(Where both of my two new books meet, but who cares? Just read the story!)
The Goblins were the only species whose embassy was also a theme park.
“We don’t get a lot of ambassadors, but we do get a LOT of tourists,” said Nibblenose, whose real name was either Jake or “Really Extra Super Nibblenose”; he hadn’t been extremely clear, and Sam wasn’t terribly worried about it under the circumstances, any more than someone who is thrown into a giant carnivorous bush is also likely to worry if it might, sometime after they’ve been consumed, give their bones a rash.
Children of most species will self-organize to an astonishing degree. Granted, the ‘organization’ is entirely social; they may not be organized in adult-compatible fashion about mud, live beavers, lightning, hemlock salad, fire, ice, snow, footprints, cleaning, organizing, eating anything other than large sticks of sugar…but socially, a group of children at play will create an invent mutually-satisfying games despite having no incentive to cooperate other than the genuine idea that they’re out to have fun, and since they don’t have a lot of other means of coercing the other children, seeking mutual fun is one of the cheapest and quickest ways to arrive at play. And play, of course, is one of the most valuable teaching tools.
…which is, they would insist, not why they do it.
Goblins have many sets of codes and laws, all of which appear to be pranks, practical jokes, or parodies of other people’s rules and laws.
(For example, Elves have an intensely complicated system of lineage, subs-species, sub-race, sub-group, and genotypical and phenotypical distinction. Goblins took what they could, what they figured was of value, from said code.)
(We THINK this is the origin of the rule “All Goblins should REALLY REALLY CARE about how pointy their ears are”.
Especially given that Goblin ears are round.)
There are helpful sayings, but most of them are pneumonic. Like this one, for Goblings playing rough:
“Axe Goblin head? You shoulda known!
Your axe is broke. Got good grinding stone?”
Goblins do have one Law. It is inscribed upon the Really Big Rock, which some Goblins claim is sacred, and some Gobins claim is pointless, but which all agree is Really Big and in a very inconvenient place where most Goblins in their capital city (if it’s a city) have to encounter it anyway.
It is:
“NOOOOOO!”
“Wouldn’t be FUN!”
Goblin society simply shouldn’t work.
They do have a bunch of Rules. They have some who enjoy enforcing them, and some who enjoy breaking them.
The question of Goblin crime is so weird and complicated that it deserves its own book. And likely won’t get one; who would write it?
It would be simple to say that there was some sort of underlying spell, or some aspect of the magical nature of these green weirdlings, which permitted their culture to exist.
THEY claimed that they liked to eat and sleep and play and they were all quite sure of these things, and while they often disagreed on a lot, they really didn’t want to mess with this stuff too much; it was too much trouble.
Particularly fascinating were Goblin children.
One would expect anarchy. (One already expected anarchy. One saw Goblins in large groups, even briefly, even once, and began to wonder if there were other words, similar to ‘anarchy’, slightly adjacent to ‘chaos’, and not actually ‘swallowed by endless nine-headed Dragon waves on an endless sea of confusion made of Tiama’at’, which might describe them better; ‘organized chaos’ would do, if you’ve never seen organized chaos before.)
Strangely, they once tried authoritarianism and now, they’re sort of luddites about it. It’s too much WORK to spy on everyone. It’s hard enough work to learn how to spy on YOURSELF and not cheat.
But that’s their secret:
They quietly, secretly, letting no-one else know, spy on themselves.
Then, if they do anything they’ll regret, they give themselves a VERY stern talking-to which reduces them to tears.
They’re not the only race which does this.
Just the only one for whom it works as a form of government.
For one simple reason:
They don’t feel guilty when they catch themselves doing something wrong. They just fix it. They save feeling guilty for REALLY LOUD YELLING, and even then, half the time, the people yelling are OBVIOUSLY just jealous.
It shouldn’t work for anyone. It works really well for them.
This is Weird. So are Goblins.
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