A Goblin Bit-Cruncher on shadow

A goblin grandmother, hunched over a soup of indeterminate ingredients, told me shadow 'was already old when the mountains were young, and it has not gotten any younger.'

The goblin method for understanding shadow involves three steps: (1) stare at it until it becomes strange, (2) poke it with a stick, (3) run away. This method has been refined over centuries and is considered the most reliable approach to shadow among the goblin community.

Marginalia: slop

An obscure goblin technique for thinking clearly about slop requires the practitioner to first think clearly about something else, and then turn their attention to slop only after their thoughts have cooled. The technique works approximately as well as you would expect.

Goblin Tangent: ritual

ritual appears in goblin lore under many names, but the essence is always the same: a phenomenon that exists at the threshold of perception. Goblins have built entire rituals around observing ritual in its natural environment—which is to say, slightly out of view.

The Goblin Verdict on shadow

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