"Whispered words, pickled and preserved!"

One more bit of flavor text from my old Changeling game, and then I'll revert to something more topical, I promise.

The path you take is a narrow, cavernous affair, crowded with trees and brush that seem to grip at your clothing and hair. When the wind blows, you’d swear you can hear muttering and whispering in the blackness. Off in the distance, a twig snaps loudly. As you shuffle uncertainly down the path, the eerie sounds seem to increase in volume and frequency. Strange music, equally earthy and ethereal, drifts between the dark treetrunks, and soon you can see silver-blue light. As you get closer, the light makes your path clearer, until you find yourself stepping into the surreal madness of the Nightmarket.

This is no gathering of changelings, and the colloquial term “goblin market” is no exaggeration. Most of the creatures here were never human, and the wares they hawk and vend defy mortal understanding. The forest canopy crowds down on you, and is lit by the same diffuse blue glow that illumines the Nightmarket. Vines and wispy scraggles of moss hang down among the booths, carts, and heads of the creatures here. The whole place is less a forest clearing and more a cavernous grotto of branch, root, and trunk.

The variety of goods is staggering. Jars and bottles of eyes that twitch to watch passersby. Strange gourds and fruits from the Hedge. Ancient books of faerie lore. The foreskins of heretical men. Feathers and skins from exotic beasts. Hedgespun garments. Contracts. Dried herbs. Fresh herbs. Broken toys. Stolen songs. Lost dogs. Forgotten dreams. Potions, distilled from the saliva of apes and the menstrual blood of horses. The hands of hanged men. Jars of fat, rendered from the bellies of the unrepentant. Bird bones and boneless birds. Preserved fish, dead in their jars. Graveyard earth.

“Toes… toes for sale… two times two, three times three, toes for sale….”
“Gemstones, fine jewelry! Opals, tourmaline, diamonds, petrified heart! Strung with pearls, set in rings!”
“Contracts… oaths of power and mystery…”
“Lies… lies for sale… two times two, four times four…”
“Suicide letters, freely exchanged for reagents of twisted earth…”
“Hopes and Fears, we buy and sell.”

Goblin-creatures of varied and outrageous appearance populate the market. Here a tiny crone pushes a cart of doll’s eyes. There a vine-entwined nymph, bare-breasted and with leaves in her hair, laughs at the flirtation of a grotesque dwarf. He pulls open the front of his pants, giving her a glimpse inside, and the two laugh uproariously. At the base of a dying oak, a team of huge-eyed gnomes, made of earth and dressed in leaves, unloads a cart of tools. Across from them, an ancient man of polished wood squats naked on a mossy carpet. Everywhere you look it is busy, as goods change hands at a madman’s pace.

“Whispered words, pickled and preserved!”
“Charms, tokens, and treasures, all stolen…”
“Burned candles, broken promises!”
“Shrouds, all for a pittance… corpse-clothes, burial shrouds…”
“Greed, Bitterness, Loss, and Sorrow, Pain and Suffering by the ounce.”
“Oracles! Divination! I see all!”