THE BEGINNING
OUR STORY
Crisp Knight really started because I forgot my clothes in the wash overnight. When I went to rewash them the next morning, I begrudgingly reached for the usual scent boosters and realized I didn’t even want to use them. I was sick of the same floral smell and wanted something fresher, woody, maybe citrusy. Someone suggested cologne, but I didn’t want anything that overbearing. I wanted something less artificial, less punchy, and longer lasting.
I went looking for it. I found… nothing.
So I decided to make some myself. I found a few DIY recipes online, picked some fragrances, and put together my first batch. When it was done, I couldn’t wait to bury my head in the laundry and breathe in my creation. It was disappointing. I could hardly smell a difference.
That kicked off weeks of experimenting. I kept changing ratios, cutting ingredients, and trying new blends until I finally made something that worked. I was ecstatic. I kept testing more scents after that. Some were good, plenty were bad, but my very first choice still stood out as my favorite.
Around this time, I was talking to a friend at my local makerspace about different projects we were working on. I mentioned my homemade laundry scent shards, and he shared my frustrations with the selection on the market. Which were made worse by his sensitive skin. After hearing what ingredients I was using, he asked if he could try some. A couple of days later, he came back saying they worked great: no irritation, and he loved the scent.
That was the moment it stopped being just a hobby. Crisp Knight was born. This story is still at the very beginning, and I’m excited to see where it goes. What started as a small experiment is only the start of a bigger journey.
PROLOGUE
THE LORE
In the days when the realms were wild and the roads unkind, a company of knights journeyed deep into the mountains. Weary from travel, they made camp beside a stream that ran clear and cold through the stones. There, they washed the dust from their cloaks and the sweat from their armor, and thought little more of it.
Yet when the next day’s march was done, a wonder was revealed. Their garments, soiled by toil and stained by steel, bore still the fragrance of dense wood and bright citrus, as though the crisp mountain air had clung to them. Days passed, battles followed, but still the scent endured.
Curious, the knights retraced their steps to the stream. Following its course, they came at last to its source: a cavern lined with crystal unlike any they had seen. These crystals, breathed a freshness so bold it seemed the air itself had been enchanted.
They called these crystals Aromite, and the waters that flowed through its veins carried its gift, and cloth bathed within them bore freshness that endured through long marches and bitter battles.
The knights raised a bathhouse at the spring, where adventurers and warriors alike came to cleanse both linens and spirit. Yet many sought to carry the marvel with them beyond those walls. Thus the crystal was ground into shards, tokens of Aromite that infused distant waters with the same lasting crispness.
So it was that the bathhouse, and the brotherhood who kept it, became known to all as The Crisp Knight.