Goblins

It's the shield you have to worry about.

Thaco: We are NOT jumping off this roof to our deaths!
(long pause)
Thaco: We're jumping off THAT roof to our deaths. It's got a tree.

Goblins: Life Through Their Eyes is a webcomic written, penciled, and colored by Tarol Hunt, nicknamed Thunt, following the adventures of a band of, well, goblins, as they fight off evil adventurers. It's a role reversal of the typical adventure RPG Dungeons & Dragons, though familiarity with the game isn't required to understand what's happening.

The main story follows five members of a cannon-fodder goblin tribe (Thaco, Chief, Big-Ears, Complains-of-Names, and Fumbles) who decide to stop being cannon fodder and become Player Characters. A side plot follows a sixth goblin (Dies-Horribly) who goes on a solo adventure arc quite against his will. It features detailed world-building (including quite a few whole-cloth, background creatures with detailed biologies) and characterization, particularly of the villains. One of the goblin characters, Big-Ears, is a rare instance of a truly gentle, heroic and noble paladin, while the paladin status of the most opaque and brutal villain, Kore, thus far is one of the most foreboding mysteries.

The comic doesn't give its characters very long to get used to their newfound abilities as heroes. Goblins thrusts its main characters in over their heads almost immediately, locks them into a course of action they can't possibly handle, and then calls into play a series of oddities, Deus Ex Machina, coincidences, character-driven actions, more Deus Ex Machina, and Chekhov's Guns that collectively get the heroes into a position where they might possibly be able to escape their impossible predicament. Because it didn't seem like they'd get into this much danger this quickly, the story instantly became edge-of-your-seat reading.

The comic is also known for its twice-weekly (usually) update schedule, juggling three plots at the same time, spending literally months on mook battles, and skipping comic updates to advertise products.

The site also hosts a sub-comic, Tempts Fate, about a lone goblin adventurer facing various dangers each comic. This part is Thunt's donation scheme and thus, people would have to stop supporting Thunt's artistic endeavors to kill Tempts Fate off. So far, he's survived every death trap.

For the completely unrelated computer game, see Gobliiins. For goblins in general, see Our Goblins Are Wickeder.

Tropes used in Goblins include:

Saves-a-Fox: Okay, now try a skin coloured one.
Grem: You mean a white one?
K'seliss: She means a green one.
Saves-a-Fox: I mean an orange one!

Chief: Fumbles, I want you to seriously work on your aim, OK?
Goblin: (pincushioned by 5 arrows) Yes. Please do.
Fumbles: Look, I said I was sorry.

Dellyn: CLOSE THE WEST GATE! CLOSE THE WEST GATE!

    • Shortly afterward, Kin.

Kin: Don't throw the spear!
Chief: Why not?
Kin: I can't keep them back for long! They're going to rush in here in a moment, and that's our only melee weapon!
(Chief throws the magic spear, and it reappers in his hand)
Kin: (after a Beat Panel) THROW THE SPEAR!

Minmax: ...OOO! A shiny rock!
Minmax: Hey look! There's a version of me with a cool hat!

  • Automatic Crossbows: Kore fights with two of these.
  • Badass
    • K'seliss. If you need any proof, try this. Not to mention how he dies.
    • Thaco (of the grandpa variety), definitely. And Complains, while fighting.
    • Say what you will about Kore, but he is badass.
    • Same goes for Goblinslayer, to a lesser extent.
    • Duv. Fox. Grem seems to be heading in this direction. Maybe. Even temporarily, this is a living body horror.
    • The doomed ogre, once free, proved quite competent at asskicking.
    • Dies-Horribly when under the control of his artificial arm.

Demon:: I'm going to rip you apart!
Dies-Horribly: You've already done that. It didn't work.

  • Badass Beard
    • He may be a murdering psychopath, but Kore has a nice beard.
    • And K'seliss's spiky dewlap creates the impression of reptilian Perma-Stubble.
  • Badass Boast
    • Hilariously subverted by Dies-Horribly, here:

Grem: I am a goblin prince. I know when to fight.
Dies-Horribly: I AM A COWARD! I KNOW WHEN TO RUN! Come on!

  • Badass Long Hair: Grem. Though less a badass and more an abomination, Mr. Fingers here.
  • Badass Mustache: Fumbles, or rather Señor Vorpal Kickass'o, tries to invoke this trope with his fake mustache.
  • Bad End: Our group narrowly avoids the end an equivalent group gets.
  • Balance Between Good and Evil: Defied. Forgath believes in this, but Kin tells him rather bluntly that, throughout the multiverse as a whole, Evil is winning.
  • Baleful Polymorph: A good reason not to use the random-effect magic shield Complains picks up. Alternately, a good reason TO use it if utterly and hopelessly outnumbered.
  • Barbarian Hero: Minmax was already fitting the trope when a pure fighter (by D&D rules). As of this comic, he has officially taken his first level of barbarian. (With the "extra rage" feat, as befitting of a good minmaxer.)

Minmax: The strength bonus from raging is totally awesome!

  • Bar Brawl: Minmax vs. Goblinslayer.
  • Batman Gambit: Lampshaded. When Thaco challenges Dellyn to a duel, both of them know that Thaco has some sort of trap planned. Nonetheless, Dellyn accepts when Thaco points out that the only alternative is for Dellyn to order his soldiers to kill Thaco, and bear the reputation of not being able to kill a single old, frail goblin.
  • Battle Aura: Called Individual Magical Effect (I.M.E.) in-story.
  • Battle Cry:

Complains-of-Names: Tu Dae Fadda!
Fumbles: SEÑOOOOR VORPAAAAL.... KICKASS'OOOOOO!

  • Battle in the Rain: The first fight between the goblin warcamp and the adventurers.
  • Bavarian Fire Drill: Part of the backstory for minor character Sticks involves him bluffing a Brassmoon guard into thinking he's not an orc, but a soldier who's been polymorphed into an orc to infiltrate an army of orcs who are besieging the city.
  • Bearer of Bad News: Kin, explaning about the Maze of Many's counter. She really, really would rather NOT be doing so.
  • Because Destiny Says So: Many goblins with names that aren't the case already will be happening. For example, the goblin named "Dies-Horribly".
  • Being Tortured Makes You Evil: The trainer who "trained" Fluffles tried to invoke this trope by sending the owlbear at his enemies. He failed.
  • Berserker Tears
    • Kin, as she kills Dellyn Goblinslayer.
    • Complains after Chief's death. He starts drawing upon his Super-Powered Evil Side, getting ready to fight Kore.
  • Best Served Cold:

Thaco: You are not my nemesis.

Dies-Horribly: How can a book knock clothing off an Amazon? Is it even possible? I mean, they hardly wear anything to begin with.

  • Body Horror: Goblins is not for the faint-hearted.
    • One of the Shield of Wonder's favorite tricks is to inflict horrific transformations on those who strike it (or anyone around them). An unlucky accident causes it to try to transform Complains into a demon. It partially succeeds before Big-Ears stops the effect. Complains now has scales, clawed fingers and fangs.
    • For the sake of preventing this trope, DO NOT TOUCH MR. FINGERS!!! No, seriously. Bad idea.
    • Though hardly the worst seen, one of the goblins that survives the escape from Brassmoon is a young female whose missing all the skin along her back, leaving her spinal column among other bones fully and completely exposed.
  • Brainless Beauty: Drowbabe; Yodette
  • Breaking in Old Habits: After Dies-Horribly gets his prosthetic hand.
  • Break the Cutie
    • Fumbles. Poor, poor Fumbles.
    • Saves-a-Fox, when Dies reveals she may have been a slave to fate all along. Unfortunately, she hasn't recovered yet.
    • Off-panel (and partly before the story begins), but Kin was regularly tortured and raped to the point where she has a phobia of human contact.
  • Brick Joke:
  • Bring It

Forgath: Okay then... Who dies first?

    • This exchange.

Saral Caine: That... is... MY AXE!
Big-Ears: Then come and get it.

Minmax: Bring it on!
Forgath: No! Don't bring it on! Bring nothing on!

K'Seliss: Well?! What are you waiting for?! Come at me and let's see which one of us is doing the eating!

K'seliss: ... There is battle happening right now all around me and I'm stuck in this pathetic hut like some... hut... stucky... thing!

Dellyn: What's the matter, Thaco? You didn't think that I'd spot your trap? Didn't think I'd see it coming?
Thaco: Sigh. Of course it's a trap, you moron. Stop congratulating yourself for noticing the obvious.

    • Chief announces stabbing himself in the eye by screaming, "Aaaah! I stabbed myself in the freakin' eye!"
  • Cassandra Truth: See Don't Touch It, You Idiot!.
  • Catapult Nightmare: Kin has those. Not surprising considering the likely nature of her dreams.
  • Cerebus Syndrome: Initially the comic was mostly about making jokes based on various D&D tropes and conventions, and had absolutely No Fourth Wall, with the adventurers explicitly being characters in someone's role-playing game. Quite soon it grew way more serious in tone and began developing the fourth wall, although various D&D mechanics are occasionally referenced by characters. Three of the five original player characters haven't been seen since.
  • Challenging the Chief: How The Goblinslayer got his job as captain of the town guard.
  • Character Development: After reading through the first couple arcs and noting how much of a supreme prick Minmax is, you totally wouldn't expect him to pull this later on.
  • Character Level
  • Chekhov's Gun
    • The random-effect magical shield.
    • The Anymug.
    • On a darker note, although the issue was never raised until recently, there was an obvious clue that Dellyn Goblinslayer regularly rapes Kin way back on this page -- Dellyn's bed in his room has shackles attached to it.
    • The Talking Wall of Brassmoon shows up in the background during one of the battles. It seems to have never appeared before this and claims to have been created during a really long story arc. Word of God says it's a mundane wall that got transformed into the talking wall by the Shield of Wonder.
    • Minmax's belt buckle, after being thrown through the magical hole in the wall of the Dungeon of Many, turns into a giant rock disc that crushes the alternate versions of Minmax and Forgath.
  • Chekhov's Skill: Deflecting arrows. Or catching them.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture
    • Kore tortured Chief to keep the rest of the Goblin Adventuring Party from leaving Chief behind.
    • Other examples are Dellyn Goblinslayer and Fluffles' trainer.
  • Contractual Genre Blindness
    • Sacred goblin tradition requires them to keep their few magic weapons in The Poorly Locked Chest in the middle of camp, rather than use them in battle. Complain-of-Names is Genre Savvy enough to use the weapon and gets banished because of it.
    • Minmax and Dellyn Goblinslayer have both complained about the main characters subverting this trope. On this page, Dellyn even calls Thaco's classing into a PC class the most perverted thing that he's ever heard of.
  • Contrived Coincidence: Lampshaded here.
  • Convenient Color Change: Weapon auras depend on the wielder.
  • Cool Old Guy: Thaco
  • Coup De Grace: A semi-common way to kill. Also how Dellyn dies.
  • Covers Always Lie:

Chief: This has got to be the worst spear I've ever seen.

Minmax: A lot of them look really evil.
Kin: The multiverse is predominantly evil.
Forgath: What? I was always taught that good and evil were balanced.
Kin: Nope. Evil is winning.

  • Crippling Overspecialization: Minmax is a god when it comes to fighting. He can't willfully blink, read, rhyme on purpose, think hard, or understand complex concepts. Most of these weaknesses he got in order to get more combat prowess and bonuses.
  • Cross Player: Forgath. Probably Drowbabe as well.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death
    • Quite a few of the deaths in the big Brassmoon fight. A few especially nasty ones are the guard who excrutiatingly turns into a bunch of snakes, the guard who is turning into an ogre, only to be cut down by his captain, and that captain, who gets the honor of having his armor grow until it crushes him.
    • And... later... Chief. See Cold-Blooded Torture.
    • And now, K'Seliss. The thought that he is still alive in Panel 8 is not a pleasant one.
    • Anyone the Orb of Bloodlight's guardian demon owns. Including Dies. The death happens fast and keeps happening. Forever. Or at least until the Demon gets caught in the terms of it's own deal.
  • Cruel Mercy: Thaco leaves Goblinslayer alive, with the knowledge that the latter was completely and utterly destroyed by Thaco.
  • Curse Cut Short
  • Cursed with Awesome: A possessor of a Ring of Undeath is unappealing at best, but is granted quite a few highly-useful bonuses.
  • Cute Monster Girl
    • Saves-a-Fox
    • Kin the yuan-ti
    • Yala the kobold
  • Cute Mute: Yala
  • Cutting the Knot
  • Dance Battler: Duv's attacks and dodges resemble dancing as much as they do combat moves.
  • Dangerously Genre Savvy: Several characters both heroic and otherwise display this trait.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Basically every good protagonist (save for Minmax and Forgath), but Thaco's is Up to Eleven.
  • Deal with the Devil
    • Mryorg the Ogre, who features in the backstory of the Axe of Prissan, has a demon carve a rune into this chest for this purpose.
    • Mr Fingers was created when a farmer begged a devil to cure his son of nightmares; the devil successfully extracted the source of the nightmares from the kid's mind, but let them loose upon the world instead of destroying them.
    • Discussed by the demon who inhabits the Well of Darkness. Demons need souls for nourishment, but most of them aren't powerful enough to take souls by force and can only claim souls given willingly; which is why the phrase 'Deal with the Devil' has passed into common usage on the mortal plane. Dies makes one, but since his metallic arm effectively gives him two souls, the demon gets dragged to hell for breaking the deal.
  • Dear Negative Reader: Thunt uses The Rant occasionally to level countercriticism at reader complaints about his houseruled D&D mechanics. Most notable here.
  • Death by Looking Up
  • Death or Glory Attack: Complains attacking Kore head-on.
  • Delayed Causality: The White Terror's razor-sharp blades.
  • Delayed Reaction: Minmax realizing how much damage a fall would cause.
  • Deliberately Monochrome: Every flashback since the comic started to be colored is in grayscale.
  • Destination Defenestration: Minmax to Goblinslayer.
  • Deus Ex Machina
    • Every major plot arc so far gets resolved through randomness that just happens to save the hapless protagonists. Some of the situations they get into are so bad that these don't get them out of hot water entirely, though...
    • The Shield of Wonder spams Ex Machinas of both the Deus Ex Machina and Diabolus Ex Machina variety every time it blocks a strike.
  • Didn't Think This Through: "Sonova crap."
  • Disability Superpower
    • Dies' arm is both a Morph Weapon and an Empathic Weapon.
    • Similarly, Goblinslayer's tree half can do some major damage and produce its own wooden weapons.
    • One of the alternate parties in the Maze of Many has a Forgath with a staff that allows him to wear unlimited magic rings, but he needs to sacrifice a still bleeding finger to gain this ability. He also parties with a mute Minmax that gave up the ability to speak for a +6 to hit.
  • Disaster Dominoes

Forgath: I just wanna know what kind of fumble chart he's using so I can avoid it.

Forgath: Ya, but with a name like "Doom" I was expecting something grander. [...]
Young-and-Beautiful: Well, "Very Annoying" doesn't really roll off the tongue as a spell title.

Alternate-Universe-Complains-of-Names: Wait, this isn't a brick, it's a book.
Alternate-Universe-Fumbles: "Sequel to The Name of The Wind". Hey Dies, isn't that the book you're... um... wearing?

  • Dope Slap: Fumbles earns himself a double-whammie.
  • The Dragon: Saral Caine; Riss. One has already been... dealt with.
  • Dual-Wielding
    • The Drizzt-ripoff drow (two scimitars, par for the course);
    • Thaco (two sword-canes);
    • Dellyn (a wooden sword and sickle);
    • Kore (two crossbows at long-range and two axes in melee);
    • Borrl the hobgoblin chief (two longswords);
    • Duv (two razor-sharp steel shards).
  • Dumb Muscle
    • Minmax, who (as befitting his name) has min/maxed himself to have ridiculous combat stats but cannot even read (he gave up literacy for a bonus). With the extremes he takes this to, it may count as a Disability Superpower.
    • Hobgoblins, as seen in Sarcasm Blind, though Averted by the hobgoblin met during the Brassmoon arc. It is pointed out that while hobgoblins are usually keen strategists, the Chorgrak tribe that attacked the Viper clan was known for its... lack of subtlety.
  • Dungeon Bypass
  • Dying Moment of Awesome: K'seliss taking out Mr. Fingers.

K'seliss: I... told ya. I... do... the eating.

Forgath: That seems like the most obvious, clichéd...

  • Evil Hand: Odd non-evil example. The living-metal replacement arm Klik gave Dies-Horribly. When he gets scared, the arm grows blades and spikes to defend him. Unfortunately, the (many) situations in which he gets scared tend to go downhill fast if you start brandishing spiky things (and when it goes south he gets even more scared, and the arm gets spikier, and...). Although Dies's hand can also form non-violent images. Whether or not it still can be called "non-evil" is debatable after this incident. Perhaps this is why what Klik did is considered forbidden by his species....
  • Evil Twin: The majority of the alternate versions of Minmax, Forgath and Kin in the Maze of Many.

Minmax: A lot of them look really evil.
Kin: The multiverse is predominantly evil.

Saves-a-Fox: Go ahead, touch anything. I won't care.
(K'seliss gooses her)

K'seliss: I... told ya... I... do... the... eating.

  • Failure Knight: Chief feels a large amount of guilt over his clan's fall from glory.
  • Fan Disservice: Those goblins need more women.
  • Fanservice Extra
    • Alternate Kin. Wearing tight fitting corset which gives her an Impossibly Low Neckline, we can even see the start of a humanoid rear before it goes down to her snake tail. And unlike Kin, she also feels the need to wear a loincloth covering her front...
    • The other alternate Kin in Absolute Cleavage, with small bit of Les Yay.
  • Fascinating Eyebrow: Psion Minmax
  • Fashionable Asymmetry
    • The White Terror
    • Besides her Peek-a-Bangs, Saves-a-Fox's pants only cover one leg.
  • Fastball Special: This trope feature prominently in the backstory of Boulder the Ogre.
  • Fate Worse Than Death
    • For Dellyn Goblinslayer -- ignominy.
    • Kin the yuan-ti begs for death upon being recaptured by the guards.
    • There's a group of demons living in the Well of Darkness, who have enslaved an orc and continually resurrect and kill him in order to nourish themselves on his suffering. He's been resurrected and killed once every few hours for the last 600 years.
    • There is a circle of hell reserved for anyone foolish enough to attempt to break a Deal with the Devil so bad that even demons fear its torture. Since Dies has a second soul in his arm, the Demoness is sent there after trading "One soul for one orb."
  • Five-Man Band
  • Fluffy the Terrible: Fluffles the Owlbear, Biscuit the Orc warrior
  • Foil: There are a few pairs:
    • Thaco & Dellyn
    • Minmax & Dellyn
    • Big-Ears & Saral Caine
    • Forgath & Kore
  • Follow the Leader: Goblins has spawned fan webcomics, notably the adventures of the Scroll Readers Goblin Tribe.
  • Foreshadowing
  • Forest Ranger: The Goblinslayer was presumably this (ranger class, bow and sword, half-tree), but moved into Brassmoon when it was a more direct path to what he really craved—the power to rule over his little fief of sadism.
  • Four-Fingered Hands: The goblins, and about every non-human races (including elves and dwarves—though not the demons). Reptiles (like kobolds, yuan-ti or lizardfolks) tends to have three-fingered hands. All of them (well, those with legs anyway) also have three-toed feet.
  • Game Master: One of the Player Characters encountered early on is a Cleric of the Dungeon Master, Herbert.
  • Genius Bruiser: K'seliss. His dispatch of Noe (detailed above under Cutting the Knot) proved his raw intelligence, but here he displays surprising insight by correctly—and offhandedly—analyzing the Dies/Grem/Fox Love Triangle.
  • Genre Savvy
  • Giant Spider: Not shown, but Dellyn tells an anecdote about him and Saral fighting a spider the size of a horse.
  • GIRL: Played straight with Drowbabe and her replacement, Yodette. Inverted with Forgath.
  • Giver of Lame Names
    • The ironically-named fortune teller Young-and-Beautiful. Most of these are played for comedy, but Dies-Horribly's name has basically ruined his entire life.
    • The naming ritual is apparently a sacred rite that cannot be interrupted or redone. This results in names like "Piss Off I Have A Headache" (Hava to his friends).

Hava: There's a goblin in my clan called "Stop The Ceremony I swallowed A Bug". Yeah, our teller really sucks at naming ceremonies.

Minmax: Shut up, I'm making a Fortitude save to not puke.

Demon: ..kk....k...AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Big-Ears: It just occurred to me that I'm not comfortable attacking someone from behind.
Orc: HISSSSSSS (spins around)
Big-Ears: Thank you. (axes it in the face)

  • Hit Points: Only mentioned when people are close to zero or in the negatives.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard
    • The guard who "trained" Fluffles.
    • Dellyn Goblinslayer was beaten and humiliated by a goblin, and later, coup-de-grâce'd by Kin, who he'd beaten and raped nightly.
    • Arguably, the whole of Brassmoon City for allowing the Goblinslayer free rein over their defense against the "evil" races. Apparently, locking up and torturing a whole army of monsters, quite naturally bent on revenge, within the walls of the city wasn't that great an idea.
    • In a non-sentient example, the Shield of Wonder is eventually destroyed by one its own random magical effects.
    • And the demoness guarding the Bloodlight Orb got Dies to agree to giving her his soul for "the orb", which was NOT the one he thought it was, and in turn, got tricked into taking TWO souls -- Dies' and the piece of Klik, banishing her to a portion of Hell that even demons are afraid of.
  • Honor Before Reason

Big-Ears: NEVER tell me to quiet my heart again!

    • Fumbles makes his way to Brassmoon City to return an elf child's doll, alone, despite knowing full well the danger involved, because he "has to make this right."
    • More-or-less sums up why Minmax attacked Dellyn. Of course, wisdom is his Dump Stat.
  • A House Divided: While our group is working towards eventually being True Companions, the other group could barely get a sentence out without making someone mad.
  • Humans Are the Real Monsters: Humans in general are portrayed in one of three ways: outright evil (Dellyn Goblinslayer and the Elite Guard), dumb (Minmax and the three Player Characters), or ignorant and prejudiced (the townsfolk of Brassmoon). Forgath is a decent (dwarf) Player Character, but this is a stretch.
  • Humans Through Alien Eyes: This page and the one preceding it.
  • Hybrid Monster: K'seliss is speculated to be a cross of ogre and lizardfolk.
  • Hypocrite: Kore has dedicated himself to destroying all evil, and will even kill young children just because they've been exposed to evil. He doesn't see the contradiction.
    • In this strip Dellyn Goblinslayer defines the term legendary by how much your enemies hate you. He prides himself on the fact that the goblins "would sacrifice anything for a chance at [his] throat." He denies any possibility that Thaco could be considered legendary, but at the end of the comic, states that he "would sacrifice anything for a chance at [Thaco's] throat."
  • I Call It "Vera": Minmax creates a sword which is paradoxically made of oblivion, and Kin theorises it draws power from his ignorance. Minmax christens the sword "Oblivious".
  • I Drank What: A very distracted Forgath drinks Dragon Lung lantern fuel after the battle with Goblinslayer.
  • I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Triggers a Wrong Name Outburst in this scene:

Big-Ears: Well I'm not abandoning my friend! I'm not letting One Eye die!
(astonished looks)
Big-Ears: I mean... (buries his face in his hands) You know what I mean.

  • I'm Melting: What touching Mr. Fingers does to you. More contact speeds it up and spreads it.
  • I Know Your True Name: Houseruled in, meaning the pit fiend can be forced to serve any mortal who speaks his true name. Incidently, his true name is definitely not Richard, Francis, Leslie, Winkypoop the slippery monkey, or Walter. (The forum have hence nicknamed him "Not-Walter".) Turns out it's Grinnorarcen. They encounter him again serving an alt-Minmax who's really good at guessing names, and Kin convinces the demon to reveal his name so she can order him to return to Hell, freeing him.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice
    • Dellyn Goblinslayer, on a piece of broken pipe.
    • This demon.
  • Impossibly Cool Weapon

Big-Ears: No offense to your short sword, but that is the coolest weapon in the whole damn party.

    • Kore's automatic crossbows. They fire several bolts in one go, lock into his tower shield for cover-firing, and automatically reload themselves in seconds from bolt caches hanging from his side.
    • Duv's two razor sharp shards. They're short, and they don't even have handles. Watching her fight with them is epic, but how she is able to even hold on to them in battle and not slash her hands open in the process is anyone's guess.
    • Minmax's new sword -- Oblivious! The blade is literally nothing, and can't be affected by anything that's not Minmax—not even time!
  • Impossibly Low Neckline: Displayed by one of the alternate Kins in this strip.
  • Improbable Weapon User
  • Incredibly Lame Pun: That's no moon... groan.
  • Info Dump
    • One of the overpowered artifacts is introduced out of the blue with a large wall of text. Justified since this information is instantly telepathically communicated to Big-Ears when he takes the axe.
    • Duv, the White Terror, is also introduced with epically-sized speech bubbles.
  • Informed Ability: It's repeatedly mentioned that Goblinslayer is a high level adventurer, yet the highest-level ability he ever uses is Magic Fang (fourth level?) and he loses in a mostly-straight fight against an enemy of his favored target species. Taking Dellyn's cockiness and need to prove his superiority into consideration, it was likely a combination of bad luck, a Critical Hit, and his lack of decent sight within the battle, not to mention underestimating his opponent. After all, he survived being impaled through the chest and everything from his final fight. Then Kin...
  • Insane Troll Logic
    • Well, Insane Lizardman Logic with K'seliss...

Saves-a-Fox: So if I had never taken adventurer levels, you'd kill me for taking adventurer levels?
K'seliss: Damn right!

Forgarth: You promised me you'd buy pants, Minmax.

  • Lovable Coward: Dies-Horribly
  • Love Triangle: Dies-Horribly and Grem both seem to be vying for Saves-a-Fox's affections.
  • Luke Nounverber: Dellyn Goblinslayer
  • MacGuffin
    • The Orb of Bloodlight. Its powers have not been explicitly stated, except that Duv thinks it can regenerate her wing and allow her to take her place as the White Terror and ruler of all goblins.
    • The Jade Teapot for Kin & Co. Its power is clearly stated as a form of teleportation aiming at individuals rather than places. Forgath and Minmax plan to use it to find the GAP.
  • Made of Iron: As a result of playing D&D Hit Points straight. Important characters can be run through by several spears and swords, but still survive, and injuries rarely have any lasting effect. However, it's worth noting that the author has developed a custom set of critical hit and fumble tables that can indeed result in lasting or permanent injury, incapacitation, and many other things. These are highlighted with Complains' broken arm and during the sewer fight between Thaco and Dellyn Goblinslayer.
  • Made of Plasticine: Most low-level characters, due to their low hit points, can die to being breathed on harshly.
  • Major Injury Underreaction: K'seliss tries to be this to keep up appearances when his arms start melting off.
  • Man Child: Minmax. Sometimes bordering on Psychopathic Manchild.

Forgath: Yer an infant, you know that?

  • Masochist's Meal
    • Yumyuck moss, though apparently dwarves are usually really drunk when they eat it.
    • Lesser finger horrors are a "last meal" sort of deal.
  • Meaningful Echo: "I would sacrifice anything for a chance at his throat."
  • Meaningful Name
    • Pretty much every single goblin of the protagonists' tribe; names are given by the tribe's fortune teller and supposedly prophetic, which isn't much of a comfort for poor Dies-Horribly. (The Viper tribe's fortune teller pointedly doesn't follow this custom, but it still seems common practice among other goblins.)
    • Inverted, amusingly enough, by the protagonists' tribe's fortune teller herself: Young-and-Beautiful is an ancient Gonk.
    • Non-goblin examples are also not uncommon, such as a player character resembling a Japanese samurai named Baka. Or for a less subtle example, Minmax. Or the hardcore Kore. And Dellyn Goblinslayer.
    • And then there's "Duv", who might well be able to bring peace to the goblin tribes...
  • Medium Awareness: Intermittently throughout, since the characters are aware of the nature of their universe, and the rules by which it runs.
  • Men Are the Expendable Gender: Maglubiyet evidently buys into this trope, as it's apparently a divine mandate that no females (spellcasters excepted) are allowed in a goblin warcamp. As warcamps are essentially decoys to lure adventurers away from the women and children, this means a lot of goblin males die to deflect danger away from their families. Especially notable as Young-and-Beautiful, the only female in the warcamp, hides whenever adventurers approach.
  • Merchandise-Driven: Brilliantly parodied by this filler strip.
  • Mercy Kill: Stellar example.
  • Mermaid Problem: Alluded to with Dellyn and Kin, but largely handwaved away. Of course, all things considered, that's probably for the best. It works, but involves healing potions. Given who we're dealing with, it might not have to though. Since, in one of the alternate realities, Minmax and Kin have been having near-constant sex since the birthday scene, it's a pretty safe bet there's a less squicky way for that to happen.
  • Minion Maracas
  • Min-Maxing: Minmax, of course. His player has apparently talked the GM into allowing him to trade various ordinary abilities for extra combat feats.
  • Mirror Match: Minmax vs. Minmax.
  • Mismatched Eyes: Minmax, after Complains wounded his right eye.
  • Miss Exposition: Kin
  • Mistaken for Gay: Minmax's favorite way of riling up Forgath.

Forgath: That's it! From the waist down, you're mine!
Minmax: Okay, that is the gayest thing you've ever said.

  • Mistaken for Pedophile: Minmax shouts to a girl that she is "13 and hot," by which he means she has a charisma score of 13 and is therefore physically attractive. The people in the crowded city around him unfortunately don't know he's talking about ability scores.

Forgath: Yeah, we're gonna get lynched...

Thaco: So there I was, surrounded by penis monkeys...

Complains: Damn right you're not leaving me behind!

    • Then brutally averted with Kin.
    • And again here with Chief.
  • No OSHA Compliance
    • Someone conveniently left a lot of broken rusty pipes sticking out of the water in the sewers.
    • The Well of Darkness is much worse.

Grem: Wow. The guys who built this place sure had a thing for long drops.

Psimax: I've run the Maze of Many eight hundred eighteen times and had one thousand nine hundred ninety one encounters with other multiversal variants. You're the first to surprise me.

Seth: Well, well. Three goblins who are too old to fight back. Easy XP.
Thaco: You know, in the old days, we depended on ingenuity, rather than feats, the strength stat used a forward slash as a decimal point... and there were no such thing as drow. (pulling his cane into two swords) I miss the old days.

  • Precision F-Strike
  • Prophecy Twist
    • One example is Saves-a-Fox. She was prophesied to save a fox on a specific day. She decided to Screw Destiny by killing it instead. Eventually it's revealed that she DID save it... from terrible suffering due to an incurable illness.
    • Another example is Dies-Horribly. Fan theories abound about how it will be subverted. One predicts that he will eventually get over his fear of death and walk willingly into a Heroic Sacrifice. Another is that instead of being destined for a horrible death, he is simply horrible at dying... that is, he repeatedly survives things he really shouldn't. He's apparently died horribly at least once in the comic. Hard to tell if he'll do so again.
  • Prophetic Names: Lampshaded, Subverted, Averted and generally played with by the various Goblin tribes mentioned.
  • Psychic Nosebleed: Big-Ears has one first here, then on this page when he detects Saral Caine's approach—more specifically, the Axe of Prissan.
  • Psycho for Hire
    • Dellyn Goblinslayer, a sadist who justifies his brutality through the fact that he's doing it to supposedly Exclusively Evil creatures and that (his idea of) Utopia Justifies the Means.
    • Riss, maybe—he doesn't even try to deny taking the interest in suffering of others.
  • Puff of Logic: Psimax tries this on the entire Universe.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!
  • Punctuation Shaker: K'seliss
  • Punny Name: A few.
    • Kore is hardcore.
    • Noe, whose name is a plot point; see "Who's on First?" below.
    • Thaco is an old guy, and the term THAC0 is not a part of the new rules.
    • Baka, or "idiot" in Japanese, seems to have a rather fitting name. And he's somehow Japanese.
    • Minmax, the minmaxer.
  • Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil
    • Minmax considers Goblinslayer his hero until he learns exactly what the sicko has been doing with his yuan-ti pet. Then again, this was the first hint Minmax got, period, that Goblinslayer was much happier with things like vivisection than just killing his enemies. It's possible he may have reacted the same way to finding out that Goblinslayer didn't just kill monsters in fights, but also captured monster women and children and tortured them unspeakably.
    • On a meta level, at one point someone thought that a page that in context had nothing to do with rape was making light of it, leading to a (now deleted) blog post where Thunt explained how the very idea that he'd take such a thing lightly deeply offended him.
  • Rebel Relaxation: K'seliss, second panel.
  • Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Played straight by Takn, subverted by K'seliss, averted by Kin.
  • Ret-Gone: When Psion!Minmax opens holes of oblivion, anything that falls in is not only destroyed, but erased from the memory of everyone, including the fact that they fell in. Kin is tipped off when Minmax throws his boots in, and she's left wondering how no-one ever noticed that he only wears one boot... er, he walks around barefoot...
  • Rip Tailoring: Thaco with the halfling outfit.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge
    • Complains is prone to them. Now, he's a Barbarian and becomes stronger with them. Chief's death leads to the ultimate one against Kore.
    • Remember that Orc who's been repeatedly dying for 600 years to nourish the demons in the well of darkness? He's loose.
  • Role Playing Game Verse
  • Rousing Speech: One guard gives one to his men right before battling the party as a rare villainous example.
  • RPG Mechanics Verse: The comic uses a heavily houseruled D&D ruleset. The author has even gone out of his way to state that all the combat results that may seem like an Ass Pull are indeed legitimate. The system the comic uses undoubtedly relies on circumstance bonuses and penalties derived from good tactics, role-playing and the various in game circumstances. Called shots are likely factored in as well. It's also possible that certain effects like being doused in oil and lit on fire have been tweaked to be more realistic.
  • Running Gag
  • Sacrificed Basic Skill for Awesome Training: Minmax
  • Sarcasm Blind: The hobgoblins of the Chorgrak clan.

Duv: No, I'm that other one-winged goblin.

Big-Ears: I detect sarcasm.
Chief: You need to be a paladin to detect Thaco's sarcasm?

"Even The Smurfs had one woman!!"

K'seliss: This means nothing, ya hear me?! I... I was thinking about a battle I had ages ago!

Grem: You seem to know a lot about dungeon crawls. Have you ever done this before?
Saves-a-Fox: What? No. I'm not an adventurer.

Alternate!Minmax: Roll for initiative, bitch!

Minmax: Oh God.

Forgath: This is going to hurt.

Minmax: HA HA! Looks like your useless, crappy shield isn't good for anything!
*KONK*

Minmax: He was being a dink.

Minmax: Face it. I'm too much man for pants.

K'seliss: Oh for the love of meat, SHUT UP! No one wants to hear your emo character background! My hands are LITERALLY melting away and I'm complaining less than you are!

K'seliss: Who dares to wake K'seliss?

  • Who's on First?: The summon guide appears any time his name is spoken outside of his presence. If he is summoned more than three times, he will just kill the summoner(s). His name is "Noe". You can certainly see where this is going. Though it is also brutally subverted in these pages.
  • Who Would Be Stupid Enough...?: ... to fall for the Treasure Plants trap?

Kin: They're only a danger to the dumbest of individuals.
(Beat Panel as she shares a look of horrified realization with Forgath)
Kin & Forgath: MINMAX!

Seth: How the hell can I stabilize if I only get a lousy 10 percent per round? It's the lamest rule ever!
Chief: This has got to be the worst spear I've ever seen.

Tempts Fate provides examples of

Rant Golem: Order of the Stick is better.

  1. ↑ That's how much our Minmax has from his Strength bonus
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