[Image: An inky spread in the style of a diagram, or field notes. It depicts a winding bristlecone pine, with gnarled, age-worn bark and a partially hollow trunk. From its great boughs hang adder stone-like oil lamps. Inside the tree’s hollow is a tiny pool of hot spring water, steam wafting warmly up the hollow trunk. A lamplighter keeps a furtive eye on it all, standing on the pine’s enormous exposed roots and looking out over the mountainside.]
We travel far to be in the company of beings that are very old. This pine is not. (what elder among us would allow us to crawl around their roots like that?)
But a little embellishment never hurt anyone. Sometimes a thing is old because you believe it to be. In this way, this tree is the potemkin, the sacrificial lamb of sorts that draws visitors from afar and diverts them from audience with much older—and much more vulnerable—trees.
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Bristlecone Shrine - Charity Adoptabode
Something new and experimental… I am inspired by Sarspax’s worldbuilding toolkits and this exchange with Foervraengd to create adoptable environments. Use them for your TTRPG campaign, your worldbuild, your OC in want of a home, your esk, etc. : -)
All proceeds from this sale will be donated to Apache-Stronghold, to help save Chi’chil Bildagoteel (Oak Flat) from a destructive mine. Oak Flat holds enormous significance to members of the San Carlos Apache nation, is a world-renowned natural area to hikers and climbers, a hotbed of Sonoran desert biodiversity, and is emotionally and geographically close to me, too.
This sale is now closed. enormous thanks to Wasongo for his generosity!!
(But you can still check it out here : -) )
