When I was writing Mythic Venice I put in a deliberate error: I mentioned restaurants. Venetians in the period didn’t use them so far as I can tell, they preferred street sellers. Lacking one type of street seller I didn’t mention ombra sellers, so its time to correct that.
Venetians like a snack and a drink during the heat of the day, and if they are in the Piazza, they prefer to consume them in the shade. This can be found in some of the colonnades around the square, but the steeple of the cathedral also acts like a great gnomon. People talking for a few hours gentle process about the square as the shadow moves, drinking wine as they walk. The wine sellers, pursue their customers, at a respectful distance, so they also orbit the square. These snacks are called ombras. literally shadows, because people saying “lets go find a shadow” to stand and talk in came to imply the snacks and drinks. There was a brief period when I considered adding recopies for ombras to the book, but there’s no need: your public library will have them. The one which dissuaded me was Cinnamon and Salt by Emiko Davies. I’ve also recycled an idea from the biography of our friend Edward Cole, who used to sleep under his book barrow.
A cynocephalus (dog headed) man works a small cart in the Merceria. He sells drinks with cracked chips of ice in them. Sometimes, in the heat of summer he sells sorbetto, an Arabic dish made of of shaved ice and fruit juice. Roman writers considered iced drinks unhealthy, suggesting they cause convulsions, but Venetians are willing to risk it during the slow boil of summer. He sings a cheery song about his wares, listing the vintages he carries or the flavours he can add. Sometimes the options he offers make no sense and people try them just to say that they, too, have tried a sardine and squid ink sorbet.
His little cart contains a portal to a mountaintop in his own country, far to the North. He goes there to sleep, and climbs out of the cart each morning, covered with a rime of frost that melts into the Venetian pavement. The “north” in this case may not be a real place: it could be a regio that he Simon enters using his cart as a prop..
Simon is a church faerie. There’s a strong folk belief that Saint Christopher was a dog-headed giant, a story seen in some of the saint’s iconography. Simon does not acknowledge being a faerie at all, claiming to be a member of a tribe of religious zealots from southern Serbia. That cynocephalus men come from Serbia (rather than the India or Africa) is a belief found in some Greek areas. Saint Mercurius, who was a Cappadocian soldier and was gifted a sword by the Archangel Michael, was attended by two cynocephalus monks said to be from that region, and Simon claims to be part of their extended family.
Mercurius is an odd sort of saint, because the truly devout can use him as a Divine assassin. One of my favorite church writers, Saint Basil, once prayed in front of his statue that God prevent the apostate emperor from returning from his military campaign, so that the emperor could not resume his persecution of Christians. The statue of Mercurius vanished and then reappeared, it spear now dripping with blood. Emperor Julian died at the same moment, struck down in battle with the Persians.
Simon the Ombra Seller
Faerie Might: 5
Characteristics: Int 0, Per 0, Pre 0, Com +2, Str 0, Sta +1, Dex +3, Qik -2
Size: 0.
Virtues and Flaws: Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, Observant; Hybrid Form, Incognizant. Personality Traits: Brave +2, Gregarious +1
Combat:
Cynocephalus Bite: Init -2, Attack +5, Defense +4, Damage +1
Ice chipping tool: Init -1, Attack +11, Defense +9, Damage +1
Soak: +1
Wound Penalties: –1 (1–5), –3 (6–10), –5 (11–15), Incapacitated (16–20), Dead (21+)
Pretenses: Animal Handling 3 (dogs), Awareness 4 (customers), Brawl 2 (bite), Carouse 4 (drinking), Craft: Ombra seller 4 (Venice), Faerie Speech 4 (making demands), Single Weapon 4 (ice chipping tool), Survival 3 (icy conditions).
Equipment: Like the piragua guy in In The Heights..
Vis: 1 pawn, the frozen corpse of a dog.
Appearance: A hybrid of both dog and human features.
Source: Koerakoonlane (Realms of Power : Faerie p.95.)
Games From Folktales 