The Goblin

He will tell you he is a collector. His ledger says merchant. The truth is somewhere in between: a goblin who cannot walk past a well-made thing without working out where it came from, what it is worth, and whether he can get two more.

The ledger

It goes everywhere with him. Goods in, goods out, who bought what and whether they came back. He is genuinely proud of it, which is the whole character in one detail — a goblin whose favourite possession is a record of having dealt fairly with people.

It is also where several of our designs come from. The ruled lines, the running totals, the seal at the bottom of the page.

The night market

The shop keeps late hours because the good stock moves after dark. Lantern light, stacked stalls, and the particular hum of a market where everyone is slightly overcharging everyone else and enjoying it enormously. He does not overcharge. He finds this restraint personally heroic and mentions it often.

What he is not

Not a trickster. Not a pickpocket. Not the kind of merchant whose deals turn out to have a clause. The oldest joke about goblins is that they will take you for everything you have, and we have no interest in it — a shop where the mascot might be robbing you is not a shop anyone should enter their card details into.

He is a good shopkeeper with a slightly overstuffed back room. That is the entire bit.