Volume 1 update: Stickers

and a story

The theme for this volume’s sticker drawings was “ants”.

And because a well-meaning someone (you know who you are) disturbed my psyche with the idea that ants will "farm” aphids and essentially force them to make nectar that they then lick from the aphids’ bodies, my brain sort of went there with the idea of ant girl-gangs, and the stickers became a small rogue’s gallery of ants doing ant-ish crimes.

Here are the three:

Anna Ant
Pheremone Forgery in the 1st Degree

While hiding in plain sight, Anna used her comprehensive knowledge of pheremone chemistry to create fake scent trails for her rivals. This led to hijinks, culminating in an entire army being sent not to a pile of available sugar, but to a local dog park. She is being held without bail and is considered extremely dangerous.

Cliosandra Ant
Illegal Nectar Production and Distribution,
Cruelty to Aphids

Everyone knows about Clio and her nightclub, Nectar. More than one weekly paycheck has ended up in her coffers and the entertainment at her perfectly respectable establishment is unparalleled. And, if you know the right people or can recite the right passphrase (rumored to be “I would like to lick a green dot, if given a fid of a chance”), a very special room behind the stage would open for you, filled with her “pets” — a swarm of aphids who’ve been fed on nothing but the best leaves, ready to satiate your need for nectar. It was an open secret until AETA (Ants for the Ethical Treatment of Aphids) found out and picketed, creating so much press that the Feds had to shut her down.

RIP, Nectar.

Mama Kitt,
ringleader of the Picnic Strike Force

A few months ago (a lifetime in ant years), reports began circulating of a group of mercenaries who would swoop in on human picnics, distract the apes, and clear out the unwatched picnic blanket in mere moments. The attacks were few and far between, and most ants thought they were just tall tales.

Then, they began happening again. The black market was flooded with potato salad and sandwich crumbs, but no one knew who was behind it. The group got larger and their crimes more flagrant, going so far as to begin leaving just a single empty ketchup packet on the humans’ blankets — a sign to say that the Picnic Strike Force had been there.

Despite her sweet demeanor, people began noticing that Mama Kitt’s baking of cookies for the PTA slowed down, and her farm had more comings and goings than is strictly normal. A neighbor noticed picnic basket shards on her property and…the rest is infamous history.

To this day, no one knows how she amassed such an army, or what skills she knew to teach her force’s henchmen. She has remained mute on the subject.

Also, I’m working on getting the Alemaster’s still life drawings scanned.

Stitching them together digitally is a pain in the patootie. So I’m taking breaks to write his story, too, which will be on a fourth 5x7” card with the other three in the set.

artwork found in the home of:
SILAS P. STEINBROOK

Silas P. Steinbrook, head of Stein & Barrel Aleworks, the most famous brewery in the Americas circa 1890 through the early 1900’s. Silas was a tall, solid man with a bushy mustache as golden as the finest lager and eyes that sparkled with close-to-the-surface laughter.

But he was no ordinary brewing magnate and Stein & Barrel was no ordinary brewery.

From nearly its inception, Steinbrook claimed his elixirs weren’t just hops and water, but brews created from secret recipes that he sourced from a grateful woodland sprite he stumbled upon when he was a boy. According to the hearsay of the time, he saved the sprite from a trap, and in return, was given a book of endless formulas, every one more fantastic than the last. Locals swore that drinking his various ales sparked the oddest coincidences: forgotten love letters were returned, missing cats reappeared, lottery tickets bore fruit after a pint or two. Minor magics, for sure, but enough to make the ales the subject of talk that grew into legends.

Even the brewery itself was rumoured to be touched with magic. Built atop a network of supposedly-normal tunnels, with a natural spring that flowed directly from the heart of the earth, the production methods were unconventional, to say the least. The water from the spring was collected in copper kettles, and employees would swear it hummed a soft, melodious tune that grew stronger the closer the clock got to midnight. When asked to hum it themselves, however, none could ever recall the exact melody.

Some claimed it was this water, springing from the veins of the earth, that gave the ales the mysterious energies that turned mash from Steinbrook’s kettles into magic. Others swore they’d heard laughter echoing from below on quiet nights, as if unseen beings toiled for the brewery’s success. Silas would never confirm the rumors and tales, but every night, long after his workers had gone, he would descend to the cellar with a single glass of his finest ale. There, some say he would pour it gently onto the stone floor, murmuring a thanks to his boyhood friend, though no one ever saw the nightly ritual themselves.

For those who tasted his brews, the possibly magical ales weren’t just drinks—they were bottled whispers of a magical world just out of reach to mortal hearts.

“Brewing’s not just science, my friend—it’s wonder in a bottle.” — Silas P. Steinbrook (b.1854 - d.1928)

So there’s my week in a nutshell, folkses.

Clearly, I’m having a good time over here in strange and magical worlds of my own making.

Next week, I’m diving into the game portion of this volume. I’ve got a couple ideas (an aesthetic match game and a solo, real-world RPG you can play in your daily life), and I’m hoping the fun will continue.

It’s been so rainy and dreary and bomb cycloney here that having a little magic to play with has been a godsend.

Still doing okay out there? None of you were blown to Oz in that last storm?

(I’d offer you some nectar but the supply seems to have dried up a bit. :D)