((A silly conversation with the Nekkid Cow about two very different Mervyns — the Sherriff of Rottingham to him, the Pumpkinhead to me –lead me to the realization that you could, if you wanted to, roll a Merv Pumpkinhead in WoW.  All it would take would be a staff-wielding Forsaken (for the Farmer’s Broom from Tirisfal) and some Weighted Jack-o’-Lanterns.  Add to that a pair of overalls and a workshirt, and a little FlagRSP magic (for his surname and cigarette, of course!), and you have yourself a Merv.  I do have screenshots, but they’re on another machine and need to be converted from .tga to .jpg.  Update to come later on!

Now, understand, I’m usually one of the first ones to shout “KEEP YOUR CROSSOVERS OUT OF MY WOW” at the would-be Aragorns, Drizz’ts, and, (/cringe) Edward Cullens.  (Granted, I don’t shout it at them or even whisper.  I just think it really hard at the screen.)  But this struck me as amusing fun for Hallow’s End, and to at least avoid a clashing of pantheons, Merv is a servant of Ysera, not Morpheus.

You’re invited, if you’d like, to write a follow-up.  Maybe your character has seen him, lurking in the background of his or her dreams, mopping up or dusting, or passing through on his way from one adventure to another. Maybe he stops and chats, or maybe your character follows him and has one of the strangest dreams he or she has ever had. It’s completely up to you!

So, without further ado, and with my apologies to Neil Gaiman, I give you… Merv.))

The man is tall. No, taller. Taller still. Add another half a foot and you might be close. Tall, and rail-thin, as though beneath his faded blue overalls he has sticks instead of bones. Of course, his height and loose, lanky posture probably aren’t what drew your eye, when you come to think about it.

It’s awfully hard to miss the huge orange jack o’lantern that rests atop his shoulders where his head ought to be. Oh, for certain, mischief makers throw their weighted gourds around at Hallow’s End, but this one’s… different. It takes another moment of observation, a bit of shameless eavesdropping on the conversation he’s having, before it clicks.

As the pumpkin-headed man leans on his broom and gestures with a gloved hand at his well-dressed, bespectacled companion, you realize the jack o’lantern has… expressions. It’s scowling, then it’s laughing, all the while puffing away at the cigarette hanging from its carved-out mouth.

“I tell ya, Loosh,” he says, pitching the burned-out dogend of the first smoke and lighting another, “it ain’t like it used ta be. Back in the day, me an’ Itharius used ta meet once every coupla weeks in that cave of his. I’d bring the booze, he’d bring the babes. I mean, ya had ta get ‘im good an’ drunk every now an’ then, ya know? Otherwise he was all ‘Oh, my brother this, oh Eranikus that.’ Look, your brother goes batshit, it weighs on a body, y’know?”

The companion nods, shifts the pile of books in his arms (books whose titles you almost recognize, but ones you’re sure you’ve never actually seen). He has the faint hint of a man who has somewhere else to be but doesn’t know how to extricate himself from a conversation. Or perhaps that of someone who’s tried and failed to do the same many times before, and is now simply resigned to the diatribes.

The pumpkin-headed man continues. “Anyway. We’d get together, have a laugh. I’d make my deliveries an’ get the hell back ta Redridge. Who wants ta live in a swamp, y’know? Other than elves that ain’t elves. An’ orcs. An’ trolls. An’… whatever. You know what I mean. Not for me. An’ it’s not like there was profit in it, neither. At the end, I think the only reason I even went there was so he wouldn’t mope himself inta oblivion. Guess it was a smart thing, though. I mean, plague comes, we’re all screwed, yeah? Runnin’ around, eatin’ brains an’ Ysera knows what else. Only he pulls some strings, an’ I somehow go from droolin’, shamblin’ bag o’rot ta… well. This.” He waves his hands around, indicating his frame.

His companion nods again and adjusts the wire-framed glasses perched atop his long, thin nose.

“I dunno. I suppose somethin’ got lost in translation somewhere, but it ain’t all that bad. It’s a handsome mug, I gotta say. An’ it ain’t such a bad gig. I mean, I ain’t a librarian, but I get around. Plenty of chicks want a bit of pumpkin pie, if ya catch my meanin’.” He throws a pointy elbow at his friend, who even oofs politely. “Thing is, since he’s left his cave an’ gone up ta that temple, it’s not the same, y’know? He’s Lord Itharius now, an’ he’s all formal whenever I stop in, what with the Dragonqueen within shouting distance. Have ya gotten an eyeful o’her, by the by? She is one smokin’ piece of… whatta ya lookin’ at?”

The pumpkin-headed man breaks off to follow the librarian’s gaze, and for the first time, the other man speaks. “I do believe, Mervynn, that we have an audience. Perhaps we should return to our respective duties.”

They are, of course, looking right at you.

They grow hazy, as though they are the stuff of dreams. That may very well be because they are the stuff of dreams. Your dream.

The librarian turns and disappears into the stacks. Mervyn smokes in your direction for another few seconds, before hefting his broom and heading off, muttering.

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