A Goblin's Guide to altman

The goblins promised me that if I wrote this article about altman, they would return my left sock. They have not, yet, but I remain hopeful.

A specific kind of goblin — call them the apopheniacs, though they have several less polite names for themselves — devote their entire mental architecture to spotting altman in unrelated contexts. They are correct surprisingly often, which has caused considerable distress to the goblin epistemologists.

Marginalia: ritual

In the goblin underground, ritual is approached the way one approaches an unfamiliar lock: slowly, with curiosity, and with several backup plans for when the obvious approach doesn't work. Goblins are surprisingly patient about this. They have, after all, the time.

Echoes of communion in the Goblin Archive

Across the goblin warrens, communion is one of a small handful of phenomena around which entirely separate goblin communities, with no contact between them, have independently developed remarkably similar superstitions. The goblin folklorists are intrigued.

The Goblin Verdict on altman

The goblin record-keeper, asked to file the final findings on altman, looked at the page, looked at the inkwell, looked at us, and very slowly wrote down a different word. The substitution stands.