Who is Granna Vell?

Granna Vell (known affectionately as Granny Know or The Button Witch to the locals) is a haunched, elderly woman with thick circular spectacles perched on the end of her nose. Granna is what many call her but Vell is her real name.
She runs a cluttered market stall at Willowshade’s weekly gathering, selling a trove of mundane but intriguing objects. Though she has no magical powers, her decades of travel and sharp intuition make her a master of reading people — often offering advice that feels eerily accurate.

Granna Vell is the “Almost” Fortune Teller: While she’s not a real oracle, she’s a master of reading people. Locals go to her stall for advice and help on all manner of mundane problems. Her answers are based on common sense, gossip, and a touch of folk wisdom, her “advice” is surprisingly, though coincidentally, on point. For example, she might advise a lovelorn local to put a “lucky stone” (just a rock) by their front door, but the real reason they find love is because it forces them to tidy up and look presentable when they go outside.

Her stall is full of “almost” magical items, for example: She might sell a regular bootlace, telling a hunter it was blessed by a mountain spirit, when in reality it just happens to be made of sturdy hemp, or a “silver tongue” trinket, just a cheap metal charm she found, but if a player wears it, they might feel more confident in their social rolls, creating a placebo effect.

Granna Vell’s Market Stall.

Granna Vell has a small, portable stall overflowing with assorted items—from chipped teacups and tarnished silverware to exotic spices and curious, unidentifiable knick-knacks. Her stall is a treasure trove of mundane but intriguing objects. Instead of magic items, she offers practical curios including:

• • An “orc-repelling” jingling bell, she claim’s it was used to ward off orcs in the old days, but the real effect is that the sound annoys nearby creatures and causes them to move away.
• A chipped teacup with a floral pattern, which she claims helps ward off bad dreams, though it likely just holds herbal tea.
• A small leather pouch filled with “traveler’s luck”—a mix of polished river stones and a single, foreign coin.
• An intricately carved wooden sparrow that is said to be from a distant kingdom.
• A Silver Tongue Trinket which she claims boost confidence in social encounters but is really just a cheap charm.
• A dented old thimble which she calls a Whisper Thimble and claims “remember prayers”.
• The Stormglass of the South. A cloudy vial of water the “predicts the weather” (if you believe hard enough)
• and buttons, she has a big box full of assorted buttons.

Market Interactions

Granna Vell shines in conversation. She watches, listens and nudges her customers towards action with gentle wisdom

• A nightmare cure: If someone tells her they have been getting recurring nightmares, she might sell them a small, cracked mirror with instructions to place it under their pillow to trap the bad dreams.
• Slyly foreshadowing: She tells about a far-off place, mentioning it in the context of one of her curious items. “This old map? Oh, I found it near that ruined castle by the Whispering Woods. They say a great treasure was lost there, though I wouldn’t go looking for it myself.”.
• Post-Danger Comfort: If a customer looks like they have had a brush with danger, she’ll greet them by saying, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Here, have some of my healing salve,” handing them a slightly-less-effective-than-advertised potion.
• Obervational Advice:
  • To a cleric: “This candle stub was lit in a temple long gone. Keep it. It remembers prayers.”
  • To a rogue: “You walk like silence. Wear this bell with no clapper — sometimes it’s good to be seen.”

Adventure hook

Granna Vell can offer the party a simple, but effective, plot hook. While trading, she might say something like:

• “Oh, that sword of yours… it’s seen some dark places, hasn’t it? The rust on the hilt… it reminds me of the old crypts west of here. The kind with something sleeping inside…”
• She might take a moment to study a member of the party and offer a random trinket, saying, “You’ll need this. The path ahead is full of fog, and this trinket will help you find what you seek,” even if the item is just a piece of polished wood.
• She may show the party a wooden button: “This one’s special. Came off a coat worn by a man who forgot everything — name, home, even how to hold a spoon. But when he touched this button, he remembered one thing: a song his mother used to sing about a buried truth. Funny, isn’t it? Memory’s stitched into things, if you know how to listen.”
• She might tell a party member who is a rogue about a specific, locked chest she bought from a traveling merchant: “This belonged to a thief, you know. I’ve never been able to open it, but perhaps you have the magic touch?”

Granna Vell doesn’t know the exact plot points or dangers. She just has a habit of connecting what she sees with the folklore and tall tales she’s collected over the years. Her “prophecies” are simply informed speculation, which can be a fun way to foreshadow events or give the party a nudge in the right direction.

The idea of Granna Vell is as a village fixture who dispenses folksy wisdom and slightly-off magical trinkets. Her role as a source of harmless misinformation makes her memorable and a consistent source of small, flavourful interactions. It also builds the kind of lived-in village atmosphere that makes players feel more connected to the world.

Whether she’s selling a cracked mirror to trap nightmares or offering a bell that “keeps goblins at bay,” Granna Vell reminds us that sometimes the smallest stories carry the deepest magic. She’s the kind of NPC who lingers in memory, long after the dice have stopped rolling.

💬 Have you ever created a character like Granna Vell? What would she sell in your world? Share your favorite “almost-magical” item or market moment in the comments — I’d love to hear how she might find a home in your adventures

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