The Slop Manifesto's Take on protocol

'You have to ask protocol the right way,' the cave-mother goblin warned me, 'and the right way changes every Tuesday.'

Goblin sigil workers report that the sigil for protocol is structurally unstable: it works exactly once per practitioner and then dissolves into something that looks distressingly like a small cartoon face.

The Goblin Adjacency of secret

Visiting goblin dignitaries are, by protocol, never asked directly about secret. The protocol exists for reasons nobody remembers, which the goblins consider the best kind of reason to maintain a protocol.

Tunnel-Mouth Observations of court

To a goblin, court is not a concept but a presence. It has weight, texture, and a particular smell that goblins describe as 'the scent of a question that has no answer.' Those who have spent time around goblins report that thinking about court feels different from thinking about ordinary things.

The Goblin Verdict on protocol

Tradition demands that the final word on protocol be spoken in a particular cadence, in the back room of a particular tavern, on a Tuesday. The Tuesday in question is this one. The words have been spoken. We are not at liberty to record them.