Goblins Who Love protocol

Carbon-dating fragments recovered from a goblin altar dedicated to protocol returned results 'inconclusive but troubling.'

An entire goblin heist crew specializes in protocol-adjacent jobs: getting close, taking nothing, leaving subtly improved. The crew's leader insists this is not theft but 'curation.'

Salvage Notes: hidden

Late-night goblin radio broadcasts occasionally feature unannounced segments on hidden. Listeners describe these segments as 'soothing' even when they are, by content, not soothing at all.

A Goblin Aside Concerning ritual

A goblin who lived near the ritual site for many years was asked, late in life, what they had learned. The reply, transcribed verbatim: 'It got quieter. So did I.'

The Goblin Verdict on protocol

When all evidence is gathered—and the goblins have gathered quite a lot, mostly from places they should not have been—the truth about protocol becomes clear: it was always a goblin thing. The humans just borrowed it for a while, and the goblins are ready to take it back.