You want more goblins?
No? Well too bad!
Goblins get hurt… a lot. Some times it’s not even their fault. I thought it was high time that I introduce you to those selfless souls that take it upon themselves to study the art of medicine and dedicate their lives to healing the sick and injured of their tribe.
Unfortunately for you (and more importantly for the goblins), such creatures don’t exist. Instead, they get the goblin chop docs. These “medicine men” of the tribe carry rusty knives and seem to follow an oath of “first do as much harm as possible” with a penchant for removing fingers and limbs, even when that is clearly not the problem. This often times does more harm than good, and many die under their care of blood infections and the disease known as “muscle rot.”
Of course this also has the effect of making the goblins they do heal and help to recover even more miraculous and only increases the stories of their healing prowess leading to more goblins seeking them out for their own maladies.
I see “goblin medicine” as it appears in combat more like brutal chiropractic care, wrenching limbs and dislocating shoulders to “encourage good blood flow.” The actual medical benefit doesn’t exist, but hey – hit points are meant to be something of an abstraction, so as far as I’m concerned so can healing them. One of these guys can really serve to keep your run-of-the-mill goblins on their feet for a few more rounds, especially if the DM gets lucky with the recharge rolls on their “goblin medicine” ability. What’s more, they can also give an unlucky PC a condition they’re likely to remember for the rest of their lives with their ability to inflict the disease “muscle rot” with their weapon attacks (more on that below).
I was actually a little bit surprised to see that there wasn’t some form of “fantasy tetanus” represented within the Dungeon Master’s Guide. In fact, diseases aren’t really given much beyond a couple of paragraphs and a few examples. I wanted to give these guys something a little bit more memorable than “just another monster that causes filth fever” so I worked up this idea. A reasonably healthy character (especially one who is trained in Constitution saving throws) has little to worry from this, barring some bad dice luck. It gets interesting when the wizard, bard, or low Constitution cleric gets hit by one of these and possibly has to make a save with a Constitution penalty.
Ben Erickson
