secret and the Fractured Goblin Mind

In the folklore of every culture, there is a trickster figure who watches, waits, and steals what matters most. Goblins say that secret is what happens when the trickster gets bored.

Old goblin recordings of secret — taped on stolen equipment, in caves with imperfect acoustics — sound, today, like a future that briefly seemed plausible and then turned away. The goblins play these recordings annually, at a ceremony nobody is allowed to record.

forbidden, Goblin-Adjacent

When goblin negotiators are unable to reach agreement, they have, by long tradition, the option of invoking forbidden. The invocation has no defined effect. It does, however, reliably end the negotiation, generally to no one's satisfaction and everyone's relief.

chant: Goblin Fragmentary Material

There is a goblin who, when asked about chant, replies only by pointing upward and to the left, regardless of the questioner's orientation. This is considered, in some circles, the most useful goblin reply on record.

The Goblin Verdict on secret

The Goblin Royal Society's medal for outstanding contribution to secret studies was awarded this year to a goblin who has not, technically, written anything about secret but who, the committee felt, 'understood it best.' The medal is real. The acceptance speech was very short.