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Goblin

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Goblins are a species of Others that typically dwell on the outskirts of cities. They are vicious bastards that enjoy the pain and misery of others, often harassing the homeless or those who fall through the cracks. They are violent and have names that are inappropriate and crass, making them frustrating to work with. Those who utilize them exclusively are Goblin Queens or Goblin Kings. Goblins are a common target of Exterminators.

Nature[]

Goblins can have almost any appearance, but they are generally vaguely humanoid and always ugly.[1][2][3] As always there are exceptions that prove the rule.

They are weak to metal, especially elementally-infused metal, which makes cities hard for them to thrive in because metal pipes beneath the ground carry a charge. As a result they usually live on the fringes of such places.[4][5] Some manage to get around this,[6] or simply endure the discomfort.[7] Some goblins adorn themselves with horrific metal piercings, which is not too unpleasant (by goblin standards) as long as it's not filled with elemental power.[8]

They typically sleep 16 to 22 hours a day, although they can be more active during times of turmoil.[9] On a possibly related note goblins have an amazing natural ability to recover from injury, far better than humans at least.[10]

Goblins can feel the "spark" within them fading at all times; worse if they're cut off from the world by metal or other boundaries.[11] A hostile binding can drain a huge portion of their strength, weakening them for years.[12]

Goblins typically don't get along with Faerie, whom they call the "Unfair Folk," and it has been revealed that some time in the past they were enslaved and bound by them, during an era when the courts were changing over.[13] As a result it mixed up relationships between the two, and many powerful goblins agreed to take up certain forms, as part of treaties.[14]

Wherever a large number of Goblins congregate can become an opening to the Warrens.[15] Going too deep down in the Warrens also opens up into the Abyss, but it offers an excellent short cut.[16] Apparently Goblins record their own reality show here as well.[17]

Goblins are born from the mud of the Warrens. They may be unearthed by other goblins, bound, and immediately flung into the violence of the Warrens, with only the strong, smart, or lucky surviving.[18]

There are a few theories on the creation of goblins. The first is that they were made from cast-off bits of humans, such as nails, hair, skin, all cobbled together. The other is that the fae were once human and everything they cast-off became goblins.[19] Sir Toadswallow has his own theory, that goblins may be an eighth Faerie court, a counterpart to Winter.[20] This theory would be very unpopular with most goblins and fae.

Reputation[]

An important aspect of goblin life is Re or reputation. Having ones' actions being passed around in the warrens as stories myths and legends can act as a currency all their own.

Types[]

Goblins come in many shapes and sizes, including as small as a bar of soap, male and female, humanoid and not; but generally speaking they are all ugly and stink.[1]

Puissance[]

Goblins inherently defy and despise classification; classifying them by power level tends to encourage them to increase (or occasionally decrease) in power to change their classification. Nevertheless this is commonly practiced.[21] Their names offer a clue to their "power level", with more powerful goblins adopting more dramatic names.[22] Size also correlates with a goblin's power.[23][24]

Minor goblins (such as the various goblins allowed to roam Jacob's Bell, like Buttsack[25] and Arsepint[26]) are largely humanoid in shape; and often have tools like corkscrews and forks that are tainted with filth and feces.[21] Lesser goblins are the ones who have amusing rude names;[22] some lesser goblins have no names at all.[27][28][29]

Deedee is considered a "goblin, third class", between the lesser and middle tiers.[21]

The Hyena is a mid-tier goblin.[30][31][32] Gallowscream's goblin weapons, themselves moderate Goblins on a par with the Hyena in Blake's estimation, hint at some other abilities a mid-tier goblin might have - one was able to cause anyone struck by it to explode into gore, another to cause decaying cuts in objects that birthed small goblins.[33] Mid-tier goblins generally shed their "sweary" names and take on more dramatic ones,[22] usually after a transformative event.[34]

Gallowscream itself is considered a medium or greater goblin, as was the Goblin Dragon Blake encountered in the Drains.[22][35]

Gerhild's three chief minions were themselves considered upper-tier goblins, and presumably she would be as well.[32] Rackspatter of the Nine Thousand Scalps was considered a superior goblin. Binding a superior goblin required special techniques, which Maggie Holt traded away her ability to swear in order to learn.[36] A greater goblin might be comparable in power to a minor Deity or major Incarnation.[37] Greater goblins generally acquire dramatic titles in addition to their names.[22]

Subtypes[]

  • 'Boss Goblins'/'Goblin Sage': Those Goblins who have sway over others, enough to form communities around themselves.
  • Cuimrech: Divine goblin cousins made by minor gods as servants, build shrines and try to lead humans to worship the god.
  • Famhair/Fomorion: Elite crafting goblins who congregate in the deep warrens.
  • Gremlins: Tinkerers and trap-makers who take technology and tools and use them to kill their prey.[15]
  • Redcaps: Rare goblins that bathe their hair in blood to acquire strength.
  • Todds: Facilitators of binges so epic the person is temporarily Other, symbiotic existence.

Uses[]

Goblins are basically attack dogs, rabid in nature, and used for chaos or destruction rather than anything else because they are so difficult to control. Some have abilities that make them more useful; others have knowledge, and parts of their bodies can be harvested and used, such as a Goblin Ear.

They are not known for their intelligence but that doesn't mean they are not intelligent some just hide it better, dyscalculia does not preclude intelligence in humans for example.[38]

Like many Others, goblins have an innate ability to sense and divert the attention of Innocents.[39]

Most goblins can turn themselves into weapons when defeated, an old tradition going back to early goblin tribes. They can continue to inflict violence, and accrue power, in weapon form. They can guide what weapon form they take to some degree trying to be cooperative with practitioners or each other.[40]

Goblin Magic[]

Goblins (and as a result Goblin Queens) will often have access to an eclectic mix of minor, nasty, practical magics. Some of it is specific to goblins, but it may include other types of magic that fit with their nature.  Examples include:  

  • Buttsack knew a way to merge with the wind to an extent, becoming immaterial and able to cross certain boundaries, which he had learned from a goblin named Scuzzwick.[41] He knew a "working" to make fear he inflicted stick with the victim.[42] He also knew a curse that made the target see all food as rotten.[43]  
  • A goblin made a deal with Maggie Holt for her ability to swear, enhancing its own swearing to dangerous levels.[36]
  • Sir Toadswallow knew how to use the Rule of Three to inflict minor curses through repeated insults. He also had a lockpick that permanently breaks the lock it's used on.
  • Goblins can deliberately slaughter groups of people in an attempt to form a Dog Meat.[44]
  • A "thorn in the flesh" is an anti-Practice tool sometimes crafted by goblins by sneaking a spike into someone's guts and letting it stew i their bile before removing it.[45] It can be embedded in a magical effect to interfere with it and eventually harm the Practitioner responsible.[46] The longer it festers, the more powerful it grows; a weak one is capable of inflicting a bad cold. [47]
  • Bluntmunch knew how to make glamour-breaking stinkbombs.
  • Bluntmunch, as a goblin with "clout", is able to reach into the Warrens and pull out goblin minions[48] and to bully minor goblins sent against him into switching sides.[49]
  • Some goblins make "goblin wards", small animals inflated with their own farts which detonate as an alarm when magic is present.[50]
  • They can craft 'Hobb's that mark out territory, for intimidation and similar.[51][52][53]
  • Some goblins, such as Gashwad, are highly aware of the entrances and exits to the Warrens and can use them to "teleport" ahead of their targets or otherwise shorten journeys.[54]
  • Gashwad had something that turned a patch of grass into a bubbling tar pit on contact.[55] He can apparently make a Magic Item that does this.[56]
  • Goblins will sometimes steal glamour and use it, often polluting it with trash, dirt, and body fluids to make it tolerable. Toadswallow uses this "goblin glamour" or "visceral glamour" to make disguises that are easily broken but layered and full of traps between each layer.[57]

Notable Goblins[]

Less Notable Goblins[]

History[]

Before the Story[]

During the settlement of the new world by Europeans, what Europeans called goblins mingled with what the first Americans called Little People.[74]

Trivia[]

  • Goblin has become a catchall term in wider world culture for any kind of mischievous mythical creature mean to do humans harm, this includes children.
  • The term itself has been traced all the way back to the Greek Kobalos; thus related to words like kobold and all related terms. This goes some way to explaining why it is so hard to label goblins.[75]

References[]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Goblins as a whole came in all shapes and sizes.  Some were fat, some were skinny, some were furry, others scaly, others still had skin.  They could be no larger than a squirrel, or five times the size of a man, in all colors.

    Certain rules held true, though.  All were ugly. - Excerpt from Signature 8.1
  2. ↑ Rounding out the group were two goblins.  One was fat and squat, neckless, with a severe underbite and eyes like burning coals beneath a neanderthal brow.  The second was genderless, with wings in place of arms, its head hunched forward, as if the weight of all its countless teeth made it impossible to sit straight.  Its hair was lanky and greasy, with one charm worked into the end: a trio of mouse skulls. - Excerpt from Malfeasance 11.8
  3. ↑ The things that lived here were- were goblins.  He knew that.  They could be as small as mice and as large or larger than the heavyset one who sat atop a house, no less than fifty medium sized goblins crawling over and around the flesh that pooled out around him.  He could use his own mass, rearranged, as a chair.

    There were goblins with noses like broomsticks, noses like hatchets, noses like animals, and no noses at all.  Overbites, underbites, teeth so snarly and woven together the mouths didn’t look like they could open, lips stitched and wobbly too-open mouths with tongues lolling out.  When there weren’t noses or weird mouths there were beaks, or muzzles, or body mods. Some were naked and others were clothed in trash and rags. - Excerpt from One After Another 10.e
  4. ↑ Verona held out the nugget, then held it back as Cherry reached for it.  “Do you go to the Ruins at all?”

    “Not much,” Cherrypop said, still reaching, wobbling on her perch of cans.  “It’s mostly made up of stuff Goblins can’t deal with.  Stuffed metal.”

    “Stuffed metal?”
    [...]
    “Metal with water running through it, like pipes,” Cherrypop said. “Metal with electricity running through it.  Metal that’s hot, not so common.  Metal with gas, like more, funner pipes.  Metal with sand or rock running through it would be the same, but that’s rare.  Hurts to be near, makes us weak.  Lots of it in the Ruins.  The other places we’d normally go are missing.” - Excerpt from Stolen Away 2.7
  5. ↑ The goblins traveled in very specific territories.  They liked areas where they could enjoy human comforts while not quite being in the presence of humans.

    More frequently, they picked places that had been abandoned or for sale for some time, and Jacob’s Bell had a lot of those buildings.  By the time a realtor or bank employee stopped by to check on the building, walls were spray painted or had holes, feces were smeared in places, and garbage littered every surface.

    It was with this knowledge that she limped along busier streets, keeping to areas where the heavier plumbing made crossing harder for goblins, under an archway. - Excerpt from Signature 8.5
  6. ↑ “He’s slippery one,” the woman said.  “He’s lurking, trying to spoil our fun.  Hunting me. Because I found a way to cross through your cities.  Bridges of bones.”

    “I don’t understand,” Maggie said.

    A man’s voice cut in.  “Her kind can’t walk easily inside modern cities.  She found a way, and she’s been waiting for a chance to use it.” - Excerpt from Histories 2
  7. ↑ Metal door, metal frame, pipes… he was aware of all of them, as he might be aware of a flame by reaching out and feeling the warmth from it.
    [...]
    This wasn’t a proper boundary, no power had sealed it, but it was still uncomfortable.  The things that gave the goblin power and energy were cut off here.  It was a bit like suffocating, a bit like being cold.  He always felt it a little, the sensation of dying, the spark within him going out by the smallest degrees, bit by bit, but here, like this, he felt it happening faster.
    [...]
    The goblins were leavings, discards, scrap given form.  The earth called to them, to decompose them like it was meant to devour and decompose all leavings, and the metal was the earth in distilled form.  Or maybe the process that made goblins was [sic] - Excerpt from Signature 8.1
  8. ↑ 1:32 AM Olivebirdy ...how do goblins put metal under their skin or wound around their privates, then, if it drains them?
    1:33 AM Wildbow It's charged metal that drains.  Metal with water running through it, power running through it, hot metal, etc.
    1:35 AM Olivebirdy: Water is life, it’s natural, and it naturally draws out the deathly energies.  Well, for goblins, metal does the same thing, and it takes a bit out of them when they pass over a place where metals are buried.  More so if that metal is charged with any power.”
    1:35 AM Does uncharged metal only drain them a little, then?
    1:36 AM Thanks for the answer :)
    1:44 AM Wildbow Uncharged metal doesn't really drain them, Ollie, except insofar as it's been 'charged' by ambient heat
    1:45 AM But they don't mind being harmed a bit.  Self mutilation is a thing. - Wildbow on IRC
  9. ↑ Goblins are supposed to sleep for sixteen to twenty-two hours a day, but I’ve noticed goblins have been more awake and active than that.  Ghosts are cropping up, and they should be quieter than they are.  Old echoes are stirring. - Excerpt from Gathered Pages: 10
  10. ↑ Gashwad pulled a scrap of meat out of the soup at the back of Munch’s throat, which wasn’t chicken nugget.  He ate it himself, then went fishing in again for the traces of, Verona presumed, the nugget.

    Munch, a splintered spike of wood impaling the roof and floor of his mouth, closed his jaw, driving the points of the wood in deeper both ways.  Sharp teeth closed in around Gashwad’s elbow.  Gashwad stopped fishing and started fighting back, scraping with the claws of one hand and the pointed nails of both feet, raking face, neck, and shoulders.

    “Are they going to be okay?” Verona asked Cherry.  “I’m not going to get a goblin killed and accidentally break my awakening oath, offering nuggets?”

    “This is a most days thing,” Cherrypop said.  “They won’t die an’ they’ll be better by tomorrow.” - Excerpt from Stolen Away 2.7
    [...]
    Dee shrugged him off.  “Aw, I’ll just look after her, I’ll nudge her if she’s wandering into trouble.  How hard can it be?”

    “They’re all fragile, y’know?  They don’t bounce back like we do.  And you were saying you’re leaving to work on other stuff, right?" - Excerpt from One After Another 10.e
  11. ↑ This wasn’t a proper boundary, no power had sealed it, but it was still uncomfortable.  The things that gave the goblin power and energy were cut off here.  It was a bit like suffocating, a bit like being cold.  He always felt it a little, the sensation of dying, the spark within him going out by the smallest degrees, bit by bit, but here, like this, he felt it happening faster. - Excerpt from Signature 8.1
  12. ↑ A chain settled around his neck.

    “No!” he shrieked, clutching at the metal loops.  “No, no, fuck you!”

    “Shh,” the practitioner said, tightening the chain.  Her dark brown hair was cut short, pushed out of her face by a metal hairband.  She still wore her winter coat, alongside a checkered scarf.

    He could feel his essence draining out of him, bleeding into the metal.

    This was what dying felt like. Except he wouldn’t die.  He’d become less, he’d take years to recuperate.
    [...]
    A second chain came out of her bag, winding around his feet and through his elbows until one was bound to the other.  Each loop of chain took a measure of his strength, until he was too feeble to work his hands out from under the metal. - Excerpt form Signature 8.1
  13. ↑ Signature 8.1
  14. ↑ “Geeeeez. I’ve heard about this sort of thing. Faerie used to enslave and bind goblins, during an era when the courts were changing over. Mixed up relationship between the two. Many powerful goblins agreed to take up certain forms, as part of treaties. This thing isn’t small potatoes.”

    “It’s not the biggest potato either,” I said. “Middle of the road, though it’s hard to believe that after seeing it in action.”

    “I want this,” Maggie Holt said. - Excerpt from Subordination 6.5
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 “Goblins fashion things.  I, as you may know or not know, am very good at putting tricks and trinkets together,” Toadswallow told them.  “Weapons, tools, distractions.  Gremlins dismantle and build mechanical things and work with the mechanical and technological.  Fomorian goblins deep in the Warrens conspire to make cursed things, raiding underground waters and organizing.  The Warrens themselves are dug out of muck, nightsoil, and dreck, supported by goblin will, the trampling of goblin feet helping to beat a trench downward, in a measure equal to the roof above.” - Excerpt from Dash to Pieces 11.11
  16. ↑ “It’s fast,” she said. “You can go down anywhere there’s enough goblins for there to be a warren-hole, get down deep enough you get a little abyss-y and time and distance don’t make any fuckin’ sense, head back on up. Fucking bam, crossed half the continent.” - Excerpt from Poke 3
  17. ↑ “Daily recording of Goblin Game. Used to be a game show, now it’s reality TV. Because of course goblins have their own reality TV show. Your, uh, friend there can probably find the channel to watch it, but you shouldn’t. Give it a pass and trust people who know more to handle it.” - Excerpt from Poke 3
  18. ↑ He slept a nascent sleep, impossible to track in hours, days, weeks, months, years, or centuries, because it was a sleep so embedded in meat, meat chunks, and mud.  Grey-brown earth had diluted blood pooling in depressions, black-red bubbles oozing out along with the detritus of violence and waste- parts of broken toys and watches, teeth, wasted staples and scattered wrappers.  This waste is pooled so deep here that it transcends time and nature.  Here, things do not rot, but recycle through, collect, bubble up, and sink down.

    An expert hand reached in, wove between bits of trash, and found him.  Two fingers plunge into mouth and throat.  Fingernails keep him from closing mouth and teeth over the offending digits, stabbing upper and lower gums.  He bites deeper regardless, as the fingers in his throat make him vomit and he thrashes, kicking and screaming, into light and action.
    [...]
    “I bind you, blah blah, seal of Solomon, and I oblige you to bind any other goblins you bring forth.  Yeah?”
    [...]
    Two newborns were buried in that mud, near the surface.  One was injured by the freezer passing over it.

    They paired up, one taking the hand of the one with the skin stripped from the back of his head, helping him stand, before they scampered off to places more of their scale, out of the way of tromping feet and freezers.
    [...]
    Toadswallow had emerged in the middling Warrens, where life boiled forth from mud with such ease it was expendable. - Excerpt from One After Another 10.e
  19. ↑ The goblins shared stories between one another about what goblins were and why metal was so problematic. The usual story was that when a Wise man drank from a cup while dining, the bits of food that got into the cup and lingered after the drink was done accumulated. Except it was workings, not drink, and bits of self, not food. Greasy fingerprints left behind when touching something beyond the veil. Bits of skin that should have grown and the hairs that should have fallen from one’s head, that didn’t, because they were wearing different skin or hair, and the stuff that wasn’t had to end up someplace.

    There was another story that said that the unfair folk were people once, and they chopped off all the bits they didn’t like, and those bits became goblins, but Buttsack didn’t like that version.

    Fuck the unfair folk. Being magic hairballs for humans, fabricated of their dust, scum, grease, pubes, and stress, that was one thing. Being of faerie? Fuck that idea sideways and backward.

    Whatever the case, many stories had one or two common elements. The goblins were leavings, discards, scrap given form. The earth called to them, to decompose them like it was meant to devour and decompose all leavings, and the metal was the earth in distilled form. Or maybe the process that made goblins was - Excerpt form Signature 8.1
  20. ↑ “A long few years ago, I visited the Faerie courts.  I came to a theory.  If words of it left my lips, half of the Others here in Kennet would want to draw and quarter me.”

    ...

    “The Faerie live by stories.  But so do goblins.  It’s… the limerick to their poetry.  The one-liner to their epics.  From a very early point in time, I knew it was important to tell a lie and portray myself as confident, to be open and ready for ideas, and to be armed with any tool… even theirs.  Perhaps that equips me in a unique way.”

    ...

    “The thought crossed my mind… what if the goblins were an eighth faerie court?  What if we’re a counterpoint, noisy and active, to Winter?”

    ...

    “Everything I’ve done since, aping them, dressing myself up, giving myself a meaningless title, the tricks, using their tricks in my own way, like the curse of three… it’s worked out well enough.  I have no glamour, but the Winter Fae have little else.  It makes its sense.” - Excerpt from One After Another 10.e
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 Goblin, third class, which put her between lesser and middle tiers.  The problem was that goblins despised and defied boundaries and convention, and trying to apply one saw a given goblin slip into a tier above or even a tier below.  They came in all shapes and sizes, humanoid and not, and as Deedee went, she was a beauty among goblinkind and she was a beauty to him. - Excerpt from Poke 2
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 22.3 22.4 Wilbdow: At a higher tier they lose the sweary/rude nickname convention and take on other names.  That's mid-tier.  At highest tier they start getting prefixes and affixes.
    Aantioch: Yeah, we saw goblins that were more serious business like, uhh
    Aantioch: Remember that one other goblin king dude? Hal, I think?
    Aantioch: He had a non-rude goblin
    Wilbdow: Spikedick, yeah
    Wilbdow: (was the practitioner)
    Wilbdow: Dragon-bat and hyena are mid-tier, as was Spikedick's, I believe.  His might've been more toward high-tier. [...] That's where you definitely get into the 'better left unsummoned' part of things - Wildbow on IRC
  23. ↑ [Goblins] don’t have courts, but there are a few ways of categorising them. There’s size, apparently. It seems like, mostly, the bigger the goblin, the more respect and power it has. - 5.2 Bonus: Faerie & Goblins
  24. ↑ The little goblin hurried to get out of the way, but he was small and Bumcake was big and bigger was better for most things goblin-wise.   - Excerpt from Back Away 5.d
  25. ↑ The Faerie were active, the goblins allowed to run rampant so long as they were minor goblins. [...] She hadn’t been able to help everyone that Buttsack had hurt or plotted against, and even though he was the most malicious and capable goblin she’d run into since she’d arrived in Jacob’s Bell, he was still a minor goblin.  Resourceful, but minor. - Excerpt from Signature 8.2
  26. ↑ He didn’t expect me to call Arsepint back, and have the lesser goblin bring me the dropped firearm. - Excerpt from 1.x (Pages 1)
  27. ↑ “Little one, you have a name?  I didn’t hear it.”

    The little goblin hesitated, then shook his head.  - Excerpt from Back Away 5.d
  28. ↑ The tiny goblin nodded.  It had no nose, only two oval nostrils that might have been larger than its eyes, which were black and spaced too far apart.  It had a beak rather than a mouth, too small, too stubby, too low on its round head, and set off center from the rest of its face, jutting out a bit from the folds beneath the weird nose.

    It stuck one long finger into its large nostril, dug around, and then drew a line of snot onto her leg.  It barely seemed to care that she was watching it.

    “Hey dude,” she told it.  “Got a name?”

    It shook its head.

    “Want one?”

    It shook its head.  It drew another line of snot. - Excerpt from Back Away 5.3
  29. ↑ The goblin managed to get its arm out of its mouth, pointed teeth raking flesh.  Flecks of blood flew from her mouth as she screamed, “Name me!"

    “Earn it!”
    [...]
    Huffing for breath, Deedee looked up.  “Ben, this is Sir Turdswallow and some nameless twist.  My gang.”
    [...]
    “Ha Bin,” the nameless goblin managed, with the mouth situation it had going on.  She turned back to Deedee.  “Nam meh!” - Excerpt from Poke 3
  30. ↑ “Today, I’ve got to deal with this goblin called the Hyena.” [...] “I don’t think your chances would be that much worse going up against the Lord of Toronto on your own,” the son said. “They’d be a great deal worse,” the fat guy by the window said.  “The Lord is an Incarnation, and the goblin is still a mid-tier goblin.  Mid-tier or not, it’s still a bad idea to go up against the Hyena.” - excerpt from Collateral 4.10
  31. ↑ Blake, though, had something related to goblins, something that wasn’t small?  A moderate goblin? - Excerpt from Signature 8.2
  32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 “Gerhild.  Redcap Queen [...] Used to be a goblin queen, just like you, but she stopped being so human and started being more goblin a bit ago.  Enjoys being both practitioner and goblin at the same time. [...] she’s a goblin queen, with a small herd of redcaps, and she’s got three of the big ones with her.
    [...]
    “Do you know the Hyena?  From Toronto? [...] it was described to me as being middle tier,” Mags said.  “Was that off base, or-”

    “Middle tier’s right,” the nameless goblin said.  “An’ these ones, the three, they’re bigger, better, meaner, fuckier.  So I guess they’re upper tier.” - Excerpt from Poke 3
  33. ↑ Execution 13.8
  34. ↑ Olivebirdy: Do goblins choose their own names? Do they change as the goblin grows?
    Does the Hyena have a silly name like Dogdipper?
    You kinda think that if Buttsack had gotten big and strong enough, he'd stop being Buttsack and start being Hindbag the Ripper.
    Wildbow: Generally requires a transformative event.  Whether they choose their own name or not depends on the circumstance and the goblin - Wildbow on IRC
  35. ↑ Null 9.5
  36. ↑ 36.0 36.1 “I traded the harshest part of my tongue to a goblin for information on how to bind superior goblins.  I, uh… that’s pretty much the whole story.”

    “Ah.”

    “I don’t suppose you know where there are any superior goblins?” she asked.

    “I’d be betraying my guests if I directed a practitioner their way.”

    “Goes against the whole point, huh?”

    “Yes.  In theory, I could point you to a certain individual who betrayed my rules, Rackspatter of the Nine Thousand Scalps, but I wouldn’t be doing you a service.  For one thing, he can’t be bound.  If I remember right, ninety-nine of his nine thousand scalps are from practitioners that tried and failed.  It’s like the rule of three, reinforced thirty three times over.  At this point, it’s a foregone conclusion.  You’d be the hundredth.”
    [...]
    “Damn it.  So the goblin I dealt with got my curse words, letting him give people tongue lashings that hurt, but I’m gonna have to wait.”- Excerpt from Signature 8.7
  37. ↑ That much power that fast has to come from somewhere, and then be given form as a ritual by someone or something.  A strong incarnation, a lesser god, a great Goblin.  If it had appeared in the last month, I might think it had something to do with the current state of the Carmine Beast.  That could be a big enough power source… perhaps.  [...] There are things that have that kind of power, like gods and strong incarnations, but I’m not aware of anything that strong that could have any connection to the Choir, and I’ve done some extensive searching. - Excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.2
  38. ↑ “Ten… nine… eight… six…”
    [...]
    Bubble gave him a pat on the head.  “You’re too smart, Turdy, too clever for your own good.  Gets goblins killed, if they can’t sit and be stupid.  When your brain goes too fast you get moving and it’s easy to move into trouble.”
    [...]
    Remember the sage?  Plastic beard? [...] Most places have one.  Usually the same sort of rule as your Carmine, Alabaster, whoever, trying to stay so you don’t have to travel more than a day to find one.  Sometimes they’re in the Warrens, sometimes up here, sometimes they’re tucked away, and sometimes they’re further because goblins are really bad at counting and keeping track.  Helps manage things, to have someone." - Excerpt from One After Another 10.e
  39. ↑ Moving around was easier than in most places.  Here, the humans were insecure. He could see it in the shifting patterns around them, where their focus was falling.  He’d seen the roving spotlights in the movies and video games.  In most places, the attention of people was like those spotlights, roaming, cast out from their eyes, a dull glow emanating as they listened.  Here it was different.  The focus was largely on themselves, only periodically casting out at specific targets.

    Not always, but enough.  Buttsack cloaked himself thoroughly against the insensitive, and for extra measure, he was careful to watch where they were paying attention and nudge it aside when it veered his way.
    [...]
    His thoughts were cut off when the door behind him opened.  He moved his hand, ready to turn the attention aside.

    The bitch focused on him right away.  He moved his hand, ready to divert her attention and head in the other direction, but she didn’t budge. - Excerpt from Signature 8.1
  40. ↑ The ‘soggy handshake’ was Toadswallow’s weapon form.  Goblins could become weapons, and his was something akin to a lone boxing glove resembling a very full diaper in consistency.  A heavy shackle locked it to the wrist, which let him mess with whoever had their hand stuck inside by having something writhe against the hand.  It also stored an improbably large number of random little goblin tricks and trinkets.  Glue bombs, screaming doll heads, capsules of suspicious looking brown paint, a Mother Tick from the warrens… distractions, easily fired off from the wrist with a slap of the free hand.

    He’d worked with Bubble to match in that regard.  He was the right hand, she was the left.  Mismatched pugilist’s gloves. - Excerpt from One After Another 10.e
  41. ↑ Once they were inside the building, the humans were supposed to be safe.  The doorframes, the windows, the plumbing, all were made of refined metal, ‘stainless steel’ they called it.
    [...]
    One piece of knowledge Buttsack had picked up had been from a scrawny little bitch of a goblin that called itself Scuzzwick.  Lick both hands, lick the back of the knees and elbows, the back of the neck.  The licking didn’t matter so much as the wet, and it was easier and more comfortable to use his own tongue than to use the snow.  He scratched his forearms deep enough to get his fingertips wet with blood.  Once the wet patches and blood were there, he could reach each arm out to either side, feel the wet patches grow cold from the force of the winter breeze.

    Move with the wind, letting the arms move as the wind did.

    A fatass of a man sauntered right past him.  Buttsack could feel the movement of air, clutch it with bloody fingertips, and follow it.

    Catch the wind and ride it through the door the man was opening.

    Drifting inside.

    “Do you smell something?” a bystander asked.  The dumpy looking fuck shut one of the metal cabinets, then hooked a lock onto it.

    Buttsack hurried off to take cover before he became fully material again.

    This wasn’t a proper boundary, no power had sealed it, but it was still uncomfortable.  The things that gave the goblin power and energy were cut off here. - Excerpt from Signature 8.1
  42. ↑ This one wore hose, which he could scratch, or he could dig in his pockets for something to drop inside.  He kept a lot of things.  A live roach, two centipedes, a bundle of flea-infested hair, fresh shit in plastic wrap-

    He’d decide depending on what she looked like.  Maybe do all of them.  Then he’d make a marking so the fear would stay, the bad feelings, but the impressions would linger, staying with her. - Excerpt from Signature 8.1
  43. ↑ The goblin she’d interrogated, Buttsack, had confessed to systematic attacks on more or less random targets.  There was a lot of little hurt here and there.  Some big hurt.  Buttsack had used a curse on a girl to make her envision everything edible as rotten and disgusting.  Every plate of salad practically compost, meat appeared and tasted rancid, festooned with maggots.  She’d been hospitalized a month ago, on the belief that she had an eating disorder.

    Buttsack was upset because he wanted the curse back, so he could use it again.  Maggie managed to twist his arm until he shared the way to break the curse. - Excerpt from Signature 8.2
  44. ↑ “I’ll get you a gift soon,” Munch said. “Been thinking, but I don’t have much. Got a thing with some goblins this summer. Guy and his gun nut buddies are getting spare animals from shelters, using them as moving targets for practice. It’s like the Bedsurf camera couple. Universe doesn’t like it if you invite someone or something into your home and mess with them. We were going to try to make some Dog Meat.”

    “Dog Meat like…”

    “Like we get enough of them together, they invite their friends in from the States, including some who can maybe make some fostering and adoption paperwork disappear for kids. Then we see if we can’t kill enough of them in a messy enough way that there’s a Dog at the end.”

    “Like Stiles, but not,” Gash clarified, a smile creeping out around the sides of his face. “Different breed.”

    “Want to borrow it if it works?” Munch asked. “Could be my gift. [...] a feral, crazy murder beast with some really cool scars. Won’t die easy, and they can turn up with powers, I’ve seen one that could climb walls as fast as you or me could run, and another that could immobilize people with deafening screams, for as long as she could scream." - Excerpt from Stolen Away 2.7
  45. ↑ It was a cone-shaped thing that could have been a thorn or the end of a very black nail. Surprisingly heavy, despite being a half-inch long and relatively thin. [...] “That there’s a thorn in the flesh. Buried in some loser’s guts. Best if it’s kidney or spleen. It healed over, left to stew in bile, picked out again after a few years, leaving some of the organ around the outside. Dried it in the sun, and with a hair dryer.” - Excerpt from Stolen Away 2.7
  46. ↑ “Push it into a practice. Summoning, diagram, object, whatever. Poisons it. Makes it uglier, a little weaker, and harder for its maker to break. If there’s someone connected to the practice, they’ll get sicker and sicker as long as the connection’s there. They’ll know it’s something like the thorn, so if you don’t want to lose it and get it used against you, you’ll want to pick it back out before they show up. Otherwise, they gotta end things from a distance, which can hurt if the thorn’s stuck in it, or come and pull the thorn out themselves.” - Excerpt from Stolen Away 2.7
  47. ↑ “How sick?” Verona asked.

    “After a week to a month, depending on how strong they are, their karma, crap like that? Bad cold sick.”

    “And after that?” Verona asked.

    “Bad cold sick. That’s it. If we left it buried for longer, it’d be better, but the twit was going to go see a doctor.” - Excerpt from Stolen Away 2.7
  48. ↑ “I can call friends,” Bluntmunch said.

    “He’s good at that.  Having dregs he can call,” Gashwad said.  “Not good at much else though, are yeh?”
    [...]
    Bluntmunch prowled across the area, found a tree with a decent sized hole in it, and spat in his hand.  He drew in the spit, then shoved his hand into the hole.He brought out a goblin, kicking, scrabbling and making sounds of protest, then held a calloused mitt to their mouth.
    [...]
    “These three are some regulars from my crew, when it’s not the Kennet goblins.  You’ll see them around some.”- Excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.6
  49. ↑ Bluntmunch picked up two of the gremlins that had overwhelmed his minions, then hollered in their faces.

    He dropped them, and they scampered back.

    He pointed, and they obeyed.

    That was part of his deal.  Bossing goblins around.  Having that clout.

    “Well, we gave them more troops,” Verona observed. - excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.8
  50. ↑ “It seems they’ve done away with some of the spirits we set up, and are finding their way in.  A somewhat innocent dame can go where a practitioner or errant Other might make a ward fart or a traps go off.”

    “Fart?” Avery asked.

    “A goblin ward.  You start with a good round animal, like a hedgehog or owl, a bit of wire to tie it down, some soda, cabbage, or other gassy food, gotta treat it to make it more gassy, then a bit of gum, to plug up its-”

    “Okay, okay, I think I can see where that goes,” Avery told him.

    “They go off violently enough you can hear the detonations from miles away, sometimes,” Bluntmunch said.  “Especially if you have an ear for it.  They stopped before setting off one, and Cherry didn’t spot ’em.” - Excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.6
  51. ↑ She turned around, approaching the end of the elementary school where people were alternately clustering and herding children away.

    It was an art piece. Grotesque, vile, violent. At first glance, she saw it was a fat man, adult and naked, leaning against the fence, ass on the ground, legs crossed. Torn to pieces, rigged up with chains, boards and nails, mouth yawning open as though his jaw were broken or something huge had been rammed through his mouth and throat to open it wide. He smelled like shit and blood that had been sitting in the sun for ten minutes at a minimum, maybe as much as an hour.

    At second glance, she could see it wasn’t really a man. Meat, bone and other bits had been fixed together in a crude semblance of a person. Nails, wire, and other boards held bits in places, and strips of meat had been wrapped to bind other strips in place. A haphazard grid of wires and woven strips of meat held the intestines in place, where they had been balled up and left at the midsection. Bits of the organs bulged through the gaps.

    At third glance, she saw the maggots that were already starting to festoon the thing. Whoever had worked on it had done so without the benefit of refrigeration.

    She turned away, her stomach twisting.

    It’s only art. Just something for show, she told herself.
    [...]
    Maggie looked, and she could see the mock thing moving, the chest moving in, out, side to side. Flies took flight from it as it jerked.

    It was making noises. High pitched squeals, more like those of a baby than a person. Maggie’s hand flew to her mouth, clamped down over it in case she puked.
    [...]
    The location had to have been strategically chosen. Out of sight of any of the windows, but in plain sight once the school had finished for the day. That was all it was. Art, aimed at scaring the most vulnerable people the sickos could find. - Excerpt from Interlude 2.y
  52. ↑ The body was arranged in the tree, more akin to an octopus than a human being, if it had even been human to begin with. Every limb was broken in multiple places, joints popped out of sockets, skin a bruised purple-black where it had been stretched, wrapped around the thorny tree branches. Fingers and feet had been broken and bent backward, wrapped around and nailed in place, not with any precision, but more ‘nail until it stays where it is’. Branches behind the body had been broken off, the points of wood penetrating back and buttocks to hold up the corpse.

    The least broken arm had come free, and dangled at the side, long since frozen. Bits of bark and splinters under the nails marked where the dying individual had tried to claw free. Fresher than the blood under the nails, marking it as one of the last things the individual had attempted.

    Maybe it was better that Evan hadn’t looked long enough to see the smaller details.

    “They didn’t even eat him,” Green Eyes said.

    “Wasn’t the point,” I replied.

    “What was the point?”

    “I guess they wanted people to stumble onto it,” I said. “Sunrise is soon, and goblins can be stupid. Maybe their desire to horrify and alarm overrode their desire to avoid karmic backlash.”

    “Hm. It’s more than that, isn’t it?” Green Eyes asked.

    I glanced at her.

    “If they were that stupid, they wouldn’t have lasted this long.” - Excerpt from Sine Die 14.1
  53. ↑
    “What’s a hobb?”
    “A signpost, except it’s not a sign made of wood.”
    “Obviously not made of wood.”
    “It’s meant to inspire fear, sow confusion, and intimidate. They make them look like children, or like dead bodies, or animals injured by the roadside, to get people to draw close, but they’re rigged to move, because there’s stuff inside them. It’s meant to gross out or scare the person that stumbles on it. Different areas and groups have different hobbs they like to use. It’s territorial.”
    “He’s marking his territory?”
    “No. No, not like that. He’s marking territory he wants, I think. Hobbs like this are like a big ‘we are coming’ sign.” - Excerpt from Gone Ahead 7.2
  54. ↑ Gashwad kept skipping ahead.  He was lying in wait now.

    “How’s he moving like that!?” Lucy called out.

    “There’s little paths and tunnels, if you’re tuned into the Warrens,” Avery said.  “The place goblins come from.  Snowdrop showed me some.  Gash- gash seems to know most of them!” - Excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.8
  55. ↑ Gashwad leaped down from the fence, into their way.  Lucy reached into her pocket, where she had the last of her glamour.

    He threw something down into their way.  Grass blackened and died.  Then the blackness bubbled. Like tar. - Excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.8
  56. ↑ John pulled out what looked like a can of beans or fruit with the label ripped off. Rusty blisters covered it.
    [...]
    John took a knife to the can, as the three girls covered their noses.

    The smell wafted past them, making Verona’s eyes sting. Snowdrop, who hadn’t covered her nose, doubled over.

    Even the boys on the edge of the water a hundred feet away recoiled.

    Lucy couldn’t take the can, because her hand was occupied, so Verona did, turning her face away and holding it at arm’s length, downwind. It didn’t help much.

    She poured it into the mud by the water, where it bubbled noxiously.

    They’d done a few trial runs of this in the weeks before leaving, but it hadn’t been this gross.

    She plunged her hand into the muck. There was no resistance.
    [...]
    Verona stood up, gave a wide berth to the goblin hole she’d just made, now a fresh entrance to the Warrens - Excerpt from Gone Ahead 7.1
  57. ↑ Crossed with Silver 19.2
  58. ↑ Interlude 1
  59. ↑ “I’m short my best goblin,” Maggie said. “The ones I do have are the most minor sort of gremlin.”

    “Just add water?” I asked.

    “No. Dismantlers, trapmakers,” she said. She showed me the folded paper slips. Each one had what I might have assumed was a sun scrawled on it, along with goblin names and basic labels. I belatedly realized the suns were supposed to be mechanical gears.

    Screwloose and Douchegargler. Labeled junkyard dog one and junkyard dog two, respectively.

    “Traps are good,” I said. “Can we put them to work?”

    “They’re kind of what you might call ‘mad dog’ goblins. See? Written right there. Junkyard dogs. In practice, they’re sort of like the subhuman we just dealt with. You sic them on something, they do their work, then they’re gone. You don’t rein them back in without a lot of trouble.” - Excerpt from Subordination 6.8
  60. ↑ It was the size of a chimp, roughly as hairy, but less consistently hairy, with a receding hairline and thick body hair. Its feet and hands were clawed, and it had no tail. The macabre overbite showed off an uneven row of fangs.

    What was eerie was how it had decorated itself. It wore a makeshift monocle that wasn’t round, but held in place by points of glass that punctured its eye socket. Its genitalia was decorated, pushed through a series of washers and wound up by wires that bent it into some grotesque art piece.
    [...]
    Sunglasses was fixated on the other of the two little monsters, which was assaulting the youngest of the two girls. That one was female, potbellied, just as hairy, but similarly decorated. It carried a makeshift backpack and wore a collar and a self-inflicted two-way wedgie with a single length of rusty chain welded to a collar. - Excerpt from Subordination 6.12
  61. ↑ One piece of knowledge Buttsack had picked up had been from a scrawny little bitch of a goblin that called itself Scuzzwick. - Excerpt from Signature 8.1
  62. ↑ “Arsedrip!” Buttsack shouted, loud enough to startle her.  “Up there, go!”
    [...]
    “You’ll feed the birds to cats and the cats to dogs and so on, until my genitals are shit nine times over,” Arsedrip said, “Am I on the right track?”
    [...]
    Arsedrip ran past her, forward, further up the street. - Excerpt from Signature 8.3
  63. ↑ “Cumnugget, you- yeah, just like that!  Nice and thick!
    [...]
    “Can’t stop her reading, but we can make someone else stop the little bitch from walking.  Good enough.  Um, um.  Hey, Cumnugget!  Get over here!  Even half a brain can help brainstorm!”
    [...]
    “Wait, wait,” Cumnugget said.  “Why can’t I attack her?  I didn’t swear nothing.”
    [...]
    “What if we get some jerkbutt that didn’t swear nothing?” Cumnugget asked.  “Who isn’t playing the game?”
    [...]
    Cumnugget was here with the other goblins in tow. - Excerpt from Signature 8.3
  64. ↑ 64.0 64.1 64.2 64.3 64.4 64.5 “Deal with it!” Mags said.  “Peckerbottom, I bind you.  You know the drill, standard rules.”
    [...]
    “I’ve bound these little twits at least three times already.  Same rules every time.  If they can break the binding, I’ll be surprised.  Snotwit, I bind you.  You know how this works.”
    [...]
    “Spunkyfeets, Pissgag, Cuntwhistle, Stump, I bind you.  Stop whining and get to your feet.” - Excerpt from Judgment 16.6
  65. ↑ 65.0 65.1 “You said stupid twice, stupid!” Wangarang jeered.

    Tatty gave him one last kick, then snarled and went after Wangarang.

    The kick dislodged him, tearing skin from tree.  He collapsed, huffing for breath, then climbed to his feet as two more goblins drew closer.  Willydew and Bumcake. - Excerpt from Back Away 5.d
  66. ↑ The goblin giving the order was a woman, head like an unpopped zit with features molded into it, hair purple, clothing purple, and it was very clear she stood above a lot of the rest, because she’d been able to pick and choose trash until she had that color scheme.  It didn’t suit her.
    [...]
    The goblin lady in purple gave them the finger, grabbed her forearm in a deathgrip, and squeezed flesh and blood upward, so the hand and then the finger swelled, big, disgorged and purple.
    [...]
    “Me!  I picked him!  This is my victory!” the goblin in purple cried out.  “Yay, Pustulebottom!  Yay!”
    [...]
    “You want a name?” she asked, clearly dissatisfied.

    He nodded.

    “Then I’ll call you-” - Excerpt from One After Another 10.e
  67. ↑ Sure enough, Liberty had sent Avery a short video of her secretary and official bone polisher, titled ‘show Snowdrop’. Skullcrap wore a skull over his head, with a few skull stickers on it, and danced, shaking and smacking his ass for the camera. - Excerpt from Fall Out 14.1
  68. ↑ “Hair of the dog for some fightin’ fury?” Biscuit asked.  “Never made it but I could.  Time Travel Juice?  Even our ol’ goblin gangboss Shitface couldn’t make that one, but I could try!” - Excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.4
  69. ↑ “They’re planning on calling in a pretty big goblin. It could be one of three. One likes to come out or be summoned at night, one needs a certain offering to eat and that has to be a pain to acquire, and one’s pretty vicious… she’d need to protect herself.”
    [...]
    “I was hoping to see some clues. If all the curtains were drawn or something.”
    [...]
    “If they start preparing as it gets dark, the goblins can alert me and you guys it’s probably Smudge Eater." - Excerpt from Wild Abandon 18.6
  70. ↑ 70.0 70.1 70.2 70.3 “Okay, let me sort out my own crap, I’ve got to pick some goblins to bring inside. I think I’ll skip Footrub in that case. Sorry Footy. Not with my friends. Ummmm… Hamcandle, Clownstick. And Windowlicker, you got me the message, right?”
    [...]
    The goblin Windowlicker was licking the front surface of the oven. Liberty looked down, watching him for a moment. Hamcandle and Clownstick were a piggish and clown-painted goblin, lingering behind and acting a bit bashful, taking in the surroundings. - Excerpt from In Absentia 21.2
  71. ↑ Liberty grabbed up a pair of female goblins and tossed them toward Lucy. “Shithit the superfans! Weapon bind!”

    They changed. Lucy caught them, stuck them in her armpits to hold them, and got a better grip on the handles. She flicked them out to full fan breadth. Each was about as along as her forearm to fingertip, forming a half circle that had a margarita-salt style crust at the ends, of broken glass. Metal bars gave it some rigidity and strength. The paper between the bars had pictures of America and Liberty.
    [...]
    One of her fans had turned back into a goblin. The goblin superfan of Liberty with hair in a row of ponytails looked up from where Lucy had dropped her.
    [...]
    “Hey, hey,” one of the fans called up, a tatty-sized goblin. Where the other goblin had had a mohawk of ponytails, this one had them going the other way, from ear to ear. She looked up at Lucy with large eyes, tugging on Lucy’s jeans. “We almost got ‘er! So good!” - Excerpt from In Absentia 21.4
  72. ↑ “Here, Snow,” Liberty said. She bent down and picked up Rudelube. “He’ll help you find the right goblins to talk to, for when you’re setting out. Be careful. This end of Ontario, east of some real Abyssal shit, the Redcap Queen’s whole thing with goblins, you have to be careful. Goblins are easily molded, and there’s some nasty molding happening here.” - Excerpt from In Absentia 21.4
  73. ↑ 73.0 73.1 73.2 73.3 73.4 “Uh- right! We’ll do the same for Butty and his McButtbuckler, Clambeard’s clamshears, Gapwhap’s clapslapper, Bitchhiker’s bitchstriker, Nubchub’s Grubclub, and Bald Bishop’s Massturbator,” Tatty said.
    [...]
    “Clambeard,” Lucy said. “You ran a good market stall, you came here to fight. That’s goblin class.”

    “Bald Bishop, didn’t know you, but you have- had a cool schtick,” Verona said. - Excerpt from Finish Off 24.1
  74. ↑ Goblins of the European countries met and mingled with the little people of the wilderness here, as did a grouping of dwarves.  The ferocious mingled with goblins, and the canny mingled with dwarves.  Another sort of establishment. - Excerpt from Summer Break 13.2
  75. ↑ The Demesne maintains an interesting place within the cosmology, as outlined in the text Kobold Koba’los, oft deemed one of the essential texts on the Goblin practices.  Translated:
    The [Warren] realms distill the vulgarities of man in architecture and arrangement.  Yet when we take our place of power, we find it adjacent… - from Demesnes, quoted in Bonus Material: Demesnes Text
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