2023: A Goblin's Proposal

Winter’s frost had barely settled over Cleveland when Reedy Cleats, a Goblin of poor reputation but considerable ambition, brought an offer to the Moondog of the moment — the vivacious and sharp-tongued Miss Jessa Slipknot.

The year had been unkind to the Moondog Barony’s artistic soul. The notorious Autumn Person and critic Tucker Funt had not only driven the Satyr Echo into seclusion with his venomous reviews (see: The Phantom of the Orchestra Pit, 2021), but had also founded The Inkbite Ledger, a self-published broadsheet that lambasted every corner of Cleveland’s creative efforts. Armed with a cadre of sharp-tongued young writers, Funt was rapidly unraveling the Glamour-soaked threads of the city’s fragile art scene.

Reedy, seeing opportunity in chaos, offered Jessa a bargain: he and his so-called Stronk Squad would take care of Funt permanently — in exchange for the right to establish a Goblin workshop along the Opportunity Corridor.

Jessa never explicitly agreed, but she never outright refused. That was all Reedy needed.

He activated his Gnoblin Gnote, a misshapen, oil-smudged Treasure that twisted implied pacts into binding oaths. The Piskey found herself locked into dangerous obligations, her words used to force action to which she hadn’t actually consented.

The results were nothing short of calamity.

• A suspiciously sentient cement mixer careened through Tremont’s art district during a pop-up sculpture show. Three Dreamers were hospitalized, and several chimera were destroyed.
• A pile driver, reportedly "enchanted for punctuality," activated itself inside the parking garage of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Two visiting professors were seriously injured in the collapse of an upper ramp.
• Finally, a weaponized zamboni — its blades sharpened and Glamour-spiked — crashed into a crowd at Rocket Mortgage Field House. Tucker Funt was caught in the blast of steam and debris. He survived, but slipped into a coma.

Reedy and his crew took up noisy residence at a long-condemned steel processing site along the Corridor. Despite the destruction, none of them were formally expelled — after all, the oath had been sealed. Jessa risked the ignominy of oathbreaking, a stain no Court would overlook.

Legacy

• Though Funt’s physical voice was silenced, his three protégés stepped in to take his place. Each, now whispered to be Autumn People in their own right, continues to shape The Inkbite Ledger with venom, suspicion, and cold rationalism.
• Miss Jessa Slipknot has publicly refused all future nominations for Moondog and often jokes — too bitterly, some say — that “it’s easier to corral wild unicorns than clever goblins.”