Jemima Chisolm

Jemima Chisolm was a baker and proprietor of the family-run Downunda Patisserie in Ravens Bluff in the Vast in the mid-to-late 14 century DR.
==Relationships==
She was the widow of Arvend Chisolm and the mother of Derek, Allison, and Karl.
==Personality==
Jemima was friendly and cheerful and spoke kindly to everyone—apart from adventurers, whom she did not like, and people who rudely probed into her background. She would not speak about her husband or her past. If it wasn't baking, it wasn't anyone's business. Any customer who stood out as an adventurer was served politely and swiftly, so they could be out of the store sooner. Jemima also worried halflings would be too tempted by her baked goods and shoplift them when she wasn't looking, so she and her children made sure to attend to them personally and politely the whole time they were present. Later, it was only "the adventuring type" that she worried about.
Naturally she adored her children and did anything to look after them. She tried to protect them from "undesirable types" and keep them from wanting to leave for a life of adventure, usually by keeping Derek and Allison busy in the bakery and sending Karl to school and hoping he would become a cloistered cleric. She rationed them to only three of the bakery's smaller cakes a week to prevent them putting on weight.
She enjoyed weddings immensely, asking all sorts of questions about any nuptials and excited to bake wedding cakes, even for "the adventuring type".
==Description==
At age 39, Jemima stood and weighed . She had slightly graying strawberry-blonde hair that she kept tied up in a bun, and bright blue eyes that were forever twinkling with her good mood. She spoke with a soft accent from somewhere in the south, which men tended to find attractive.
==Activities==
Jemima's only interest was cooking and she was becoming renowned for her culinary talents. By closing time, the shelves were bare, leading some to affectionately call Jemima "Mother Hubbard" after a nursery rhyme from another world.
Many of the wealthier citizens of Ravens Bluff preferred to have Jemima Chisolm prepare grand cakes for their special occasions instead of relying on their own kitchen staff. They paid handsomely for her cakes, enough for her to put Karl through school and supply her with magical enhancements to her business.
It was rumored that Jemima regularly baked extra batches of cakes and delivered them to poorer parts of Ravens Bluff; true or not, she was well known in these areas, despite the fact that her wares were too expensive for poor folk.
With folk from all around Ravens Bluff visiting the Downunda Patisserie, Jemima learned much of affairs in the city. However, she was no gossip and would not yield information easily.
==Abilities==
She could count cooking and "cheerfulness" as special abilities.
==History==
Jemima's husband Arvend was a mercenary with a habit of getting drunk, until finally this led him to inadvertently kill a noble. For his crime, he was executed and all the family's belongings seized. Jemima managed to hide only a single gem. Destitute and ashamed, Jemima left with her family to build a new life. They arrived in Ravens Bluff in the late 1350s DR and purchased the bakery. The unusual name of the shop was supposedly suggested to Jemima by a bearded old mage from Shadowdale, who claimed to have traveled to "far places indeed" where there were bakeries like hers that were occasionally called "patisseries".
Jemima was once commissioned by a great wizard to bake an anniversary cake the likes of which had never before been seen in Ravens Bluff, and would never be seen there again. She did so with expert skill and the wizard gave her a magical oven, on the provision that she never make that cake again.
On another occasion, a friendly cleric asked Jemima to bake a birthday cake for her bishop. In place of payment, the cleric cast a glyph of warding to protect the bakery's storage room; only Jemima and Derek knew the key to bypassing it.
During Myrkyssa Jelan's war in the , raids on barges on the River Vesper interrupted goods getting into Ravens Bluff. Among other businesses, Dowunder Patisserie lost several crates of ingredients and aproms. If anyone returned these, Jemima Chisolm would reward them with six-dozen double-chocolate-chip cookies.
In the , Mijel Morigan visited to collect an order of two baskets of sweet bread loaves for his wife Jandra's restaurant; he may have had adventurers in tow, risking Jemima being curt with them. But if they mentioned their help in arranging the wedding of famed Vast adventurers Despherion Wolf and Lady Fawn Sweetrose Moonray Thorin, then Jemima would be very interested and, if requested, eagerly baked a black forest chocolate cake as a gift for the couple.
By 1370 DR, Jemima had recently hired members of the neighboring Lontle family to run errands buying and fetching ingredients such as flour, fruits, nuts, and sundry seasonings.
==Appendix==
===Appearances===
===References===
Category:Humans
Category:Bakers
Category:Shopkeepers
Category:Inhabitants of the Downunda Patisserie
Category:Inhabitants of Ravens Bluff
Category:Inhabitants of the Vast
Category:Inhabitants of North Faerûn
Category:Inhabitants of Faerûn
Category:Inhabitants of Toril
Category:Inhabitants of neutral good alignment
Category:Inhabitants of 0th level (2e)