Yesterday, Propnomicon woke up and discovered that eBay had taken down one of his auctions with extreme prejudice. Something about trafficking in human body parts being against their policies? Not sure where they would have gotten that idea…
“The heart used in this binding talisman shows the characteristic distortion of one placed inside a box while fresh. The moist tissue molded to one corner of the container and then dried out, displaying a distinctive ridge. At some point the heart was recovered from it’s resting place at the intersection of two roads and the spirit ritually bound. During the ceremony iron spikes were nailed into the desiccated flesh, allowing the necromancer to trap the soul within.”
In his defense, the auction title and accompanying disclaimer did clearly state that the heart is just a very well-made prop. eBay wasn’t buying it, though – and if you look at the close-up pictures and read the rest of the description you can see why they might have been a little suspicious – so the auction stayed down.
I highly recommend that you go take a look at the full post on Propnomicon’s blog, because it not only contains the full text of the wonderfully written prose he used to describe this prop in the auction, but also a lot of details about the making of the prop and all of the little ways he added realism to it – down to the smell, no less.