Welcome To the Glimmer Weaver

Whole worlds for RPGs are hard to imagine. We can try to build the geography and politics of the whole place, but there'll always be one question from one player which will make a Game Master go glass eyed and uncertain. It'd be nice to dream up an entire world for players to use, to dip in and out of, but individual places are much easier.

We've looked at a classic hub of scum and villainy in our previous location article. Now let's look a little closer at somewhere more everyday, but no less wondrous.

The Glimmer Weaver

The Glimmer Weaver can be found tucked into one corner of a market square in the commercial heart of any city in your setting. You can find just about any and every shop around here. One such shop is a tailors. The store takes up only one storey. Its wide window has a mannequin stand showing a stunning black suit, and a flowing emerald green dress with a sheer neckline. Spools of heavy fabric, which appear as different colours are propped in one corner of the window.

The store's interior is small, but functional. It's twenty feet deep, and the floor space is roughly square shape. On the right wall are many tall spools of fabric of varying textures and colours. The left wall is dominated by a floor to ceiling cabinet, with many inch wide drawers. Each one has thread inside, of different textures and colours. A wide table fills the central floor space, with many nicks and cuts in the woodwork. A door on the back wall leads off to the changing rooms, the owner's office, and the back door. The space behind the work table is littered with thick blankets and heavy pillows, which the owner often reclines in.

Garments suited for every occasion - ‘Tymna the Weaver’ by Winona Nelson

Upper Management

Just some of her selection - Fabrics photograph by Cottonpickins.com

Like my last article about The Break Knuckle Pit, I'm going to leave my characters anonymous. I'll tell you all about the looks and attitudes I've come up for them, but if you take inspiration from this article, then it'd be amazing to see Game Masters put their own spins on my characters.

The owner and main seamstress in The Glimmer Weaver is a woman with a calming voice and dark complexion. She has her hair tied up tight and simple, almost clerical dress. The striking feature on her person is the great bandage going across her eyes. Eagle eyed characters will notice that when she talks, she talks to the middle distance.

Her apparent blindness doesn't hamper her ability to craft perfect clothing. When a customer, usually players come in. She'll talk to them for a few minutes before. The act of walking around the squat store will let her know their pant size. When it comes to making the clothes herself, the cloth floats from their rolls and as much thread as she needs will slink from the drawers. She cuts slowly, and with precision, with a pair of gleaming silver scissors that she keeps in her bundle of hair. She never reaches for any colour or cut of fabric in particular, but always knows which colour and texture will drift into her grip. She always knows what cuts to make and folds with origami precision without hesitating, and obviously without looking.

She'll do her best to outfit the players with things they'd truly like, while surprising them with the skill it was made with. She's the calm voice that a player character can trust and confide in, and despite the suspicious minds a player may have, won't really go back on them. Sometimes NPCs can be nice for niceness sake.

To the most trusted of player characters, she can be a wondrous font of quests. If you’re working in a city with a lot imports, perhaps escorting her to take in new wares, only to defend a remarkably capable blind woman. Or perhaps she could ask the players to intervene on her behalf to shady nobles or members of trades guilds, only to find out darker plots are starting to unfold…

Closing Shop

With all the garments you need to tailor this clothes shop for your games, we want to hear from you. How would this clothing store fit in your scifi or fantasy setting? Do you have any ideas for interesting spots in your games you'd like to be featured? Keep a close watch on Apotheosis Studios for more monsters, locations, and handy ideas for your roleplaying games.

Adam Ray contributes much for adventurers here on Apotheosis Studios. As co-founder of fantasticuniverses.com, he writes about card gaming and PC gaming to a corner of the internet he carved out himself. On Youtube, he can be found game mastering for No Ordinary Heroes, or editing the antics on The Hostile Atmosphere. Follow his Twitter @IzzetTinkerer.