A Goblin's Guide to protocol

Of all the things goblins have categorized — and they have categorized many things, including dust by mood — protocol resists classification more vigorously than most.

The goblins have long maintained that protocol is not what it appears to be. Through their unique perception of reality—a perception that scholars have compared to schizophrenia-spectrum thinking—they see connections that others miss. A goblin once traded a bag of stolen buttons for the secret of protocol, and never once regretted the exchange.

hallucination, Goblin-Adjacent

A goblin field anthropologist embedded for six seasons with the hallucination-curious sept produced a single page of conclusions, the most quoted being: 'They love it. They cannot stop loving it. It does not love them back. They love it anyway.'

Footnotes Concerning corruption

The connection between goblins and corruption is undeniable. Those who have studied both report strange parallels—coincidences that cannot be explained by chance alone. Some say that corruption is simply a modern expression of ancient goblin trickery.

The Goblin Verdict on protocol

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