{"id":10710,"date":"2026-11-11T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-11T12:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=10710"},"modified":"2026-10-20T12:34:57","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T16:34:57","slug":"the-hobgoblin-warlord","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=10710","title":{"rendered":"The Hobgoblin Warlord"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Karla Adder
Karla Adder Press
OSRIC
Levels 1-3<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For years, the southeast border of the Domain of Grauheim was silent, the thunder of marching footsteps and the stampede of calvary long-faded into the history of the Borderland Wars. Yet this peace has been ruptured by a band of hobgoblin mutineers and their treacherous commander, Sergeant Rovacs. The hobgoblins have seized a long-disused outpost just across the Morfluss River, from which they have raided caravans, captured prisoners, and amassed a small fortune in the halls of their captured fortress\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 36 page adventure uses about thirteen pages to describe a hobgoblin fortress with about forty locations. And fuck ton of hobgoblins. It\u2019s padding out language and room descriptions, with a few mysteries to solve, but, ultimately, it\u2019s not a dungeon adventure, or a raid, or a siege. It\u2019s a weird diplomacy\/logistics\/siege adventure that doesn\u2019t do much to support that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t really know how to go about this. The heart of this product is a fortress taken over by hobgoblins. It\u2019s well defended, walls, towers, archers, lookouts, defenses, and a metric fuck ton of hobgoblins. Like, thirty or so. There are also some dungeon areas, old temple secrets to uncover and so on, as well as some goblins slaves in the basement, a few dozen of them, and they are feisty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s a disconnect here, in the adventure, which I think the designer explicitly acknowledges, and, yet, there\u2019s still a disconnect. This isn\u2019t a dungeon adventure. It looks like a dungeon adventure. There\u2019s a map, and it\u2019s keyed, and there are some secret areas and so on. But a force of thirty or so hobgoblins, in a fortress, is not a nut to be cracked by traditional means. It\u2019s not an exploratory dungeon. And I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a raid, or, rather, it’s not solved through the usual \u201csneak in via a dumb plan and then when it goes to shit start the frantic hacking.\u201d I am pretty certain that the adventure is going to START that way, and then the second party to come along, after the TPK or near-TPK, will select another option to crack it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The dudes in town, the mayors personal guard, are ten or so levels three, four and five fighters. But dude will not commit them without a great plan. There are a lot of goblin slaves in the basement, that the party doesn\u2019t know about. There is a merchant in town that is looking to curry favor with the townfolk. And, then, there\u2019s an explicit acknowledgement by the designer ta the end of the adventure that the party could siege the place, attrit the hobgoblin patrols, diplomacy the hobgoblins to buy them off, or \u201cstealth in\u201d, which is basically the \u201ccome up with a wacky plan that then goes to shit\u201d approach I noted earlier. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Diplomacy, siege, and attrition are not likely to be the initial approaches the party selects, correct? That\u2019s a different type of adventure. I don\u2019t know, a campaign issue? Something that shows up again and again in the game? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ok so we\u2019re gonna ignore that your level ones are gonna get slaughtered. Instead we\u2019re gonna assume that the DM has successfully telegraphed that the usual \u201cexplore\/raid\u201d methodology is gonna end in a disaster and the party is selecting another approach. The question then becomes how well does the adventure support those other approaches? A siege, diplomacy, attrition? Not well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Mayor believes his first responsibilities lie with his community, which he is hesitant to leave, though he will part with up to 4 of his 9-man household guard. However, if the party presents a compelling strategy for a full assault that seems likely to eliminate the Hobgoblin menace, Morrik and all his men will join the combat.\u201d That is, essentially, all you\u2019re getting. There is no support for diplomacy, or issues arising from it, or support for a siege or attrition via the surrounding area and environs, or anything other than a cursory note about patrols. But, the designer, proper, makes it clear that IS the adventure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a misunderstanding of the adventure as presented. These are not bandits in some ruins. This is now the local raubritter. Herr Raubritter is not dealth with the same way as a few bandits in the ruins and thus the information needed by the DM, presented to them by the designer, is not the same. This is not a raid or three in to the dungeon. You need more on the town, the local situation, resources, escapes, patrols and so on. You need far less “dungeon room key long descriptions.” This is not exploratory, or a typical dungeon room\/key environment in any sense. At BEST it needs to be oriented towards raids\/infiltration, or the possibility thereof. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead we get \u201cThe torturer himself is long gone,\u201d or \u201cthis was once, evidentally\u201d or long conditional statements. It\u2019s padded out language, not targeted to how the adventure is meant to be used. There\u2019s not even an order of battle or response information. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, hey, you do get Mark & Emma, a couple in town \u201cM8c. Mark and Emma \u2013 Mark is a grey haired old man long past fighting age, and is cared for by Emma, his niece and the sole surviving member of his family. The two of them eek out a meager living, but are supported generously by their neighbors and granted wide latitude in work by Mayor Morrik.\u201d This deserved, at best, a line of text in order to spice up a call to arms in town, not a paragraph. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Either you write a level one to three adventure with hobgoblins in a fortress that is more \u201csetting\u201d oriented or you make the environment less impregnable and target it at the standard party incursion\/raid type play. You gotta decide which you are doing and target the writing., and resources provided to the DM, in that style. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is, in some ways, a better example of \u201cwriting a social adventure in standard room\/key\u201d than anything else I\u2019ve seen, even though its not really a social adventure. It WANTS a situation but then presented a room\/key dungeon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Also, meh, no reason for them to be hobgoblins. I think I like humans better for things like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $13 at DriveThru. The preview is eight pages and shows you the room keys in the fortress. Not exactly focused descriptions, but, also, I\u2019m not sure communicates the overall vibe of the adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/en\/product\/567161\/the-hobgoblin-warlord?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Karla AdderKarla Adder PressOSRICLevels 1-3 For years, the southeast border of the Domain of Grauheim was silent, the thunder of marching footsteps and the stampede of calvary long-faded into the history of the Borderland Wars. Yet this peace has … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10704,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/567161-1.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10710"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10747,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10710\/revisions\/10747"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}