A copy of the binding

I recently played Dragon Age: Origins, and I’m still boggled by the amount of writing within the game detailing history, culture, and interesting little stories.   The codices are pretty much a book unto themselves.   One of my favorite things about the game is the little scraps of stories that are easily missed, one of these being the Black Vials.  In old ruins, one occasionally stumbles over an odd vial containing swirling liquid and emanating a bone-chilling cold.  Once touched, the vial breaks, and a bound revenant is released.

What’s left after fighting it is a scrap of paper with a binding written on it, confining the undead by their true name, followed by thumbprints of the binders, in blood.  Each of these bindings holds little hints of the story behind it.  The Sixth is my favorite, because of the small, child-sized thumb print it included.  Was the child the one to recognize the signs of an undead?  Did it discover the corpse walker’s true name, making the binding possible?  One can piece together an untold tale here about a brave little boy or girl.

Tiffany and I have made the vial, complete with binding (a copy within the vial and outside).  Tiffany has a lovely writeup and more photos of the project over at Curious Goods, as well as a video of the revenant swirling around in the bottle.

Sorry, but we’ve all become slaves to our inner muses and are over at NaNoWriMo generating novels.  Just think of all the props we’ll be able to make!

Bright-Circle does a lovely depiction of Peeta’s pendant from the second book in The Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire.

Of book burnings and silver eyed accordion players...

Lots of significant props here, not to mention the overall tone of the novel:

The Book Thief

If you were sitting in the cold, dark basement of your neighbor’s house, the air raid sirens like panicked birds of prey, what could you do? A book huddled close by, the last one in the world, its words reaching for your voice. Which book might that be? I’d hope it would be this one.

He paused.  ‘I see you’re looking at my cuff buttons.’

I hadn’t been looking at them, but I did now. They were composed of oddly familiar pieces of ivory.

‘Finest specimens of human molars,’ he informed me.

The Great Gatsbty by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I’m not sure what to think of someone who would want to emulate the notorious Wolfsheim, but I am sure that these cuff links by Monster Kookies are artfully executed.

May I get a regular sized one for my house, please?

A Livejournal user called grace_poppy has painstakingly recreated physician Stephen Maturin’s dispensary from Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series in miniature.   The amount of detail in this thing is pretty staggering, right down to the intricate glass specimen and medicine bottles, each with a minuscule label.

I admit, when I first came across it, I had no idea just how small the bottles where until the picture with a finger in it for scale.    The overall effect is really lovely.  I love that she’s chosen to do not just a single piece, but an entire room.  The lantern is the final touch that adds a nice welcoming glow to the whole thing.

A couple of years ago The Polymer Clay Artists Guild of Etsy.Com (say that five times fast) challenged its members to create items inspired by books.  The array of creativity is astounding.  The entries ranged from The Pilgrim’s Progress to The Little Prince to the ubiquitous Harry Potter.  All the entries are fantastic, but my favorite (and the eventual winner) were Humblebeads’ beads inspired by Where the Wild Things Are.  She captures the palette perfectly – anyone who saw these beads would know what book from which they came.  I’m almost positive if you dropped them into water you’d have an instant monster with a terrible roar and gnashing terrible teeth.

Fans  of H.P. Lovecraft SHOULD immediately recognize the name Propnomicon.  From his sculpted “things in a bottle” to his painstaking recreations of period forms and identification, he’s touched on just about every aspect of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu universe.  Propnomicon is quite generous too.  From tutorials to a veritable treasure trove of printable paper ephemera, you can find almost anything you need to outfit yourself in 1930s Lovecraftian New England.  I have an Australian Miskatonic expedition patch and lapel pin and they’re top notch items!

"Red stone winking from a nest of silver"

I’ve loved Robin Hobb’s Farseer books since I first picked them up years ago.  Here’s my take on the brooch King Shrewd bestows on the main character, Fitz, as a token of loyalty.   Fitz, being only six years old at the time, doesn’t fully appreciate what he’s gotten himself into by accepting.

“Come here.”

I walked to him slowly.  When I reached him, he got down on one knee, to be eye to eye with me.  The Fool knelt solemnly beside us, looking earnestly from face to face.  Regal glared down at all of us.  At the time I never grasped the irony of the old King genuflecting to his bastard grandson.  So I was solemn as he took the tart from out of my hands and tossed it to the puppies who had trailed after me.  He drew a pin from the folds of silk at his throat and solemnly pushed it through the simple wool of my shirt.

“Now you are mine,” he said, and made that claiming of me more important than any blood we shared. “You need not eat any man’s leavings.  I will keep you, and I will keep you well. If any man or woman ever seeks to turn you against me by offering you more than I do, then come to me, and tell me of the offer, and I shall meet it.  You will never find me a stingy man, nor be able to cite ill use as a reason for treason against me.  Do you believe me, boy?”…

I nodded, in the mute way that was still my habit, but his steady brown eyes demanded more.  I glanced down at the red stone that winked in a nest of silver. … “Yes, sir,” I managed again.

Ingredients:  .4 gram Ruby Spinel,  2 feet of sterling silver wire

(Italicized quote above by Robin Hobb in her book Assassin’s Apprentice)

I’m constantly teasing my friend for her love of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series.  However, for some time now I’ve been secretly in love with Badali Jewelry’s interpretations of the jewelry from the series.    The Aes Sedai necklaces are especially cool — with all the Ajahs represented.   They also offer multiple metals on most of the pieces so you can get as crazy expensive as you want.  I’m sure the Dragon Reborn would approve.