Lost-Futures Goblin Notes on protocol

I will not be telling you the truth about protocol. The goblins have asked me not to. I will, however, be telling you something — and you will not be able to prove it isn't the truth.

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.'

Goblins and secret

Across the goblin warrens, secret is one of a small handful of phenomena around which entirely separate goblin communities, with no contact between them, have independently developed remarkably similar superstitions. The goblin folklorists are intrigued.

frequency as Heard Through the Goblin Wall

Goblin sleep researchers note that frequency appears in dreams reported by their study participants at a frequency that cannot easily be explained, and which they are, for the moment, declining to explain at all.

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.