When thinking about converting old-school D&D adventures to SWN, I wanted to find a good stand-in for all the humanoids found there. The simplest solution is to add in all sorts of human pirates, bandits and assorted space criminals spiced up with some of my sector's aliens (the insectoid and criminal-minded Zhuziik and the reptilian and warlike-anarchist Cicek). But another option is to add "goblins" or "bullwugs" to the game as well as aliens; maybe goblins are a fungoid species spreading as spores and then developing as an infection (and having genetic memory so the goblins who develop from the spores have their "culture" from birth)?

What do you think?

You could make goblinoids the result of genetic manipulation; several creatures specifically designed for various parts of warfare (goblins as scouts, bugbears/orcs as frontline troops and perhaps hobgoblins are expert pilots or the like). Eventually, the troops rebelled, killed their former masters and stole their technology.
These goblinoids reproduce and mature extremely fast, and have a 'hard-coded' genetic knowledge, depending on their caste -they are already born with all the knowledge they need to fulfill their jobs. This also means they suck at innovating (and therefore steal technology or keep engineers/scientists as slaves), but they require no training to kill those around them. Due to high reproduction rate and the highly specialised skill sets, goblinoid settlements are always on the brink starvation due to overpopulation, turning them into extremely aggressive expansionists out of necessity.

I really like the Hochogs from the book, but you can never really go wrong by having an entire species that's little more than an ancient siege weapon that got out of hand. Doesn't need to be Xenomorphs, but they would give the Hochogs something to compete with.

Quote from: MrHurst;811176I really like the Hochogs from the book, but you can never really go wrong by having an entire species that's little more than an ancient siege weapon that got out of hand. Doesn't need to be Xenomorphs, but they would give the Hochogs something to compete with.

Hey, it's Harn's Gargun.

Goblins = Ferengi

Quote from: golan2072;811137But another option is to add "goblins" or "bullwugs" to the game as well as aliens; maybe goblins are a fungoid species spreading as spores and then developing as an infection (and having genetic memory so the goblins who develop from the spores have their "culture" from birth)?

What do you think?

Sounds kinda like the 40K space orks... and their smaller cousins the gretchins. Fungus based, designed by a lost Progenitor race (Slann?) as a sort of bio-weapon. They've got a innate knack with technology/warfare.
The earliest versions of the setting have the most dangerous/least comical versions of them.

Quote from: golan2072;811137When thinking about converting old-school D&D adventures to SWN, I wanted to find a good stand-in for all the humanoids found there. The simplest solution is to add in all sorts of human pirates, bandits and assorted space criminals spiced up with some of my sector's aliens (the insectoid and criminal-minded Zhuziik and the reptilian and warlike-anarchist Cicek). But another option is to add "goblins" or "bullwugs" to the game as well as aliens; maybe goblins are a fungoid species spreading as spores and then developing as an infection (and having genetic memory so the goblins who develop from the spores have their "culture" from birth)?

What do you think?

If i ever ran SWN, I would almost certainly do something along these lines.

There's always the two species from Mars CoC Mythos: the Martians & Aihai. Make the Aihai, underground four-armed humanoids, the goblinoids in your game and you should be good to go. Maybe state that SWN human expansion needed an ally race to be spacefaring, and those nicer martians were it.

With them helping colonize low atmosphere & gravity worlds they increased the number of "gas stations" for starships as they drilled through space. After the fall with the Scream, they forgot about colonizing low atmosphere & gravity worlds with underground Aihai but still have those "gas stations" marked on their star maps.

Gives a reason to explore underground dungeons, too.

Quote from: RPGPundit;811849If i ever ran SWN..

This should happen....I'll be your first player...

Quote from: RookieRPG;816117This should happen....I'll be your first player...

You in Montevideo?

I was under the impression that it would be a PbP...I don't live in Uruguay...or Minnesota, depending...though it would be nice

Quote from: RookieRPG;817741I was under the impression that it would be a PbP...I don't live in Uruguay...or Minnesota, depending...though it would be nice

A pity, but no, I don't do any pbp or online gaming at all.  I'm way too busy running three real-life campaigns here in South America.