Since we’ve stuck pretty close to the prime races in the Tales of Tellest series of novellas (with the exception of the goblins involvement in Awake), we knew that we were going to be moving away from the races that made the most sense logistically.  The gnolls aren’t necessarily that involved in the Tellest lore just yet (but that’ll change soon enough).  Still, since our focus has been on those prime races, that gave us freedom to move around quite a bit.

We’re showing you, today, the version of the gnoll that we really loved, and that means we were going with something dynamic, as we’re ought to do:

This was still considered the sketch phase, but it gave us a good indication of what the final version of our snarling, mean gnoll was going to look like.  After that initial anatomy was laid out, we had to consider what he was going to wear.

This version of the character took us one step closer to the concept that we really liked.  He has a little more clothing, some better markings, and hair that looked more complete.  But it still paled in comparison to the armored look we had next.

We liked this version for a couple of different reasons.  For one, it gives him a little more character.  Sure, he’s savage, but he’s not an idiot.  He know’s that a little bit of armor can go a long way.  Those shoulder pads also help to rein him in a bit and make him look a little less imposing overall, but just barely.

And then of course we had the beautiful colored version of our snarling savage.  Paul did a great job with this, to the point where we want to make this character into someone permanent.

And though we don’t have a dedicated backdrop to dump this gnoll on, we did manage to cobble together a variation with one of Dena Helmi’s backgrounds.

That’s it for the gnolls, but word on the street is we have a formidable foe for them coming within a few weeks.  Stay tuned for the new race soon!

The post Art: Gnoll Raider appeared first on Tellest.

It’s been a while, but if you recall, back in May, one of our Art updates was about goblins.  You see, back then, there had been no real mention of goblins with the exception of the preview for Awake that we had generated for the Kickstarter campaign.

With Awake officially releasing here on Tellest this week (in serial format, that is), it seemed like the right time to show you how the concept of the creatures on the cover came to be.  In Awake, Venathryn is tormented by the evil creatures that slayed her kin, so it was important that they be featured front and center.

Today, we have a fished version of the concept goblin to show you. Just like with the Tribal Orc that we presented three months ago, we wanted to pick something that seemed more energetic and dynamic:

“Hold the elevator!”

In Tellest, the goblins aren’t a sniveling little fodder race.  They’re among the toughest and scariest fighters you’ll ever encounter, and we wanted to convey this properly.  Paul did a great job capturing that in his artwork.

And when we throw on a coat of paint, our goblin candidate looks all the more savage and fearsome:

I’d rather not be on this guy’s bad side.

I think the tattoos, the skulls and the fur really help to voice the idea that you do not want to meet this guy on the field of battle.  Even that orc that Paul did would have a tough time with our goblin here.

Just for fun, I threw him on top of one of the concept art pieces that Dena did that we showed last month:

Obviously, I have no business superimposing anything on top of anything else, but I thought it looked cool.

So we have two races represented by Paul Davies on Tellest.com now. Which would you like to see next?  Something evil, like gnolls or lagano or harpies?  Or one of the goodly races of the world, like kobolds, kaja, avarians or the genie-like aetherites?

Either way, I’m sure Paul will continue to knock it out of the park!

The post Art: Savage Goblin appeared first on Tellest.

A few weeks back, we looked at his work on the orcs of Tellest.  We needed them to be more human and have an air of pseudo-nobility. One of the reasons that we did this was in the role of an antagonistic race in Tellest: the goblins.

In a lot of traditional fantasy, goblins are scrappy fodder enemies. They aren’t really a force to be reckoned with, and they aren’t really all that frightening, but when I knew that orcs weren’t going to be the savage, evil creatures they’re usually portrayed as, I needed our goblins to step up in a big way.

Enter Paul Davies.  We knew that we were going to have to put some humanity into the goblins, just as we did the orcs.  After all, what’s a proper villain if you can’t understand their motivations?  Here was the first set that we came up with:

Mischievous and snarky.

As you can see there, the goblins looked very different from the iterations you’ll see in a lot of other popular fantasy brands.  Our goblins are about the size of a human, and if you look at that first concept, they almost have a kind of elvish quality.  We really liked what we had there, and are apt to use that kind of goblin in some instances in the future.  We wanted something a little more vicious, a little more frightening.

This is the kind of guy I don’t want to mess with.

Now we were moving a little closer into the realm of “this guy looks like he would chew the flesh off your bones.”  And not even because he’s hungry.  He’d just do it for fun.  The goblins of Tellest are kind of like the flipped side of the coin that orcs are on.  They’re battle-tested, hardy and worthy enough foes for just about any other race.  I knew we had the right look, so we moved into the next phase, which was a full body concept.

And you thought their faces were scary.

We had a couple of different options, including a more robustly armored version of the goblin, but we wanted them to appear almost tribal in their appearance, as putting the goblin and orc side by side should really give an insight into how they compare and contrast. Again, here our goblin model almost looks somewhat like an elf in some ways.  The sideways pointed ears are a little more animalistic than the upward, classic ear shape of Tellest’s elves though.

Finally, we’ll look at one of our choices for the final sketch that would lead to a painted version:

This one is our runner up.

We’ll return in a couple weeks to show you the final piece, in all its glory.  Paul has done an insanely good job with all these concept art commissions, and the goblins are no exception!

The post Art: Goblin Concept Pieces appeared first on Tellest.

General description

Misconceptions

For the typical citizen of Tellest, goblins are naught but a tale woven to frighten children into their best behavior.  Generally, in stories, they are described as skittering, slavering little creatures that feed on children’s teeth or steal toys or treats in the middle of the night.

In reality, a goblin is far, far worse…

Physical Appearance

Goblins are slender beings of average size that could easily be confused with an orc to the untrained eye.  The most telling feature that separates the two is a goblin’s pointed ears.  Their skin color can vary between shades of grey, green, black blue or white skin.  They never have blond hair, instead most often having black, grey or red hair.  They’re very sneaky, and tend to dwell in dark places.

Due to poor hygiene, goblins do not tend to live as long as many of the other humanoid races.  That, coupled with their dangerous habits tends to lead to an untimely death.

Clothing and Adornment

Though goblins are more discrete about show, they are still similar to humans in dress.  They tend to be a little more casual about what they wear, and they don’t care for colors as much as a typical surface dweller.  Of course, the quality is usually quite deteriorated.  Those who study goblin behavior equate a wealthy goblin’s clothing with a poor human’s.

Goblins tend to tattoo their bodies and faces, sometimes with incandescent inks that allow them to glow in the dark.  Ears and noses are often pierced, usually with the belief that it would allow them to smell better, or see more clearly in the dark.

Relations to Other Races

No one knows for sure where the goblins originated from, but various races have their own theories.  Orcs tend to believe a theory that they evolved from two ancient brothers who were at war.  While the taller, broader brother found victory, and earned the right to see the sun, the smaller one was forced beneath the ground.

Several of the other goodly races, and a few of the darker ones, tend to believe in the concept that goblins were the result of a union between elves and orcs, and that neither side would give them peace.

The goblins believe that they were forged from living ore, which they also attribute to their affinity toward the underground, and mining.

General Personality

Personal

Despite the fairytales that people tell their children, goblins are not mindless monsters that seek menial comforts in baubles or trinkets.  In fact, they are wildly intelligent, a fact that is only offset by their primal nature.

Goblins are quite vicious.  Their place in society is usually determined by their strength, which is usually proportionate to the level of comfort they are afforded.

Because of the general hierarchy, however, the intelligent goblins that know they’re intelligent but can’t physically muscle their way up the ranks have it just as easy within a subgroup of their people.

Relationship

Similar to some of the more barbaric and nomadic cultures of humans and orcs, when a goblin wants a mate, he’ll typically take it.  More than many of the other races though, a strong goblin will have the propensity to take multiple companions, and it isn’t unheard of for a female goblin to be discarded, sometimes in a more permanent fashion.

Still, some of the more banal goblin tribes have a more relaxed monogamy amongst their people.

Family

Because of the risk of death amongst their mines, and the true threat of an early passing due to physical ailments, many goblins treasure their young.  They aren’t as unwitting as some would believe, and they’re very protective of them.

In some of the more primal tribes, the value on a child may be gender specific.  Within some of these sadistic societies, it is common practice for a son to take on his father’s mate when he passes, assuming it isn’t the same mate that gave him life.  Goblin daughters, meanwhile, are considered lowborn, and must find a way to climb up the social ladder without any help from their families.  Because of this, many goblin females can be just as vile and brutal as their male counterparts.

Society

Within the more cruel groups that tend to nomadically traverse the larger areas of the underworld, goblins are very animalistic in nature.  The static groups of goblins are typically much more organized.  People have their places, despite a lean on old habits of violence.  There are tasks at hand that goblin citizens will openly fulfill, including blacksmithing, tailoring and mushroom agriculture.

Similar to dwarves, the most prevalent industry for a goblin is the mining of precious metals.  Even within the goblin mining companies, sometimes there is a class system.  Often, a well-known surveyor will take the richest veins for themselves, and only a threat of violence is known to hold them at bay.  As such, the strongest miners are typically the richest.

Behavior toward Other Races

Due to their physical similarities and the social stigmas surrounding them, goblins despise orcs and elves.  Most tribes are located far from them, but organized groups of goblins will not shy away from the surface, and have often come to blows against them.

More than any other group, the goblins are at war with the dwarves.  This is typically due to the shared resources of the two groups.  Because both races aspire to mine – the dwarves usually from above and the goblins below – they contend over the same resources.  However, while dwarves typically value veins within, goblins would rather pick through debris than suffer their competitors to walk away with anything.  Thus, the dwarves are known to call them knockers because of the noise they make before they bring down a mine.

Still, there are some circumstances where a goblin will not act with hostility toward the goodly races.  The more benevolent of the race may sometimes lead miners away from danger or toward a wealthy mineral deposit.  Usually, that behavior is rewarded with the last bits of a biscuit or some fruit.

There have also been many instances when children have been snatched from their homes when there is a known presence of goblins nearby.  It is theorized that they use them for slave labor, and raise the children as their own.

In line with that notion, gremlins are used almost like fodder to the goblins.  Sometimes the two races are confused as a portion of one greater race, but that is not the case.  The gremlins are valued for their work ethic and their intelligence.  Goblins also tend to rely on the strength and companionship of trolls, ever their larger, fiercer cousins.

Language

Speech

Goblins began to adopt the common language centuries ago.  Because of this, they lost a good deal of their original speech, though there are some linguistic hang-ups that occur because of their varied dialects.

Penmanship

Though most of the goblins tell their tales aurally, writing is becoming a more integrated source of record keeping.  It originally became fundamental in engineering and mathematics, but certain goblin storytellers and scholars have noticed the benefit of the medium.

Religion

Personal Beliefs

Unlike many of the so-called evil races of Tellest, the goblins believe in all of the greater gods.  Though they worship Nerot and Cebrum at their forefront, akin to the lagano and gnolls, for instance, they also place a great deal of faith on Galvan and Obsam, the two brothers known to represent good finding and craftsmanship. 

History

Myths and Legends

Many of the goblins are aware of the legend of Romus Youngblood, and thus, the part that the goblin Rellix had on it.  Despite the fact that Rellix’ actions would have saved Tellest from an influx of demons, goblinkind loathes him for banding together with what is perceived as the goodly races.

Beyond that, there aren’t very many instances where something of extreme merit is passed down in goblin culture.  Rather, they will talk about events with more vague details, such as an instance where the goblins would poison a dwarvish mine with tainted ore that, when smelted, created noxious fumes that killed many smallfolk.

Technology

General Technology

Due to the great intelligence of many goblins, their level of technology is rapidly increasing.  However, based on their culture, much of this equipment is used within their mines.  They do have sprawling underground water systems to aid them in cleanliness, along with some other contemporary ideas from the surface world.

Magic

Goblins very rarely pursue the magical arts, but when they do, it is almost always in some pursuit of fire.  They believe that Galvan and Obsam are beings of fire that fuel their forges, and make their tools and weapons stronger.

Military/Combat

Military Structure

Goblins rarely take to organized combat, but when they do, it is typically well formed.  Rather, they use ingenious tactics to hit their enemies with surprises attacks, and in smaller numbers.

Weapons and Tools

It is said that goblins have focused largely on humans for their style of combat.  As such, they have grown accustomed to all sorts of weaponry.  However, most seem to prefer smaller swords, which aid them in close quarters combat underground.  They also favor compact crossbows as a means to dispatch their enemies from afar.

Wars and Enemies

Over the course of history, the goblins have waged many wars.  Among the surface dwellers, orcs and elves have endured the brunt of the confrontations.

Within mines across the lands, dwarves have taken to arms against goblins, and the gnomes are typically involved by proxy.  Many times, when the goblins are victorious in battle, the bodies of those that have fallen cannot be found, and it is difficult to understand what has transpired on the battlefield.

The post Goblins appeared first on Tellest.