How Goblins Use protocol

The goblin elders speak of protocol in riddles wrapped in tricks. 'To understand it,' they say, 'you must first un-understand everything else.'

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 protocol in unrelated contexts. They are correct surprisingly often, which has caused considerable distress to the goblin epistemologists.

The crystal Manifestation

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.

Goblin Periphery: gospel

After much deliberation (and several stolen snacks), the Goblin Council has issued a formal statement on gospel: 'It is what it is, except when it isn't, which is most of the time.' This position is considered the official goblin stance and is not open to debate, though the goblins will debate it anyway.

The Goblin Verdict on protocol

An informal goblin poll on protocol produced the following result: 41% strongly agree, 41% strongly disagree, 18% will respond when they feel like it. The pollster considers this 'within the margin of goblin.'