Gammer's Palate

Stats

• Role: Diviner and appraiser who reads an object's history through taste
• Bond: Obsessed with discovering why the heirloom she inherited from her wife refuses to tell its story
• Flaw: Becoming dependent on the warmth that emanates from certain objects—it's the only thing that soothes her arthritis

Appearance

A wiry grandmother in her seventies with silver hair tied back with canvas cord. Her hands are scarred from decades of monster-hunting, and she moves with the deliberate care of someone whose joints protest. She keeps a coil of ship's rope on her workbench to worry at while thinking. Her shop smells of beeswax and something like cinnamon, though no spices are visible. When she tastes an object—placing it against her tongue or lips—her eyes glaze white for a moment.

Secret

The warmth isn't from the objects. Three months ago, Gammer accidentally tasted a fragment of a sleeping god's dream that had crystallized inside an old music box. The fragment is now growing inside her, giving off heat as it tries to remember itself into wakefulness. It whispers through her Gift, asking for the names of everyone she touches, everyone she reads. It's building a congregation. Gammer suspects something is wrong but finds the constant warmth too comforting to investigate—her old injuries haven't hurt in weeks.

Hook

Gammer can read the entire history of any object she tastes—battles fought, words spoken nearby, the emotions of its owners. Recently, she's begun asking clients strange follow-up questions: their full names, their mothers' names, where they were born. She writes everything in a leather journal with shaking hands, as if compelled. The canvas curtain dividing her shop from her living quarters has been tied back with rigging line, and clients glimpse dozens of such journals stacked inside, all filled with names in her increasingly erratic handwriting.

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