How Ghu'liak Created an Empire

Long, long ago, a goblin named Ghu'liak was born. His father was a literacy teacher, his mother was a scribe, and he had twenty-seven children, all of whom were literate and highly-educated. Ghu'liak was artistic and extroverted, but he had trouble learnign to read. His father tried teaching him again and again, and each time, Ghu'liak became more and more frustrated, until one day, he announced that he did not need to know how to read in order to live a perfectly fulfilling life. He said he could learn a trade, make a living using said trade, and he would steal anything he needed but couldn't acquire. His family tried desperately to talk him out of this mindset, but he was adamant. He was good to his word; he became an artist, learned how to carve sculptures out of rock, and he made quite a living doing so. He was so successful, in fact, that he started teaching classes to aspiring students interested in learning the craft.  His crowning achievement was to carve a stone with an abstract, enigmatic, and highly-styilized design.  He said the carving represented what he tried to convince his family of; he had made a very confortable and fulfilling living for himself, never knowing how to read, and he stole the stone from someone's garden because he coveted it but they refused to give or sell it to him.  Ghu'liak lived a long and happy life.  He sired thirty-nine children by three wives, and none of them, not one, learned how to read.  Each one of them learned a skill or trade (fighting, mining, painting, etc.) and made a good living doing so.
<<< Fast forward 100,000 years >>>
The Ghukliak Kleptocratic Federation was built on the ceoncepts set forth by Ghu'liak all those years ago.  It is an advanced and mature society, despite every member being religiously illiterate.  They also have developed an elegant system where everyone is encouraged and expected to steal what they need, but not to get caught doing so.  Their clocks sound out the time but don't show it.  Goblins have developed extremely good memories, since they can't write anything down and save it that way.  And to this day, their main administrative building proudly displays Ghu'liak's carved stone.  It is protected under breakproof glass, under guard all day and all night.  It has become the very cornerstone of their society, even though Ghu'liak never meant for it to be so.  He was simply too lazy to put in the time and effort to learn how to read.  So he set out to prove to his family that he didn't need to be literate.  But time had distorted his words, and an empire now stands, based on the concepts of thievery and illiteracy, all because of one goblin who wanted the chance to be different from everyone around him.

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