When the gods and demons churned the ocean for the nectar of immortality, the demons seized it, and Vishnu took a form the world had never seen him wear. The story of Mohini, the enchantress before whom no disguise survives, and the rare materials chosen to carry her light.

A perfume for the storm country of the Lakota. Bergamot strikes like far lightning, Rocky Mountain juniper rises as sacred smoke, and beneath it all lie the old bones of the Badlands. The story of Wakinyan, the Thunder Beings, and the rare materials chosen to honor them.

The hand that rose from the water holding Excalibur, and the keeper who gave the blade only to the worthy. Mastic, grey pine, and juniper over violet leaf and Virginian cedar, resting on angelica root, red seaweed, and an ambergris accord.

A horse of extraordinary speed and nobility, remembered in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms as the mount of Lü Bu and later Guan Yu. Red champaca, honeysuckle, Meghalayan oud, and real deer musk, built to smell like a living animal rather than a portrait of one.