Goblain

One of the most useful skills when seeking to hide something valuable is making it look as commonplace and vulgar as possible. This is the theory behind the cipher language known as Goblain, which is known to have been used by Westlo Elves and Westlo Orcs for a thousand years. It is believed that the cipher grew up as result of diplomacy between the two peoples, who not only lived in relative harmony in Westlo but even tolerated Goblins and Humanfolk. Examples of Goblain have been found:

making fun of elected officials who otherwise would have remained eternally obscure
proclaiming the love of an orcish maiden for an elven scullery-boy
recording magic rituals

All these and others are in the Academica in Jadehill, Duntown.

Writing System

As is widely known, the Goblin language does not use an alphabet, with Goblins instead opting to represent words with a crude drawings of rudimentary acts. Nor is it normally used to express complex ideas beyond fighting, running away and stealing things. What Goblain does is use these pictographic symbols to stand in for letters used in Common, allowing an intelligible and intelligent message to hide behind stick figure drawings of decapitations and copulations.

Phonetics

The use of Goblain to audibly encode secret messages - i.e. using spoken Goblin words to represent particular letters in Common, spelling out a word - is theoretically possible, but unattested. It would require some skill in decoding, and a lot of tolerance on the part of the listener, because Goblin sounds horrible to almost all folk, including Goblins themselves.

Spoken by