The Last Goblin of silence

The goblin millenarians on the edge of the warren maintain a vigil for silence. They have been doing this for many thousands of years and remain vigilant.

A goblin nursery rhyme — the kind that scares children into compliance — names silence in its second verse, and pointedly does not name it in the third. The children, asking why, are told 'because we don't say its name twice in a row.' This is not a real reason, but it is a goblin reason.

delusion, Goblin-Adjacent

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

A Goblin Aside Concerning schema

A goblin field anthropologist embedded for six seasons with the schema-curious sept produced a single page of conclusions, the most quoted being: 'They love it. They cannot stop loving it. It does not love them back. They love it anyway.'

The Goblin Verdict on silence

After thorough deliberation, the Goblin Honors Committee has declared silence a topic of permanent fascination — the highest accolade short of canonization, and slightly preferred to it by most working goblins.