Miracle Island apothecary jars
So! Pictures of the big present I made for Sargon.
There is a place in our roleplaying continuum called Miracle Island (intentionally cheesy). This island is base camp for what is probably our longest-running character, Sargon's teenage witch, Cinder.
I don't even know how long Cinder's been around. A long time. (It's her magic wand in the pictures, by the way.) Rather amazingly, neither of us have gotten tired of her, or of the setting. I invented the setting for her, and now many of the NPCs and locations and families have become important parts of our continuum's canon.
Miracle Island doesn't exist in the real world -- alas! -- but there is an island more or less where it's supposed to be: Orcas Island, Washington, in the San Juans.
Sargon's take on the gift.
The whole shebang. Fell House rare earths are the world's most mystical particulates! Each batch guaranteed fully thaumaturgically charged and free of contra-spectral contamination! Available only at Pandora's Books.
Given our financial situation, the bullshit the TSA likes to pull on airplane passengers, and the fact that neither of us travel well, the very real Orcas Island isn't a whole lot more accessible to us than the entirely imaginary Miracle Island.
That's where awesome people come in to close the gap.
Clockwise from top: 100% aquent entisol, 100% coniferous spodosol, 100% entisol regolith. Because silly names are way more fun than saying: 100% wet sand, 100% forest dirt, 100% loose sand.
A while back, clayshaper mentioned visiting Orcas Island. Having recently polished my small collection of graveyard earth bottles, a crazy idea leaped into my head. So I emailed and said, "Hey, would you mind helping me out with something a little strange?"
Fell House wild herbs are gathered and sorted by hand, freshness guaranteed! Here we have the ever-popular forest-in-a-bottle sampler: leaf litter and forest detritus from the Signal Mountain area of Rook Forest.
All I asked for was some dirt and some sand, maybe a rock or an interesting stick. Not too much. What I got was a giant box of dirt and leaves and rocks and moss and tree bark and bumper stickers and tourist pamphlets . . . basically, as Sargon and I joked, the entire island. clayshaper and thatcaptjim and their doggie constant_heart went above and beyond to indulge an essentially goofy wish, and for that I cannot thank them enough.
Wild holly roots from North Star Hill. Good for misdirection magic, potions of obfuscation, and all protective hibernal fumigations.
As with many of the most meaningful gestures, it is difficult to explain the depth it has. And I'm not just saying that to emphasize my own cleverness at having come up with it -- the idea would have occurred to plenty of people in the same circumstances -- I'm saying it because when I opened the box, I cried. To be able to hold, touch, see, smell, parts of a thing that are as close as you will ever come to your imaginary home (or as close to one as you may have) . . . it's a powerful thing.
Holly cuttings from North Star Hill. The Fell harvesting method guarantees potency: we harvest by hand from nature-felled trees only. Don't trust your summoning flames to anything less!
So, it doesn't look like much. It's mostly just dirt, in fact. But it's also a part of an imaginary place, a place made a little more real, and that's as close to magic as you get in this version of the world.
Thank you.
There is a place in our roleplaying continuum called Miracle Island (intentionally cheesy). This island is base camp for what is probably our longest-running character, Sargon's teenage witch, Cinder.
I don't even know how long Cinder's been around. A long time. (It's her magic wand in the pictures, by the way.) Rather amazingly, neither of us have gotten tired of her, or of the setting. I invented the setting for her, and now many of the NPCs and locations and families have become important parts of our continuum's canon.
Miracle Island doesn't exist in the real world -- alas! -- but there is an island more or less where it's supposed to be: Orcas Island, Washington, in the San Juans.
Sargon's take on the gift.
The whole shebang. Fell House rare earths are the world's most mystical particulates! Each batch guaranteed fully thaumaturgically charged and free of contra-spectral contamination! Available only at Pandora's Books.
Given our financial situation, the bullshit the TSA likes to pull on airplane passengers, and the fact that neither of us travel well, the very real Orcas Island isn't a whole lot more accessible to us than the entirely imaginary Miracle Island.
That's where awesome people come in to close the gap.
Clockwise from top: 100% aquent entisol, 100% coniferous spodosol, 100% entisol regolith. Because silly names are way more fun than saying: 100% wet sand, 100% forest dirt, 100% loose sand.
A while back, clayshaper mentioned visiting Orcas Island. Having recently polished my small collection of graveyard earth bottles, a crazy idea leaped into my head. So I emailed and said, "Hey, would you mind helping me out with something a little strange?"
Fell House wild herbs are gathered and sorted by hand, freshness guaranteed! Here we have the ever-popular forest-in-a-bottle sampler: leaf litter and forest detritus from the Signal Mountain area of Rook Forest.
All I asked for was some dirt and some sand, maybe a rock or an interesting stick. Not too much. What I got was a giant box of dirt and leaves and rocks and moss and tree bark and bumper stickers and tourist pamphlets . . . basically, as Sargon and I joked, the entire island. clayshaper and thatcaptjim and their doggie constant_heart went above and beyond to indulge an essentially goofy wish, and for that I cannot thank them enough.
Wild holly roots from North Star Hill. Good for misdirection magic, potions of obfuscation, and all protective hibernal fumigations.
As with many of the most meaningful gestures, it is difficult to explain the depth it has. And I'm not just saying that to emphasize my own cleverness at having come up with it -- the idea would have occurred to plenty of people in the same circumstances -- I'm saying it because when I opened the box, I cried. To be able to hold, touch, see, smell, parts of a thing that are as close as you will ever come to your imaginary home (or as close to one as you may have) . . . it's a powerful thing.
Holly cuttings from North Star Hill. The Fell harvesting method guarantees potency: we harvest by hand from nature-felled trees only. Don't trust your summoning flames to anything less!
So, it doesn't look like much. It's mostly just dirt, in fact. But it's also a part of an imaginary place, a place made a little more real, and that's as close to magic as you get in this version of the world.
Thank you.