Thatchwork
Editor’s Note, Hollowshire Observer:
We regret (and, on certain occasions, outright fear) to inform our readership that Pellinore Thatch has once again submitted a bundle of scribblings, ink blotches, and marginalia which he insists is journalism. After much debate, and in the absence of more reputable submissions, we have once again agreed to publish them under his ongoing column, Thatchwork.
Readers are advised that while Master Thatch’s articles are not always verifiable, they are invariably entertaining, occasionally useful, and once or twice have nearly started a riot.
Pellinore Thatch is not a man easily pinned down. Some call him a journalist, others a meddler with a typewriter, and a few say that he has walked Hollowshire longer than the Observer has kept its files. Whatever the truth, his column Thatchwork has become an irregular but much-anticipated feature of our paper, distributed whenever Thatch can be found, and persuaded to hand in his notes before fleeing to the next tavern or temple ruin.
Collected here are some of his most recent ramblings:
Of Gods and Tenure: The Thousand Year Old Cycle
In which Thatch explains how gods in Hollowshire serve not forever, but on a thousand-year contract, with endings less graceful than the priests care to admit.The Scholar Who Stole Hell
A scandalous retelling of Lucifer Morningstar’s youth, revealing she was once a Hollowshire scholar before assuming her current throne in the underworld.The Honest Guide to a Dishonest Market
A tour of the infamous Thieves’ Market. Equal parts travel guide, pickpocket manual, and public safety warning.
Whether exposing divine bureaucracy, recounting the underworld’s greatest career change, or cataloguing thieves with precision, Pellinore Thatch continues to provide Hollowshire with its most untrustworthy trustworthy voice.
Proceed at your own risk.
About Pellinore Thatch (by Pellinore Thatch, naturally)
I am Pellinore Thatch: traveller, journalist, folklorist, accidental archaeologist, occasional smuggler of truths, and frequent enemy of silence. I write the Thatchwork column for the Hollowshire Observer, though between you and me, the Observer doesn’t always know it’s publishing me until after the ink has dried.
My work has taken me from the golden trees of Hell (don’t eat the fruit, trust me) to the midnight courts of gods (they cheat at cards, every single one of them), to the markets where your purse will vanish before you even realize you had one. I write what I see, and sometimes what I almost see, because what is a good story if it doesn’t lean a little dangerously over the edge of truth?
I have been called unreliable, eccentric, and once, in a particularly dirty tavern brawl, “a ferret in boots.” I take all three as compliments.
If you ever find me, I’ll likely be hunched over a notebook, talking to myself, drinking something stronger than tea, and asking entirely the wrong questions. And if you don’t find me, well, perhaps I found you first.
If you’d like to see more of this world in its weird, twisted glory, you’ll find it inside my novel Shoes for Men & Beasts. Pick up a copy, and you’ll get the context, the chaos, and the creatures that make Hollowshire breathe (and occasionally bite).