The Empire of the Hobgoblins

The Empire of the Hobgoblins is the largest land empire in history, originating in the steppes of Central Asia, the Empire once stretched from Central Europe to the Sea of Japan, extending northwards into Siberia, eastwards and southwards into the Indian subcontinent and the Iranian plateau, and westwards as far as the Levant and Arabian Peninsula.

After the defeat of the Titans in the Titanomachy the troops they had fashioned from the earth “the hobgoblin” were exiled from the Gods civilised lands. With their leaders either dead or imprisoned, the few survivors eventually found a new home on the Steppes.

For centuries they fought among themselves and raided neighboring tribes. The Hobgoblin Empire emerged from the unification of these nomadic tribes in their hobgoblin homeland under the leadership of one powerful warlord who became known as their universal ruler, proclaimed ruler of all goblinoids . The empire grew rapidly under his rule and then under his descendants, who sent invasions in every direction. The vast transcontinental empire connected the east with the west allowing trade, technologies, commodities, and ideologies to be disseminated and exchanged across Eurasia.

The empire began to split due to wars over succession, as the grandchildren of the hobgoblins universal ruler disputed whether the royal line should follow from his son and initial heir or one of his other sons. One faction prevailed after a bloody purge, but disputes continued even among the descendants. After Mongke Khan died, rival kurultai councils simultaneously elected different successors, the brothers Ariq Böke and Kublai Khan, who then not only fought each other in the Toluid Civil War, but also dealt with challenges from descendants of other sons of The universal ruler . Kublai successfully took power, but civil war ensued as Kublai sought unsuccessfully to regain control of all of the families.

The Battle of Ain Jalut in marked the high-water point of the hobgoblin conquests and was the first time a hobgoblin advance had ever been beaten back in direct combat on the battlefield. Though the hobgoblins launched many more invasions into the Levant, briefly occupying it and raiding as far as Gaza after a decisive victory at the Battle of Wadi al-Khazandar, they withdrew due to various geopolitical factors.

By the time of Kublai’s death, the Hobgoblin Empire had fractured into four separate khanates or empires, each pursuing its own separate interests and objectives: the Golden Horde khanate in the northwest; the Chagatai Khanate in the middle; the Ilkhanate in the southwest; and the Yuan dynasty. The three western khanates briefly accepted the nominal suzerainty of the Yuan dynasty, but it was later overthrown by the Ming dynasty. The rulers of the Yuan retreated to the hobgoblin homeland and continued to rule the Northern Yuan dynasty, while the Golden Horde and the Chagatai Khanate whist in decine are still the overlords of their regions.