The villagers have once again voted for a particularly decorative gourd to lead the Council of Spirits this year. Among its responsibilities will be interceding on our behalf with the spirit world, making sure that no spectral demands go unmet, etc. etc.

Unfortunately, it is still true this year as it has been in previous years that gourds, no matter how shapely, are still vegetables and unable to communicate.

Not with us. Not with spooks.

But while we’re pulled from our warm beds by skeletal hands for the next few years, we’ll always have fond memories of the gourd’s fetching profile from those campaign posters.

YOU ARE INVITED
to a musical
JAMBOREE!

NO COVER CHARGE

— bring your beautiful bones —

**free calcium chews with every admission but you have to eat them immediately**

MAIN STAGE
Ogres But Not the Kind That Eat Bones

SECOND STAGE
Slurptime and The Marrow Spiders

THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE please don’t make me take another quiz I don’t want to know any more about myself QUIZ!

YOU GOT:
RACHEL! A sassy mother hen who knows how to party but also knows that proper nutrition can’t be overlooked. Your best friend is: A VAGUE SENSE OF UNKNOWING. You’ll work best with: X511, DRONE BEE.

This is a rare result! Only 3% of our survey takers are RACHEL!

[click here to start your next quiz]
[click here to retake this quiz]
[click here if clicking relieves the anxiety of knowing these quizzes will never stop]
[click here] [or here]

18. If you were a doll, what accessories would come with you?

– A ball of wet hair, swallowed and accumulated over years, removed surgically
– a blanket of capped fungi, slick to the touch, undulating
– the kind of deep sorrow that can only be safely stored in mud
– burning eyes in the dark
– like, a comb
– the secret names of The Nine Masters and knowledge of where they dwell, free or imprisoned

So much of magic is just done with staples. Not a lot of people know that.

Rabbit in a hat? It’s pinned in there with animal-friendly staples.

Crystal ball? Full of staples. You can hear ’em if you slosh the ball around.

Is this your card? Nope. It’s just a pile of loose staples.

Every star and moon on my robes is stapled on.

The magic was inside you all along and that’s too bad, because now the magic is stuck there. You shouldn’t be eating staples.

[walking in a field, making apple noises, looking to be devoured by horses]

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[in a field, wearing a t-shirt that has handwritten on it I AM A SUGARCUBE, holding a phone]

“Siri, look up if horses can read.”

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[in a field, hair in pigtails, in pajamas, hugging a pillow, talking to horses]

“omg you guys, let’s play Truth or Dare, I’ll go first: I DARE you to eat me like I was an apple! Just chew me right up!”

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***CONFIDENTIAL – DO NOT REPOST***
FROM: Apex Brand Management
RE: online identity package

BODY:
We’re telling you, this is what’s going to put your name on the map. You’re going to be The Guy Who Wants Horses to Eat Him and Is Willing to Trick Horses to Accomplish This Task.

It’s a market niche that has literally ZERO competition, baby. The field, where you’re going to die, because you were eaten by horses… it’s wide open.
***CONFIDENTIAL – DO NOT REPOST***

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If I wasn’t in a field, wearing a suit woven from alfalfa, I’d be upset at how many people were ignoring the ***CONFIDENTIAL – DO NOT REPOST*** notice on my last post.

And yes… I MYSELF ignored it when my brand manager labeled their email with it, but you have to understand: I have a problem with authority! And the only cure is to get eaten by horses!

THAT’S MY BRAND!

Anyhow, yeah, all the rejected magical familiars– the gulls, the snails, the painted moths, the urchins (land & sea), the hummingbirds, the shouting birds, the crested sharks, the flea adepts– they’ve teamed up, formed their own magical academy, learned each others’ animal languages, mastered the arcane arts, and then they came back and put all of us in a zoo with our unvaried menageries of familiars: our black cats and our crows and whatnot.

That’s how it happened, and that’s why we wizards are here, behind bars, and why every other bug & bird you see out there in the village has a wizard hat on.

Revenge.

If you have a word with them, would you let them know that we’re definitely devoted now to the idea of diversity when choosing animal companions to imbue with our eldritch powers? We’ve all learned the value of inclusion and would like to come out now.

Thank you.

Just a reminder that at my $1 Patreon level, any candle that you light at the entrance to the Sunken Caverns is guaranteed to last you 50% longer. You’ll get past the iron bats for sure and probably halfway across the mushroom pond to the sunken palace before you’ll need another candle..

Supporters at the $5 level are, of course, warned about what lives under the mushroom pond… and how it feels about illumination.

A plumber punches me and I explode, becoming three coins.

“No!” we exclaim. “Even in a new form we continue to exist! Our fear of death is now tripled instead of ended!”

As we are collected by trodding upon us, we cry, “The infinity that awaits us is somehow greater than the infinity from which we sprung!”