Hanging Herbs

"You see there? In the window?" Micah lifted a hand to gesture towards the yellow block house set back from the road. Hanging in the window were neat little clusters of herbs hanging to dry. There was nothing remarkable, that I could notice. Just some dried plants.

"Yeah?.. so?" He made a frustrated little sound in his throat that made me reconsider my initial assessment. "Okay. Clearly they mean something. I'm not going to stand here and guess." Micah had turned to take the few steps that led up to the door of the unremarkable dwelling.

"They mean we are welcome here and that you have a lot to learn." The little smirk that flashed on his lips was infuriating.

When there is a modern expression concerning the active persecution of your people, you learn to communicate a little differently. Witch hunts became so frequent through the tides of time that witches developed their own methods of discrete communication. The most obvious one is through the hanging of herbs. Which different herbs can have different meanings, their meaning can also easily be shifted dependent upon what is being used to bind and hang them. These hanging herbs act as both symbols of community inside the hidden traditions as well as a means of communicating urgent information.

Manufacturing process

Each hanging herb is crafted carefully by a witch. They start with herbs of various stages of freshness. Most often the herbs are fresh and will be dried for other uses in the process, but sometimes a message needs to be sent that may use an herb that isn't currently in harvest to easily be used. In such cases, it is not beyond witches to use pre-dried herbs. These herbs are then bound together into a bundle with a twine or cord and suspended from the window.

Raw materials & Components

• Dried Herbs
• Twine

Tools

• Scissors

Herbs

• Mugwort - Magical Protection
• Sage - Information
• Bay - Hospitality
• Rosemary - Glamourer
• Lavender - Luck
• Clove - Monetary Support
• Cinnamon - Work
• Dandelion - Spirit Worker
• Thyme - Herbalist

Binding Color

Yellow - Welcome

Red - This residence is jeopardized

White - In Need

Black - Is available