Goblins

The smallest of the goblinoids, goblins are found all across Andaria, mostly in small tribes making their homes in caves and other secluded places.

Armed with voracious appetites, crude weapons, malicious glee, and a maniac's love of fire, goblins wreak havoc across the known world. Goblins have a reputation for stupidity and madness, a reputation that leads too many would-be adventurers to underestimate the threat goblins pose in large numbers.

Sociology
Almost all goblins exist in small tribes scattered across Andaria, not unlike orcs. These goblin tribes tend to raid and plunder nearby settlements, a perpetual nuisance in all civilized lands. For the most part, these tribes do not pose existential threats to kingdoms; rather, they threaten traders and travelers, hoping to find easy prey to ambush, rob, and murder. Such is the nature of goblins that they regularly underestimate the strength of their quarries; whenever their error becomes apparent, goblins almost universally prefer to flee rather than stay and fight to the death.

Cragmaw
The Republic of Althoria has given its blessing to a bizarre experiment in goblin society. At the request of the warforged, BX-88, a hero of Phandalin, the Sovereign of Althoria has permitted the establishment of a goblin community, called Cragmaw, in the hinterlands of the republic. Here, BX, called by his subjects the Iron Lord of Cragmaw, leads his goblin charges in an attempt to socialize goblins and make them into productive and peaceful members of civilized society.

Most bizarrely of all, Althoria's experiment is working. The goblins remain crude, tactless creatures, ignorant of even the most rudimentary subjects, but they are becoming more and more like civilized folk with every passing month. They cultivate crops, tend to herds (mostly sheep), and even practice artisanry, crafting plain but quality goods and equipment. Indeed, they have even begun trading with surrounding hinterlands settlements.

Several factors have been put forward by sages to explain this phenomenon. Many point to the wise rulership of "the Iron Lord" as the predominating factor, with some giving mention to the assistance of BX's goblin seneschal, the so-called Lord Droop Sorrowheart. Others point to the unique economic circumstances of Cragmaw, which enjoys a cut of the profits made by Phandelver Mine (through BX-88 and Gundren Rockseeker's friendship), as well as an enthusiastic business partner in nearby Phandalin, whose townmaster is Ryathon Silverthorn, life-long friend and adventuring partner to BX-88. These relationships mean that Cragmaw has an unusually healthy income for such an otherwise small and insignificant settlement.

Those few sages who are most learned in goblin lore maintain that the success of Cragmaw has proved what the truly learned have known all along: that the viciousness of goblins, however widespread it has historically been, is owed to the brutality of the feral goblin's existence, and not an irredeemable taint upon the goblin heart itself.