The Thoughts of Painted People
I've invented a new exercise to work on my ability to imagine what each and every NPC in a D&D setting might be thinking, and to strengthen my powers of description.
Here we have Pieter Meulener's painting Sack of a Flemish Village by Spanish Soldiers, painted circa 1654. (Sorry the quality isn't great when zoomed in; it's the best version I could find.)
Now, look at these closeups, where I've labeled several people with numbers. In this post, I've imagined snippets of those characters' thoughts, speech, and/or actions, which befit the events of this painting, and the battle that preceded them.