Bonus free item — Angler's Wand (Patreon)

I lost three fish last week.

TL;DR: this item from 2022 is now free, and features the three fish no longer with us. Please use this item with my heartfelt thanks and appreciation in your games. I would love to hear about your stories and time spent with it.

Tending fish is a unique sort of pet care, in my experience. Taking care of their needs is entirely up to you: you alone control their world, provided they're indoor fish, so when something is wrong, it's almost certainly the result of something you've done. Of course, diseases can just happen, but nine times out of ten, again from my experience, it's because of something you did. As a result, being a steward of fish has made me a more empathic and attentive person. I'm grateful beyond words for the experience, and would encourage more people to do the same.

We suffered a series of plumbing mishaps late last month that resulted in our water becoming acidic: too acidic for fish to survive in. Of our four goldfish, only one survives, and it's almost assuredly because of his larger size that he had the constitution to withstand the pH imbalance for long enough.

When something is wrong with your fish, a lot of the symptoms look the same as another's. I had never encountered poor pH before—we've been fortunate enough to always have quite good water here—so it was unfortunately too late by the time I thought to check the water's chemistry.

You learn the hard lessons when things are hard, and this has been no exception.

Gordon, the fish in front of this item, was our first fish, and can be seen in the first book's Kickstarter video. He was a rescue from a carnival, and had been patient with me while I learned to take care of him at the start. The other three, Tictac, Gravy, and Merlin, were brought into the tank later on, and grew to become a vibrant and playful family with Gordon. We loved taking care of them, and always looked forward to evenings spent watching TV with them—they'd all huddle at the edge of their tank to watch whatever we were.

Merlin survives this loss, but with an emotional cost. You can see it in how he moves through the tank now. I hope his heart can someday heal, too. Merlin is the fish in the top left.

This item is now free, and can be found at Saddleb.ag/Fish. The files are also included at the bottom of this post. If you take this item with you on your stories, I would love, and almost certainly cry, to hear about it. These fish were so loved, and I hope that they can live on with all of us in some way like this. They'll never have to stop at a glass wall again where they are now.

Rest in peace, Tictac, Gordon, and Gravy. You were so loved. Swim well.