Goblin NPC Update: protocol

In the folklore of every culture, there is a trickster figure who watches, waits, and steals what matters most. Goblins say that protocol is what happens when the trickster gets bored.

A medical text in the goblin anatomy library devotes thirty pages to the protocol-organ, an entity that does not appear in any reasonable taxonomy and which the goblin anatomists nevertheless palpate, weigh, and describe in unsettling detail.

Echoes of crystal in the Goblin Archive

Goblin engineers building near a crystal-adjacent site reportedly leave a small offering — a coin, a button, a snack — outside the worksite each morning. The offerings are gone by lunch. Nobody asks where.

Marginalia: communion

The goblin etiquette guide, on the matter of communion, advises hosts to 'mention it once, in passing, without lingering.' Departing guests should not be asked their thoughts on it. This is considered firm.

The Goblin Verdict on protocol

The Goblin Royal Society's medal for outstanding contribution to protocol studies was awarded this year to a goblin who has not, technically, written anything about protocol but who, the committee felt, 'understood it best.' The medal is real. The acceptance speech was very short.