Hammari’s Fruit Tent (Petrichor 365)

One of the many colorful sights in the Open Market is Hammari’s Fruit Tent, a riot of bright colors, mostly greens, yellows, and reds.  Inside are piles and boxes of fruit.  All are arranged artistically around the central poles that support the tent.  When the tent is closed, it is magically sealed and protected, requiring magic or extreme physical force to get in.

There is a place for people to sit and enjoy their purchases in the tent, complete with bowls of water to wash off the juices and towels to dry one’s hands afterward.  Some merchants, but more often their spouses, meet here to buy fruit, obviously, but also to take a moment to relax in their shopping.  It is a good place for gossip and news, but mostly gossip.

The fruit is fresh and imported from all corners of the Sea of Stars, Hammari has a web of merchant contacts who bring him fruit as part of their shipments but he always has more fruit available than could possibly have been shipped to him.

Hammari is, or at least appears to be, a man in his early forties with luxurious curly black hair (obviously dyed to hide the grey) and a pointed beard (same), his grey eyes hint at secrets, and his skin is sun-darkened.   Hammari dresses in red robes, occasionally blue, with three knifes of various sizes, each used for a particular trimming of fruit (which he can wax poetic about if asked).  He has an easy and pleasant manner, capable of talking to children or kings with equal aplomb.  But Hammari is also a shrew bargainer and if one thinks they have gotten one over on him, they had best check the deal they made.

Besides himself, Hammari‘s wife, Kayisi works in the tent along with their three daughters, Armut, Elma, and Incir.  They all wear robes in primary colors, never matching colors and never the same color two days in a row.   While they are not as good at Hammari in bargaining they come very close (and people often underestimate the skills of the daughters).

They live in a house nearby to the Open Market that is festooned with colorful cloth streamers and painted with wards against the evil eye.  The house is also magically protected from thieves and intruders.

At the end of the day, the family gives away the damaged and spoiling fruit to locals in need.  Best that it does not go to waste they feel.  Some of this fruit ends up in alleyway winemaking, which produces a drinkable, though not pleasant, alcoholic brew.

Questions: Who are Hammari and his family really?  Where does the fruit come from?  Who made the magic protections for the tent?  My thought is that he made a wish with a genie, or other such spirit, and it went wrong, so now he has this amazing wealth of fruit, which can become coin, but it is challenging.

Notes: Another strange corner of the Open Market, but a good source of fruit, if you like fruit.  Also, another place to meet with people, linking to this month’s RPG Blog Carnival!

Petrichor 365.  Previous entry:  Happy Rei’s Sweets  Next Entry:  Logan’s Well

Image photo from Stock-Free.org and is in the Public Domain.