Life is Precious

[[ Source. Original creator: wats6831. Additional information and images linked under each one. ]]

Universal:

Homemade artisan herb bread, home grown and dried apples and prunes, uncured beef sausage, munster cheese. Made a small bag from cheesecloth and tied it closed.

Discussion thread here.

Dwarf:

Garlic chicken livers, smoked and peppered cheese, spiced pork sausages, hard tack, dried vegetables, dried wild mushrooms.

Discussion thread here.

Elf:

Top left to right: Evereskan Honey Comb, Elven Travel Bread (Amaretto Liquer Cake with custom swirls), Lurien Spring Cheese (goat cheese with garlic, salt, spices and shallots), Delimbyr Vale Smoked Silverfin (Salmon), Honey Spiced Lichen (Kale Chips), and Silverwood Pine Nuts.

Discussion thread here.

Halfling:

From upper left: “Honeytack” Hard tack honey cakes, beef sausage, pork sausage mini links, mini whole wheat toast, cranberry cheddar cheese mini wedge, mini pickles, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, lower right is my homemade “travel cake” muesli with raisins, golden prunes, honey, eggs and cream.

Discussion thread here.

Half-Orc:

Wrapped in cheesecloth and tied in burlap package. Forest strider drumsticks, molasses sweet wheat bread “black strap”, aged Munster, hard boiled eggs, mixed wild nuts.

Discussion thread here.

Orc:

Orcs aren’t known for their great cuisine. Orcs prefer foods that are readily available (whatever can be had by raiding), and portable with little preparation, though they have a few racial delicacies. Toughs strips of lean meat, bones scavenged from recent kills, and dark coarse bread make up the bulk of common orc rations.Fire roasted rothe femur (marrow is a rare treat) [beef femur], Strips of dried meat (of unknown origin) [homemade goose jerky], foraged nuts, only edible by orcs….nut cracker tusks [brazil nuts], coarse black bread, made with whatever grains can be pillaged [black sesame bread], Pungent peppers [Habanero peppers stuffed with smoked fish and olives].

More images here. Discussion thread here.

Gnome:

Pan fried Delimbyr smelt, spiced goat cheese (paprika crusted hand pressed Fontina), Gnome shortbread (savory pistachio), glass travel jar filled with Secomber Red (wine), hard boiled quail eggs packed in rolled oats (to keep safe), dried figs from Calimshan, and Southwood smoked goat sausage (blood sausage).

More images here. Discussion thread here.

Lizardfolk:

Lizardfolk are known to be omnivores, forage for a surprising variety of foods found within the confines of their marshy environs, in this case the Lizard Marsh near Daggerford. Fresh caught boiled Delimbyr Crayfish on wild chives, coastal carrageen moss entrapping estuary brine shrimp (irish moss, dried brine shrimp), Brackish-Berries (blackberries), Blackened Dart-Frog legs (frog legs) on spring sprouts (clover sprouts), roasted bog bugs on a stick!

More images here. Discussion thread here.

Drow:

From top left: Menzoberranzan black truffle rothe cheese (Black Knight Tilsit), Donigarten Moss Snails (Escargot in shallot butter sauce), Blind cave fish caviar in mushroom caps (Lumpfish caviar), faerzress infused duck egg imported from the surface Realms (Century egg), Black velvet ear fungus (Auricularia Black Fungus Mushroom).

You’re the prettiest witch I know, Lily Evans<3

Gas Companies: Actively work to prevent anything being done to develop, promote or in any way make green energy sources widely known of available or affordable to anyone because slowly murdering the planet makes them millions of dollars

Big Companies: Literally dump toxic crap where it will cause serious harm to the earth and the species on it

Governments: Clearly what we need to do to save the earth is make people pay money to use carrier bags so they can actually carry their shopping home

Just because progress is small doesn’t mean it isn’t progress. You build up to it, not start at the end. Also let’s be real. You can’t legislate against Apple and gas companies because of consumers. How many Tumblr users are using their apple products? If you want Apple to change, don’t use any of their products. Starve them and then they will listen. 

Same with driving. Of course it is difficult to stop driving, and the ability to do so is affected by socioeconomic status, but the principle applies. We can’t kill oil until there’s an alternative that consumers can switch to. So far, that’s Tesla for better or worse. Hybrids are a patch in the mean time.

Send a symbol and I’ll answer the question about my muse. (Or answer in character. Whatever works for you!)

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ DAY

I know it’s late in the day, but I wanted to share this before it ends. Above is the poetry of my grandmother, Donna, written about life on the reservation. When I was young, I found this booklet of poetry in a drawer in our home. My interactions with her were minimal, as she suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and manic-depressive disorder, as well as complications from ECT (electro-convulsive therapy) she endured years ago. It wasn’t until I was much older that I would read her poetry and understand who she was.

As my mother grew up, she knew that to society, being native was not a proud experience. She lived with the racism, the stereotypes of the “drunk indian”, the deadbeat living off government money. As a child, she was called an apple– when she asked what that meant, they told her “because you’ve got red skin on the outside, but you’re white on the inside!” and it was a compliment. Her family lived communally in a small home, her many siblings shared the living room floor as their bedroom. Mental illness, depression, addiction? All of it was commonplace. That’s what it was to be native for so long. She, and by extension myself and my sibling, were so far removed from what made us proud that we had forgotten who we were.

I remember how she lit up when I asked more about our tribe. About our culture, our history. We visited the museum, the trading post, she showed me her old beading loom, and we learned more. I recognized so many things my mom had. The beadwork, the dreamcatchers. I hadn’t recognized what they meant before. They were what made it through, little pieces of who we are, who her mother was, and what made us stand proud.

My senior year, I spoke at her funeral. I spoke about how finding that pamphlet of poetry defined a moment in my life. A moment I resolved to take back the culture we were told to be ashamed of, and a moment to rekindle a fire that once burned within her.