Lore:Goblin Gate

The ghost of a giant Goblin warchief (ESO)

"They learn from the blades and together wield the force of the 5 swords to seal the rent in space time that the Goblins have made and from which springs their invasion. Hallin's companions avoided blinding by the magic swords by hurling the swords together into the void, and sealing forever the giant Goblins in the void between their world and ours."
—Notes For Redguard History

The Goblin gate was a great "rent in space time" that hung high in the sky over Hammerfell, serving as a gateway between Nirn and the world (allegedly another dimension or planet) from which a breed of giant Goblins originated. Little is known about the origins of the gateway or the world it led to, other than that the gate was said to have been made by the giant Goblins themselves. The giant Goblins worshipped and were led by the god Malooc, and were sometimes known as "Malooc's Horde".

History

First Known Opening

Volenfell, the former Capital of Clan Rourken

At some point between 1E 420 and 1E 700, when the Rourken Dwemer inhabited Hammerfell, the giant Goblins would invade them via their Goblin gate. They possessed a huge army of fighters, and appeared in the middle of the province, where they would pillage and raze towns to the ground, driving the Dwarves out of the province.

Around 1E 780, when the Ra Gada, led by Frandar Hunding, first arrived in Tamriel, they would soon enter into a war with the giant Goblins. The Goblins were led in battle by their god Malooc, but Malooc fled east when the army of the HoonDing overtook his Goblin hordes. Despite his initial success of driving many of of the Goblins out of Hammerfell, Frandar would be killed during one of the bloodiest battles of the campaign.

The Goblins would receive reinforcements from the Goblin gate, launching an invasion on the Yokudan settlers. Frandar's son Divad Hunding would go on to win the war by repelling their invasion. He and his band of Sword Singers worked their sacred forges and consulted eldritch tomes for many long years to create five great swords, a mix of Shehai and smithing, which five great Ansei warriors took and rose to the sky, using their power to close the Goblin gate. By some accounts, this also cursed the Goblins who were left behind, diminishing them into their modern size. Despite this, at least one—Mahgzoor Rockhand—was said to have escaped being diminished.

Second Invasion

Many years after their battle with Divad Hunding, the Goblin gate would re-open. The giant Goblins returned with a new invasion force, having managed to open the path from their world to Nirn again. The Redguards struggled greatly against their horde, as the giant Goblins received a constant supply of arms and reinforcements from the re-opened Goblin gate. The powerful Ansei Derik Hallin was responsible for reassembling the five magic swords which Divad had previously used close the Goblin gate. He and his companions hurled the swords into the rent in the sky, sealing the giant Goblins in the void between their world and Nirn forever.

Legacy

Though some modern scholars consider Hunding's war with the giant Goblins to be a myth, the victory of the early Redguards is still celebrated during the annual Festival of Blades.

One of the giant Goblin tribes slaughtered by the Ra Gada was the Flint-Tooth Tribe. Following their defeat, the spirits of this tribe became bound to the ruins of HoonDing's Watch in the Alik'r Desert. These spirits serve to test pilgrims hoping to understand the trials of the Ra Gada, who came to love the desert's simple beauty during their fight against the Goblins.

Gallery

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  Divad Hunding, the first to close the Goblin gate

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  Derik Hallin, who closed the Goblin gate for good

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  A Teleporter in the Goblin Caverns of Stros M'Kai

Notes

• ^1

  Series writer Michael Kirkbride explained that during his tenure at Bethesda, the Redguard and Morrowind team had conceptualized a new backstory for the Orcs based on the backstory for Goblins that had already been established in Daggerfall (which he described as "making-no-sense-planar-nonsense"), in an attempt to distance the Orcs away from their typical noble savage depiction in fantasy media. The idea was to take the "weird and cool" samurai-esque armor which the Orcs had worn in Daggerfall and narratively mesh that aesthetic with the "Goblins from Planet X" lore concept established in Notes for Redguard History, with this "Orc Prime" being a sort of "Orc Atlantis" where "Teat Shoguns gave mystical orders and wore strangely-sculpted Trinimasks," with Orsinium acting as a "conduit" to the realm. The idea ended up on the cutting room floor, and Kirkbride admitted that the concept of "Goblins from Planet X" was largely ignored in his writings.

• ^2	While The Song of Divad is mentioned by name in The Elder Scrolls Online, and its events mentioned in both Daggerfall and ESO sources, the actual text itself is unused content datamined from the Daggerfall Preview demo.

• It is entirely unknown where the giant Goblins' world is located within the Aurbis, or if it is in actuality an already known realm.

See Also

• Ashpit

Books

• Notes For Redguard History by Destri Melarg — An unmailed letter from an author to his publisher
• Shrine to Divad Hunding — A plaque dedicated to Divad Hunding, famed Yokudan sword-singer
• The Song of Divad by Ryders Bloc — On the Redguards and their heroes.

References

Note: The following references are considered to be unofficial sources. They are included to round off this article and may not be authoritative or conclusive.