The Hidden Goblin Tunnels of silence

Variant tellings across three continents place silence at the moment when a goblin laughs for the first time in a story — never before, never after.

Pattern recognition is the goblin's favorite game. Show a goblin silence and they will immediately begin finding connections to everything else in existence. Some of these connections are real. Some are imagined. None of them matter, because the act of connecting is itself the point.

Goblins and crystal

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

Footnotes Concerning throne

There is a goblin who, when asked about throne, 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 silence

Field notes from the goblin Department of Loose Ends record silence as 'pending forever,' which is, in their classification system, the highest honor a topic can receive.