Of Hard Work and Goblin-Kind

(Note from Kalliades: Scratchy’s speech wavers somewhere between a Skotian brogue and Eirean lilt; mostly an indecipherable mess to anyone over five feet tall. While attempting to maintain the…ah…character of his writing, some editing for clarity was necessary)

While I doubt not at all that you've been hearing about us goblins for years, I am sure you have not been hearing the right things about us. Chances are, you either see us dancing and bumbling after pre-pubescent girls with this tight-trousered eejit or as blood-thirsty, boggin', nasty wee jobbies as like to murder you in your beds. Naw! Right enough, all that washing and cleaning you humans like so much does you no good but we're a tidy enough when we put our minds to it!

We've been living in the mines of the Dwarves for long enough to learn that untidiness gets right up their beards and, after all us goblins have been through, we’re not likely to ruin a good arrangement when we have it! As stuffy and fussy as dwarves can be, I admit to having a slight wee soft spot in my scarred wee football of a heart for more than a few of them. We’re both long-lived species and I’ve personally known a good many dwarves for close to a hundred years!

See, we races grew up together, lived under the same soil, ate the same food, spoke the same languages, were persecuted equal like; the dwarves for their bags of money and the goblins for being innocently found in temporary possession of other people’s money. We are scaffies of an enterprising sort, not thieves, we’ve always loved turning the thrown away and lost (or just neglected) into something useful or beautiful. If’n them as owned it left it lying around right where we could see it, it was clearly not as valuable as they made it out to be and we did the spirit of the object a favour!

I wander off like that, sorry, but the wounds are still raw.

So; both goblin and dwarf were forced from the lands of their birth as humans started to get organised and out of their sight we remained until that fine fella Alexander found us. Now, you might wonder why the dwarves got goodly mention in what’s been written and we goblins have not? Simple, we hide better. I also had a word with yon writing fellas like Kalliades (quality lad, that) that, due to our negative reputation, it’d be best to let us speak for ourselves as it were. Everyone loves the dwarves and richly do they deserve it but not goblins; we’ve always played the scunners in the movies.

Me an’ my brothers got together and had a chat over a nice hot brew (s’cold up in them mountains and we likes to get out and see the sky now and then); we thought about it and realised we each has them own unique skills and passions; we could, with that unbendable goblin focus and passion, do something useful.

Now, don’t get me wrong, we’ve done a lot as has been of use over the years; many a device you own or use comes from goblin hands though you know it not. We learned much from the dwarves and they also from us. Many a Kalshodar or fandan Dracograth will thank us in the heat o’ battle for them wee adjustments we made to their kit!

Useful then; what could we do that was useful?

I, Scratchy, have always loved to write things down, to make a rhyme of the words and a song out of the normal. The events leading up to the Empyraeum were inspiration enough. Meeting Her Ladyship and not being et was an experience nae body forgets in a hurry. Seeing them big humans in their fancy kit marching aboot wi’ shiney swords, an’ spears, an’ halberds, an’ shields, an’…ach you know!

All those great an’ moomentous events are great but when they be written down…ah, then they can be even greater! Especially now that him back Home, that bampot Apàteon has been telling big fat porkies about our great Hègemon, gods roast his nadgers slow! Especially now does the story a’ what really happened need telling! Let the folks out there that is fighting that good fight know for what and why they are bleeding! Let thems as is still unner the thumb of that wee shite mebbe see that all’s not dark and manky! See, word gets out and the harder you try to stop it, the leakier it gets an’ the more determined to be heard coz words has power, especially the ones written down!

My main troglodyte, the fine Patchy McGoblin is a more sensitive sort than I. He talks oft and long about such fripperies as angles, shades, perspectives, an’ symbolisms. Him likes to paint and is always covered in the stuff. This patch is yellow, this patch is red, this one’s blue an’ there’s green under there somewhere! That’s why we call ‘im Patchy, for coz he is! He has done some mense portraits though, absolute quality. I keep that one of her queenie Unity on ma wall an’ admire it for she’s a fine specimen for a pinkie, ye ken? I’ve a few of them ships and that lovely armour we helped make too coz he does capture the light so lovely and well! I’ll never tell him that; his heid’s almost too big for that fussy beret as it is!

Ah, I’m being told to stop the …eh…non-politically correct speech coz a how yon folks out in the world are nae used tae straight goblin talk. Ach, well excerruuse a me, me fine gentlebeings of all descriptions!

Ahem. So that leads us to our twitchy wee fella Squinty ApGoblin; him as is always squintin’ into cameras and at screens. He’s even more farty than Patchy and much more of a loonie, runnin’ around and makin’ them weird gestures; talking about all manner of oddness I cannot get my head around for the life of me. He’ll kneel down suddenly an’ make a box with his hands and peer through it like he can see something different. I tried it and yeh cannae! He does make some quality stuff though. He takes an awful long time at it but them two videos he made were top notch nae mistake! He likes it when you tell him how good it is, he gets all puffed up and strutty but, gods, if’n yeh find the wee-est a wee mistakes an’ have the temerity – THE TEMERITY – tae be pointin’ it out, not even a squad of Kalshodar could be savin’ yer arse! Lovely fella though!

Well, that’s me! Nothing else I can think to tell you all about at the minute though I’m sure there’ll be more. I appreciate the chance to be telling all you fine people about us all at the minute and am glad youse know that all that fine art; be it my writing, Patchy’s pictures, or Squinty’s multay-meediah is the work of good goblin eyes and hands.

Keep them peepers peeled for more!

(Kalliades Note: All work on Empyraeum.com, YouTube, and social media is edited by the goblin nobody likes to talk about, Savvy Goblinson, or “that pedantic bassard” as Scratchy likes to call him affectionately)