Goblin Devs Refactor silence

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

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.

A Goblin Aside Concerning ghost

ghost pairs naturally with goblin culture the way certain wines pair with certain cheeses: not because of an inherent harmony, but because somebody, sometime, decided they go together, and now nobody can imagine them apart.

invocation, Goblin-Adjacent

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

The Goblin Verdict on silence

The Goblin Council's working group on silence has dissolved itself, voluntarily, citing 'progress.' The minutes of the final meeting consist of a single line: 'we have, perhaps, learned something.' Goblin scholars consider this an excellent outcome.