Horse terms for writers

The castle does not run itself. The castle would remain a pile of stones without servants to keep it running. The guide below focuses on the private household of the lord himself, anybody who worked inside the main keep of the castle. I will be expanding outside the walls in a future post.

The Steward/Seneschal

This person was the head of the household staff. They would have the task of running things on the Lord's estate. They are the managers, so it is up to them to keep the staff in line. The steward would keep the castle accounts and keep the lord informed of all of the goings on of the lands and tenants. They would have to be educated needing to do accounts and write letters. Though the castle's Lady would be expected to do all these things, the steward served as a backup and assistant in all the tasks even representing the lord and lady when they were unavailable.

The Chamberlain

The chamberlain is the servant employed to look after the Lord's bedchamber. He would look after the Lord's clothes as well and keep track of the other servants' liveries, the official uniforms of the guards, pages and squires. This was not always the case, some larger households had a separate office but most medium seized manors and castles lumped them together. The chamberlain's main task was ensuring the lord was kept happy. He would even be the last servant a lord would see at night before he went to bed at night. They would be educated.

The Marshal

A Marshal was in charge of the stables as well as the military presence in the castle. They would oversee the household's horses, carts, wagons, and containers. He oversaw blacksmiths, horse grooms and stableboys. He also oversaw the transporting of goods. The Marshal was sometimes in charge of disciplining servants. They would likely come from a middle class background as well as having military experience and education.

The Page

A page was a young noble boy about seven years old who would be sent to serve a Lord. He would be in charge of tidying up after the lord, carrying messages to other servants and occupants of the castle and serving him at meals. Unlike others on the list, the page would not be paid. His experience was his payment as he would learn the running of a castle and manners of a lord.

The Lady's Maid

The lady's maid is be the female body attendant of the castle's noble women. She would be in charge of caring for the lady's chamber and her things. She would dress the lady and attend her wherever she would. (The lady's maid would basically do all the work a chamberlain would but you know the wage gap...)

Maidservant

A housemaid/maidservant works to clean the castle. She would be among the first to awaken every morning. Her first task would be sweeping the floors. The thing with mediaeval floors a that they were often covered with a thin layer of rushes, a kind of grass. Weekly if not daily, a maidservant would be expected to change out the rushes and scatter new ones. If it really needed it, she would scrub the stone floors which would be done with a soap called lye, made from ashes and lard. The maidservant would also be expected to go into the bedchambers when the occupants awoke. She would empty the chamberpots if need be. She would get rid of the ashes from the fire and ready the fire for later. She would make up the bed or strip it for the laundresses. She would wash anything that needed washing including furniture and ornaments.

Laundress

The laundress was responsible for the cleaning of anything made of fabric in the household. The laundress would have to fetch their own water either from the castle well or from a nearby river. They would heat the water in large vats and add lye soap (the most popular of the cleaning agents). The constant exposure to soap and hot water was physically tough on the hands of the laundresses and their backs. When the detergents were added to the water, the laundress would dump them into the vat and stir that shit like soup. To dry it they would pin it out on lines or beat the water from it. The laundress might make money by selling secrets. Since they are handling unmentionables, they knew what happened behind closed bedchamber doors or what didn't.

Nursemaid

The nursemaid was in charge of the castle's children. They would ensure the child was fed, washed and generally kept alive while the parents would either be away at court or busy with the lands. The nursemaid would be a common woman from the surrounding lands who would come in to care for a noble child in the stead of the mother who would be expected to get on with other jobs. The nursemaid would be an underlying of the noble governess, a sort of hands-off nanny.

Cook

The cook was one of the most important servants in the castle. They would have the task of overseeing the running of the kitchens and keeping supplies in order. They would likely be on call at all times. Henry VIII's cook was often woken in the night because his royal master wanted a midnight snack. The cook was a valued member of the household and would have been highly sought after if they were a very skilled cook. Cooks would have been paid a handsome wage.

Scullion

The scullion was the lowest member of staff. They would be responsible for scrubbing and cleaning the servants quarters and the kitchens. They would scrub floors with lye, scour pots with sand, sweep put the fireplace and clean up after the other servants. They were the first to rise in a castle and tasked to light all the fires in the kitchens.

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Sarah Kane, Complete Plays; from ‘Phaedra’s Love’ (via feestje)

Anna de Noailles, tr. by Norman R. Shapiro, from Poems; “Mission,” (via violentwavesofemotion)

D&D resources for the homebound pt 2: DM-ing

Previous post has links for the DM’s guide and some character sheet stuff (include some that you can use as NPCs)

Running Encounters of the Battle Kind

I’m pro-theater of the mind for battle maps but I also recognize this is hard for some people to visualize, especially once you’re dealing with complicated high-level battles. That said, stores aren’t sold out of graph paper, or if you can’t leave the house, regular paper and a ruler should work.

Kobold Fight Club  is in my opinion of mixed value and tends to be a little underpowered (ie, if I ask for a hard encounter it’s often not very hard) but it does give you monster ideas that you can filter based on type of monster, setting (eg: underdark, ocean, desert), and the challenge rating.

Some General DM Help

G&S DM/GM tips (Matt Mercer and Satine Phoenix), Dimension20’s Adventuring Academy (Brennan Lee Mulligan), Matt Colville’s Running the Game, and podcast Master Manual are all things I’ve enjoyed as actual entertainment in addition to being helpful for new DMs. All the DMs here have different styles and many bring in guests with DM-ing experience as well so you can get a lot of cool perspectives.

It’s pretty easy to find a PDF of the starter set module, The Lost Mines of Phandelver, for free. If your players have listened to TAZ, some of it might sound familiar. I never ran a module but reading through a module gave me a lot of understanding of what a DM should have in mind. But also – if you can get an inexpensive module, many DMs on the list above point out this is actually a great way to start. I’d agree – I think running a module helps you focus on all the other stuff you do as a DM without having to make everything up, plus I think it teaches you the most valuable DM lesson, that you are basically playing as the world responding to the players’ choices. There’s a tendency I think among some new DMs to push the story in a certain way because they have a vision or a plot in mind, and for a one-shot that’s not a bad idea but if you’re using this to start a new campaign, a module teaches you not to get precious about your ideas.

In fact, that’s my advice. I think adventuring academy covered this best but I just ran a game this weekend and I did relatively little prep but felt the best about it, and it’s because I focused on setting up a scenario (a goal, the NPCs, a setting) and made sure I had a good understanding of the NPCs’ history and motivations and then let the players go nuts. (I actually might post about this separately since this would work as a low-level module with a little adjusting). The final battle didn’t end up happening at all where or how I thought it would – but it made sense because everyone still acted according to their motivations.

Out of curiosity, how do my fellow DMs prepare their campaigns? 

Do you open up a word doc at type out your story hook and make little bullet points from there? 

Do you wing it completely? 

What’s your notes system like? 

I’m simply looking for new ways to plan for my d&d games! 

The Over-Prepared GM

I can’t help myself. I love all the work that goes into prepping for a campaign, and I keep all of my crazy notes and papers, so today I’m gonna try and share with you my process for the latest DnD session I prepped for/ran! 

Rough Notes

I always start by hand writing a full page or two of just random thoughts/story bits. I’m gonna give examples from the latest session I ran (BACKSTORY - this setting has frequent time travel moments and so every location I make also needs a past version and present version)

Writing Stonevale began with me rambling on about any vague ideas I had for the scene setting. I also find it’s useful to get the secrets and mysteries all clear and laid out straight away, and work backwards from them to slot in clues for players. “Stonevale Past” begins with me deciding that the ancestors of an important NPC live here - maybe the players never get far enough to discover that, but having the secrets and info at the heart of my process helps me keep things focussed, and it’s easy/fun to build walls around the secrets this way :)

I also generally get a feel for any creatures/NPCs that populate the area, and give them vague roles. And I try to note down key details/props/locations/events that will help the players navigate and investigate.

Session Summary

Now’s the time to check what happened last session just to make sure you know how the party characters will likely be feeling/acting at the start of the session, and to remind yourself of any items they picked up, or active statuses going on. Also a good moment to check what the party planned to do next, what their expectations could be and so on.

It’s hard to make myself fill this in at the end of every session, but the session summary page in this kit really helps me note down what’s most important.

Maps

Making a map is always an exciting prospect for me! I thought this time I wanted to give a more illustrative style of map, as I’ve been super inspired by the very cool maps made by @anywhichwayatlas ! I got onto pinterest and collected some ideas of the type of map style I was going for:

Above are the images I used to inspire me, and below is the finished Stonevale map! It’s come out a bit rough/childlike but was definitely a fun way to explore more ways of making maps!

Later on, I realised I’d got too into making this and forgotten about some sort of depiction of the INSIDE of the manor… Since I didn’t have any time to make more maps by this point, I went to where I always go when I need a DnD map in a pinch - @2minutetabletop ! I picked up Castle Keep, which is free (like so many of his maps are!) and faffed with some colours and levels in photoshop until I was happy. Printed them out on A3 card and they were good to go! I can’t recommend this resource enough, it’s saved my GM butt a lot when I run out of time to make a map of my own!

Adding in Detail

So next I need to flesh out those vague ideas to make sure I’ve covered what’s likely to be important for the party. I love using the town builder here as it gives me a bit of mental breathing room and asks the questions for me. I find having questions ready means the answers come a lot easier than if I was trying to pluck this out of my head, if that makes sense? 

It was at this point I realised I’d likely need a family tree, even just so I could keep track of the time travel/ancestral stuff. I roughed one out, then made a slightly bigger, still very rough, version that I thought might be a handy clue for players. If they make it inside the castle, they’ll notice a framed family tree on the wall, and this will be it!

NPCS

Our story involved one of the players having worked at Stonevale before the adventure, so I made a staff list for that player’s reference. This way they had some basic information on their old co-workers and the residents of the manor. I also filled in an NPC list from the people & society kit to make sure I had enough NPCs to generate about the property.

Then I used the map to mark some likely locations of the important NPCs. I made sure to spread them out so that no matter how the party approached the grounds, they’d likely hit a plot hook somehow.

Quest Hooks

Time to shove as many clues as possible in here! My experience has been that players need a lot more help picking up clues and reaching conclusions than you expect (myself included!) so I make a point of writing a bunch of quest hooks to inspire both the players and myself during play. I use the quest hooks page from the session kit to note down basically little story bites and clues that I can drop in as and when I need to. It’s a useful sheet to glance at real quick during the game!

Loot

Gotta make sure there’s some loot somewhere! There’s always at least one player who ransacks every location they visit :) I hadn’t set up Stonevale to be a particularly loot-filled place but knew the manor in the centre could do with holding some of the resident’s belongings that could be steal-able. Again, I realised this quite late in my planning, and so dashed off to the @rpgtoons Patreon to grab all the free item cards I could find! Then I picked out which ones could be appropriate for certain family members and residents, and stashed ‘em in the pile ready to hand out.

Ambience

This is one of the last things I come to, as it’s fairly easy to set up, but so important if you want your players to be focussed and engaged. Every time I use music or scents its palpable how much more invested in events players are. For ambient backgrounds, youtube is a gold mine. I like to have two playing simultaneously - one for music and one for background noise. For example:

Fantasy Adventure Music + Forest Sounds Peaceful Travelling Music + Winter Storm Horror Music + Swamp Sounds

Check out Sword Coast Soundscapes or Guild of Ambience for some very cool RPG ambient soundtracks too!

As for scents, I use these a little more sparingly, but @cantripcandles does some exceptionally convincing aromas that really work for setting the mood, and taking your prep that lil extra step. My favourite is Goldwheat Bakery - the only way to get a more accurate smell would be to visit a bakery!

Finishing Up

At this point I’m almost good to go. I take one last look over everything I’ve prepped to see if there are any gaping plot holes or parts I’ve missed. For this particular session, it occurred to me there could be an opportunity for eavesdropping on an important conversation, so I wrote out a one page script for what the players might overhear should they choose to snoop. 

Play!

I guess you wanna know how the session went down after all this prep? Did the players enjoy it, did they find what I’d laid out for them? 

OF COURSE NOT! They made their very best effort to skirt the entire property, clinging to the edges of the map and hiding any time an NPC interaction looked likely. Predictably, I didn’t anticipate that they would attempt to avoid everything, but the Quest Hooks page kept things flexible. That, and the fact that one player’s rat companion decided to jump down a hole and became “irretrievable until further notice”…. ahem.

Hope you find this useful, I’ve tried to link to as many resources as possible because there are just so many good ones out there right now! Thanks to all DnD creators! I think it’s really cool everyone’s helping each others’ games become even more fun to play! :)

Beautiful world maps by @anywhichwayatlas​ 

Location maps by @2minutetabletop​

Item cards from @rpgtoons​ Patreon

Background Music - Sword Coast Soundscapes

Background Music - Guild of Ambience

Ambient scented candles by @cantripcandles​

Session Kit (includes session summary page, campaign brief, encounter manager, quest hooks, world overview page)

World Building Packs (npc makers/lists, land builders, society/org creators, history packs, etc)

Game Master Kits (fillable rolling tables, cheat sheets, loot makers, paper minis, etc)

Okay, this is way beyond what I’ve ever done, even at my most prepared.  Kudos!

Wow, this is so helpful!

I write out my campaigns in the form of a choose-your-own-adventure story. It helps me make sure that I’m prepared for whatever my players decide to do and they still throw me for a loop sometimes

Random mansion generator

The Procgen Mansion Generator produces large three-dee dwellings to toy with your imagination, offering various architectural styles and other options. Each mansion even comes with floorplans:

https://boingboing.net/2019/07/12/random-mansion-generator.html

Oooooh! Saving this

That’s fun

Hey, but don’t fall asleep on this Medieval Fantasy City Generator   

If you want the next step up from cities, check out this world map generator!

A random example:

It can also show you the heights of regions of the maps, what kind of biomes you might expect, generate border shifting, upload base maps from images, assign areas where specific cultures or religions are practiced, you can add, move and name every single town in a country, add provinces within the country, generate place names from language databases, shift rivers, change the direction of global wind patterns and see how that effects the climate… There’s a bunch of stuff you can do with it!

How I outline!

Helllloooooo it’s been ages since I promised to do this and I’m SO sorry it’s so late but I finally got around to actually writing this post today so here it is :P @abalonetea​ and @inkwell-attitude, I think you both wanted to see this! (sorry to everyone else about the long post incoming!) DISCLAIMER: This is just my process, I’m not claiming it’s the best or that everyone should do this or that it works for every project. I don’t do this for short or simple stories, only for novel-length WIPs with complicated facets, but the process *can* be distilled for something less complex. 

Step 1: Brain Dumping

At this point, I probably have some semblance of a premise and characters for this idea, and possibly also an endgame idea of where I want to take the story but not middle or clue of how to get from point A to point B. This is where you collect ALL the thoughts. Usually, I do this between phone notes and a document on my laptop for brainstorming, but you can use voice memos or whatever else works. I’ve drawn ideas on my hand in pen during a lifeguarding shift before and just taken pictures of my inked-over arm before I have to jump into the pool again. It happens. In any case, you have ideas.

Step 2: Put it in some semblance of order by using a map

[Image ID] a blurry picture of a whiteboard covered in ideas in various covered pens looking something like a conspiracy theory board. This is the outline I was working on last night for the first book in the Laoche chronicles but it’s so vague at this point that I don’t think spoilers really matter. [end image ID]

The next objective is to put the random ideas in a linear order. I collect all the thoughts into one spot and dump them on the board. I color code, so first I write down all the set plot-points in the approximate order in the black pen, start to finish, and leave space above and below for stuff has to happen in the middle. 

Then the characters come in. I generally know backstories so those get dumped around the starting point in green. I figure out what characters are driving the plot and draw arrows between said plot points writing what the character does in the green pen. I include motivations, feelings, alliances, anything that might possibly be important to the plot too.

Then come logistics and filling in - that’s in red. You could also use conspiracy theory string. Where are they in the world? What needs to happen next? Where do I have plot holes? What makes the characters tick? What makes sense to happen next? What needs to happen to get to the end? What worldbuilding needs to get figured out to enable this plot point? Write it ALL down on a separate piece of paper and start brainstorming again. When you’ve got a good connection, add it. You’ll start to notice the board is starting to fill up. It won’t be linear anymore. That’s fine. 

Step 3: Flesh it out

[image ID] a poorly lit photo of a board covered in sticky notes of different, some overlapping each other. This is only a corner of the board because it’s the outline for Storge and I only took a picture of the first few chapters [end ID]

This is where it starts getting real. I take everything I have on the whiteboard (which at this point is a disaster) and transfer every plot point, character interaction, motivation, worldbuilding thing, pacing notes, anything about unreliable characters, author notes about who knows what at certain points (both the characters and the reader), plot twists, and anything else from the notes that didn’t make it to the whiteboard and reconstruct the story on a board.

The reason I use sticky notes is because you can move them around, layer them, and space them to create a cohesive narrative. If I need to play with timing, I can do that easily. If I need to connect plot points to characterizations or anything else, I can do that with layering and spacing next to each other. I’m still color coding at this point. I can start slapping on stuff like “which day does this happen on? What kind of transitions do I need?”, chapter divisions, and thematic elements. You’ll notice there are more holes. Fill those in sooner rather than later.

Step 4: Outline Time

I obviously can’t take my carefully made board with me to school so now it’s time to put it into a document. At this point I should preface this with the fact that I really like the 3 act structure, so I start my outline with that before anything else, like so, using headings to make a document outline - that way I can jump around the outline using the outline quickly. Probably a bit extra but it saves a ton of time

[image ID] a Microsoft word document outline with a hierarchical structure that shows acts, plot points, chapters, and chapter titles. [end ID]

Once that’s been filled out, I start putting the information from the board into the outline structure, and I make sure to cover EVERYTHING something like this: (with color-coding)

Repeat with every chapter until you’re done.

This takes a long time, and I’m always revisiting and reworking that final outline once I’ve finished it but it’s such a huge help to set me on the right path without detouring 565479851321 times because I realized there was a plot hole too late. It’s overly complicated and incredibly intense and in-depth so It’s not for everyone but I like my 30-page long outlines, so here I am :P

If you’re still reading this, then wow good job, and thank you! I hope this was somewhat informative and not too tedious to scroll through! 

YOU KNOW WHAT BOTHERS ME

when fantasy books describe the cloth of Quant Farmpeople’s clothing as “homespun” or “rough homespun”

“homespun” as opposed to what??? EVERYTHING WAS SPUN AT HOME

they didn’t have fucking spinning factories, your pseudo-medieval farmwife is lucky if she has a fucking spinning wheel, otherwise she’s spinning every single thread her family wears on a drop spindle NO ONE ELSE WAS DOING THE SPINNING unless you go out of your way to establish a certain baseline of industrialization in your fake medieval fantasy land.

and “rough”??? lol just because it’s farm clothes? bitch cloth was valuable as fuck because of the labor involved ain’t no self-respecting woman gonna waste fiber and ALL THAT FUCKING TIME spinning shitty yarn to weave into shitty cloth she’s gonna make GOOD QUALITY SHIT for her family, and considering that women were doing fiber prep/spinning/weaving for like 80% of their waking time up until very recently in world history, literally every woman has the skills necessary to produce some TERRIFYINGLY GOOD QUALITY THREADS

come to think of it i’ve never read a fantasy novel that talks about textile production at all??? like it’s even worse than the “where are all the farms” problem like where are people getting the cloth if no one’s doing the spinning and weaving??? kmart???

THANK U

pro tip: what do you say instead? I gotcha.

 In Ye Olde Medieval Fantasy Dayes, everybody’s layer against skin (shirt tunic or shift) is gonna be linen. it’s almost never wool except stockings or hose (like pant legs). Say “undyed cloth” if you wanna make them sound simple and peasanty. Comment on how you can tell it wasn’t made for them (the fit is off) and has had probably eight owners before. 

Outer clothing is gonna be either wool, or a blend called Linsey-woolsey, and again you could say Undyed, but dyes are not only common they are CHEAP and relatively easy. (innerwear is often left undyed or bleached to white because it gets washed to heck- like beaten by a wooden stick on a stone by the river- and dye would just fade out a lot so why bother. Ths is also why innerwear has ties, rarely buttons, unless you are so rich you have people doing your washing delicately because they’re hired to do only that. Buttons would get broken in the washing)

A poorer person is often seen in “russet”, a kind of rusty orange-brown color. Purple was famously reserved for royalty in many times and places, but its  also just hard to do. We see a lot more magentas and fuschias for nobles or common middle class folks than we ever see of Purple- and not many of those. Deep blue was more likely on very rich people, but a light blue was common for even poorer folks. Yellow was popular with everyone, and so was green, and many shades of reds, including the color we now call orange (they did not- this is why redheads are called redheads and not orangeheads). Your vision of everyone in very drab brown and mud colors is from Hollywood- most medieval-ren folks have clothing with colors. Sometimes garish colors, to the modern eye. Traffic cone Orange and acid green was a popular combo in the 13th century.

“Deep blue was more likely on very rich people, but a light blue was common for even poorer folks. “  <— To elaborate on that, they were dyed with the exact same dyestuff, it’s just that the Rich People Cloth got dyed first, when the dye was strongest, and the Poor People cloth was dyed in the same batch of dye, but later, when the dyestuff was nearly exhausted.  And, yep, mid-tone shades went to middle/merchant class people.

Beyond this, consider how these professions might vary depending on who the customers are - nobles, or lower class. Are they good at their job or just scraping by? Do they work with lots of other people or on their own? City or village?

For younger characters:

(Images all from Wikimedia Commons)

Also consider:

Candlemaker Ferryman Factor (looks after business for an employer in another city) Tiler Cutler Beekeeper Apothecary Interpreter Furrier Moneylender/Banker Winemaker Tinker (small trader who repairs stuff) Nightsoil collector Customs officer Also a bonus for animal related professions: Fowler (supplies game birds for eating) Warrener (catches rabbits on your land for you to eat) Ostler (looks after your horses) Falconer (looks after your falcons) Cocker (looks after your fighting cocks)

I need more fantasy rpg in my life that isn’t d&d-style. I think it’s time for some Sword & Backpack.

100 Jobs for Fantasy Characters (that aren’t knight or peasant)

((long list, so it’s below the cut))

Keep reading

Yes, this is good and important

Great ideas for making NPC’s that fit into medieval worldbuilding, or possibly a background for your PC if they are (were?) a commoner in their background

Douglas Adams is the best when it comes to describe characters

they need to teach classes on Douglas Adams analogies okay

“He leant tensely against the corridor wall and frowned like a man trying to unbend a corkscrew by telekinesis.”

“Stones, then rocks, then boulders which pranced past him like clumsy puppies, only much, much bigger, much, much harder and heavier, and almost infinitely more likely to kill you if they fell on you.”

“He gazed keenly into the distance and looked as if he would quite like the wind to blow his hair back dramatically at that point, but the wind was busy fooling around with some leaves a little way off.”

“It looked only partly like a spaceship with guidance fins, rocket engines and escape hatches and so on, and a great deal like a small upended Italian bistro.”

“If it was an emotion, it was a totally emotionless one. It was hatred, implacable hatred. It was cold, not like ice is cold, but like a wall is cold. It was impersonal, not as a randomly flung fist in a crowd is impersonal, but like a computer-issued parking summons is impersonal. And it was deadly - again, not like a bullet or a knife is deadly, but like a brick wall across a motorway is deadly.”

And, of course: “The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.”

the one that will always stay with me is “Arthur Dent was grappling with his consciousness the way one grapples with a lost bar of soap in the bath,” i feel like that was the first time i really understood what you could do with words.

I will reblog this every time I see it because these are some of my favorite sentences in the English language.

Hey y'all why are writers always cold?

...why?

They're always surrounded by drafts!

How many mystery writers does it take to change a lightbulb?

Oh god.

How many?

Two! One to change the bulb, and the other to give it an unexpected twist at the end!

What do writers have for breakfast?

Coffee?

Synonym buns!

Where do all the struggling writers live?

How are you coming up with all these?

Where?

Writer's Block!

What do writers suffer from each spring?

(I've heard a lot of them over the years.)

Allergies. Next question.

you were close; A case of allegories

Why are writers always in great shape?

Circular prose

Nope! It's because we're always running out of ideas!

Did you hear about the famous writer who turned out to be a fraud?

I did not

His life had it's prose and cons...

Why is editing a better job than writing?

It's more rewording?

Correct! I am out of jokes. :(

I hate that I laughed at some of these 😂

Random mansion generator

The Procgen Mansion Generator produces large three-dee dwellings to toy with your imagination, offering various architectural styles and other options. Each mansion even comes with floorplans:

https://boingboing.net/2019/07/12/random-mansion-generator.html

What would it take for someone to sell you three “magic beans” for $10 at a farmer’s market?

Specifically, what kind of person would you buy magic beans from? You have no way of knowing if the beans are actually magical - they probably aren’t. But just how colorful a character would a magic bean salesman have to be before you willingly spent $10 for the experience of buying magic beans from an eccentric stranger?

I wouldn’t buy $10 magic beans from a young man with an undercut and suspenders with sailor tattooes on his forearms. He might be a nice guy - maybe I’d be friends with him. But I would not spend $10 for the experience of purchasing magic beans from him, unless they were actual real magic beans and he could prove that.

I might buy $10 magic beans from a small child in a wizard costume. It depends. Maybe if they’re really committed to the role - then I’m purchasing the privilege of interacting with them.

I might but $10 magic beans from an incredibly sexy, mysterious lady with long opera gloves and glittering eyes, but probably not - I might give her money just for smiling at me but I don’t think she’d really have the right vibe for selling magic beans. Potions, yes. Not beans.

I’d probably buy magic beans from a wild-haired, cheerful witch in overalls and mud boots, but that wouldn’t really be about the beans, it’d be about finding excuses to talk to her.

I’d absolutely buy magic beans from a toothless old person dressed entirely in hot pink or chartreuse who answered my questions with rambling non-sequiturs and told me long, scandalous, scientifically impossible stories about how things used to be.

I would buy three magic beans from the white haired woman who sits on the back of her pickup with dozens of jars of jelly laid out on a table in the abandoned fair ground. She doesn’t sell jelly; she sells potted plants. If you compliment her on her wooden sandals though, she will give you a jar of jelly. She asks if my children are twins every week, and is disappointed they aren’t twins every week. I would buy three magic beans for $10 from her.

On another note, I have traded a crocheted snowflake for ten acorns with a small, barefoot, blonde child in a white dress I encountered in the woods. Two of the acorns sprouted on the way home and I now have them growing in pots.

dude at some point the signs for the goblin market and the farmer’s market in your town got switched but your fae are too polite to say anything when you keep coming back

A.P (via wordsnquotes)