Lonmouth (western human)

Triple Axis Commanders

Vemmilek, the Howler of the Wastes

Neizo, the Broodmother Behemoth

Fetelo, the Dominus of the Vaulted Gloom

Goblin Dynasty Commanders

Grieghahr zo Pazkon, the Monolith Hewer

Ghrezlel mo Rhaa, the Lord of Shadows

Zhirdan the Cruel

Armis na Nardar, the Manipulator General

Solazno Ezk, the Enchantress of Hell

Ginazga Ruhk, the Wicked Beast Mother

Dragzir, the Fiend-Queen

Overview:

Summary - The Goblin Wars can be broken into four periods: Early, Green Wave, Alliance, and the Breaking. This maps the relatively slow ramping up of hostilities, the rapid spread after a critical point was reached in goblin populations and widespread success for their wars, then the countering of their forces and being forced down into static fights, and then the critical last battle and its aftermath.

Prelude - Goblins are the most cosmopolitan species in the DungeonVerse and there are very few places where this small adaptive species cannot survive. Where they congregate in numbers they undergo racial changes much like locusts, creating hobgoblins, and then they become much more organized and aggressive. Most areas keep goblin populations in check by monstrous predation, environmental hazards, and regular strife between goblins, other goblin clans, and almost any sentient race around them. They are generally disliked by pretty much everything.

Zol'dox was hobgoblin that appeared in the Tir an Scathanna region, taking over a gob host sworn to the Scathannan warlord Phallek Khosh. In service to this abomination, Zul'dox successfully turned his band of gobs into hardened hobs, forcing multiple stress evolutions in their ranks. After several years, Zol'dox was rewarded with a forced evolution from Khosh, turning the hobgoblin into a 'Death Hobgoblin'. Zol'dox thanked his master by slaying with an Abyssal dagger and then eating Khosh's corpse to steal its power. Becoming an Abomination class Death Hobgoblin, Zol'dox consolidated his power, brought his inner circle in and made them death goblins, and equipped them out of Khosk's hordings. The next fifty years were of little note as Zol'dox and his murder goblins carried out skirmishes and campaigns against their neighbors in the Land of Shadows.

The next step in the goblin wars came as Zol'dox experienced a string of successes allowing him to consolidate power along the coast of the region. After securing a large breeding area and subjugating populations of orcs, trolls, and ogres, the host began to grow.

The Siege of Doomguard marked the middle of the Early period. Ten thousand goblins surrounded Doomguard, cutting it off. While they were unable to breach the walls, they didn't try. Their vast numbers let them overrun the warrens under the fortress, and then they came up out of the cisterns and drains, digging through walls to rampage through the holding cells and releasing enemies of the black fortress. The battle took sixteen years, and even the undead were wearied and then sealed in stone sarcophagi. Those willing to serve Zol'dox were allowed to remain, but only after being magically bound to serve.

The late Early period is marked by Zol'dox consolidating power in Tir an Scathanna. An entire region of Cridhedun under the rule of a single individual had never occurred before, and largely went unnoticed. War in the land of Shadow was an unremarkable as the Sun rising. Then the hosts of the Abomination Death Hobgoblin broke out and started invading Tir an Bas, Tir Artach, and Tir an Beithigh. Two of those fronts proved disastrous, but the hosts were able to break through Beithigh and the greater goblin wars began.

The Green Wave - the goblin population boom that followed the early period allowed for the formation of goblin armies numbering greater than 100,000 gobs, with supporting hobgoblins numbering in the tens of thousands. Tir an Bas suffered heavy losses and the nations there were driven to the cusp of extermination. With those forces routed, the goblins encircled Tir Artach to rampage into Tir an Fashach, a fact that was largely ignored at first. What danger is there from such small, short lived bestial creatures? By the time the danger was realized, the green wave had occupied half of the Elfin lands and at least six elfin races had been completely exterminated. The Elderhorn Green-hume (moose antlered green men), Kurufingwe (elfin trolls), elfin moose-centaurs, Moosetaurs, The golden bearkin, and four-armed Telperi elves were wiped out completely. The elves were driven deep into the forests where only their druidic strongholds remained, though the great Oried stonewright (noldori/gnome) cities easily withstood the assaults, but the Lofty Ones refused to join the battles of the land, instead abandoning their lowland holdings and vanishing into their hidden cities in Tir Artach.

Tir Nathracha fell easily, and became the greatest goblinhold in the DungeonVerse, where the quickly bred their numbers into the millions. Entire goblin nations arose, and it seemed that this would prove their greatest victory. There was no shortage of gobs for fighting, endless amounts of food to keep these hosts fighting in the field, and no shortage of monstrous creatures to tame into engines of war.

It seemed that there was nothing that could stop Zol'dox. His hosts pulled down dragons, dug dungeons out of the ground with sheer numbers, and his forces grew stronger, their numbers more vast, and their might ever greater. Zol'dox at this point technically ascended and was no longer a mortal or even a demigod, but a living divinity, untouchable by mundane weapons and even most magics were unable to touch him.

The Last Alliance - marching out of Tir Lauchmhar, the Last Alliance consisted of the free races of Cridhedun, men and elves, dwarves and halflings, even serpent-folk, merfolk, and stranger races who are remembered as only a name and not even a description of who they were. Scant records remain of the two decades that were the Last Alliance. What does remain is that these battles were mostly defeats and delaying actions. The goblins took heavy losses, enough so that Zol'dox was drawn in to see how the pathetic resistance was killing so many of his soldiers. He even led several battles to break the back of the Alliance, burning their castles and hanging their heroes from gibbets, throwing their survivors into the cook pots.

This came to a head at a place that was then known as Bemerdale Trace. The apocalyptic battle lasted six days and saw a goblin host of more than two million gobs pitched against what remained of the Alliance in Tir Lauchmhar. This was to be an overwhelming victory for Zol'dox, and with the Alliance broken, he would turn his attentions to conquering what remained of Lauchmhar, eradicating the holdouts in Tir an Bas, and then take his ultimate prize, breaking Tir Artach, climbing the Axis Mundi and ascending the godhood over the entire DungeonVerse.

Instead of an overwhelming and decisive victory, Zol'dox had a week long meatgrinder that saw his massive army reduced to a quarter of its size. The Last Alliance drew out all of their weapons, their artifacts, and their unholy terrors. The Virednith was activated and half a million goblins and ten thousand Alliance soldiers were reduced to dust. Two Anulo-Ghinn were activated, one on the first day, and the second on the fourth day of the battle. Under a mantle of darkness and falling ash, and the Dwarven Flamgra-Khaliz was used to incinerate Zol'dox's siege engines and tens of thousands of goblins and even several of his generals.

This didn't stop Zol'dox and his elite cadre from overwhelming the Alliance and slaying most of their leadership. The battle was won and the goblins were wearied but rejoyced as the Alliance fell. Then the stroke of the Triple Axis fell. The Triple Axis did the unthinkable, they slew a god. Zol'dox perished, turning to an alien black material and exploding. While the Alliance and the Triple Axis had paid a massive price, they were not gone. With the leadership gone, the goblins fell into a panic. Without Zol'dox commanding and controlling them, they were routed and fled the ashen waste of Bemerdale Trace.

The Breaking - without zol'dox and his junta of deathlord hobgoblins, the goblin forces were disjointed and scattered, and the end of the goblin wars came with what is known as the Breaking. The survivors of the Last Alliance gathered their forces to drive the goblins out of the sunward lands. This was a long and costly process, and even in victory, the war was apocalyptic. None of the kingdoms or nations remained viable as centralized powers. Farmland was ruined, castles were rubble, and just as in the other lands, entire races had been wiped out by the goblins.

In the elfin lands, the remaining elves carried out a purge of the goblins, and suffered heavy losses as while no organized, the number of goblins in the region was staggering. Only in that last stage of the Goblin Wars did the gates of the hidden Oried elf fortresses open and their terrible knights and paladins came down to murder goblins with a zeal that was terrible to see. This left long lingering bad blood as most believed the might of the Orieds could have turned battles in the favor of the elves and many of the fair folk would still exist rather than being exterminated. Goblins remain in the elfin lands, as the strength and endurance of the elves had waned much in the war, and they were unable to drive them completely out, but they did reduce them to a remnant of a remnant.

In Tir an Bas, the great resurgence saw the grim folk of that land carry out an organized and methodical extermination of goblins and goblinkind from the their lands. The extent of this pogrom is such that there were mountains made of goblin bones, and most of the places in the northern parts of the region have names that thousands of years later and still known among the greenskins as the Mountains of Goblin Death, the Goblin Skull Place, the Place Where Goblins were Impaled Alive, the Skinned Goblin Hill, and the Place Where Pink-Skins Cut off Goblin Dicks.

Tir an Scathanna answered the fall of Zol'dox with Lichelight erupting for almost a year non-stop and the beasts of shadow turning on the goblins with terrible fury. A much-culled goblin population was reduced to a slave status and the masters of Doomguard were satisfied, but they retain a tradition of routinely slaughtering goblins, just as a precaution.

In Tir Beithigh the land itself revolted. Landslides and volcanoes buried goblin cities. Tidal waves smashed goblin fleets and ports. Wildfires raged and in some instances entire cities were simply eaten by the land. Goblin remained as a tribal subsistence level species

In Tir an Nathracha the goblin nations faltered, and collapsed, but the reprisal slaughtering of goblins largely didn't occur. Nor did dungeons, magic, or nature rise up to smash them. It didn't have to, because goblins being goblins, they turned on each other and destroyed their own nations lacking any sort of serious leadership capable of leading them in their advanced state.

The Butcher's Bill

The cost of the Goblin Wars was horrific, and functionally an extinction-level event in Cridhedun. The entire population of the DungeonVerse was reduced by close to 80% and two-thirds of sentient races were driven to extinction, and roughly half of all animal life suffered the same. Large animal species suffered worse, and this saw a die off of the high level oversized predators as they starved. Dragons that survived the war would later lapse into dormancy from the Artach driven winters and then perish from starvation. One in four dungeons were destroyed, and half of the surviving dungeons were severely damaged by goblin rapacity and excessive raiding.

It would take 2,100 years for Cridhedun to recover from the Goblin Wars environmental toll, and 6,600 years for animal and monstrous species to repopulate