Every once in a while, Lucy will be moved to action by a particular item in the Lone Tower Post-Dispatch. This is one of those times.
To the editorial board of the Lone Tower Post-Dispatch,
Yes, it’s me again, writing once more to lambaste the hack shock-monger Ulma Brigadoon. Her latest unhinged rant, “Watch Out For Goblins!”, is nothing but the basest form of uninformed fear-mongering. Now, I know you’ve specifically asked me to stop doing this, but I’m going to go point-by-point and refute her idiotic screed.
First off: a secret goblin horde hiding underwater in the north sea? Do you even know how stupid that is? I know, I know; Brigadoon is merely repeating an oft-circulated urban legend. But where is her journalistic responsibility? The sheer amount of arcane energies required to disguise an entire goblin horde – which, let’s be clear, would mean an entire goblin society, since a horde requires food, medicine, replenishment of supplies – would send out such a powerful signal that even the weakest hedge wizard would hear a buzzing in their molars. I understand that her “evidence” rests on the discovery last year of a gang of drowned goblins on the beaches of the north coast. It is, frankly, insane to take that as evidence of a gigantic underwater goblin horde. Far more likely that these goblins tried their hand at sailing, and failed. Because they are goblins.
Secondly: warg riders in the mountains. Okay. This one, to be fair, is the most plausible. We know that goblin warg riders are out there. We live near the frontier of civilization. Yes. And it is true, too, that goblins ride the monstrous wolves! I’m not arguing against that! But her assertion that to travel the mountain roads at night is to invite countless ravenous goblins to annihilate you…by the gods, has Brigadoon even left the city in the last few years? Yes, that poor merchant turned up dead a few months back, and yes the city watch identified his wounds as warg-inflicted. But this is not! Evidence! Of! A! Broader! Conspiracy! If anything, the spectacle of the merchant’s death should be evidence that it is remarkable, an unusual event, not the tyrannical norm under which we live!
Thirdly: ogres.
Here’s the thing. She wrote an “ogre is just the largest possible goblin.” Is it in the same family? Yes. No one’s arguing that. As someone who is a researcher who studies monstrous, arcane beings, I am telling you, speecifically, in science, no one calls ogres goblins. If Brigadoon wants to be “specific,” as she claimed, then she shouldn’t either. They’re not the same thing. If she’s saying “goblin family,” she’s referring to the taxonomic grouping of Gobloid, which includes things from hobgoblins to trolls to super-goblins.
So her reasoning for calling a troll a goblin is because the common folk “call the grubby monstrous guys goblins?” Let’s get orcs and ettercaps in there, then, too.
Also, calling someone a human or a sapient two-leg? It’s not one or the other, that’s not how taxonomancy works. They’re both. An ogre is an ogre and a member of the gobloid family. But that’s not what she said. She said an ogre is a goblin, which is not true unless she’s okay with calling all members of the goblin family goblins, which means you’d call bugbears, trolls, and other gobloids goblins, too. Which she said she doesn’t do.
It’s just okay to admit you’re wrong, you know?
Sincerely,
Lucy
Independent Research Wizard
C.M. in Evocation
S.S. in Illusory Work
The Chaotic Neutral Chronicles 