Bicchieri Caravan
The Bicchieri Caravan is a Cuali merchant group that trades in many different kinds of goods, but specializing in glassware. They have a circuitous route which they follow twice a year around the center of the Edoya continent. They do not visit the Geldar Republic but do hit some important trade settlements close to its outskirts within the Freecities League and eastern outskirts of Samakar: most of the Gren Road, across the trackless northern Longgrass Plains, and perhaps two-thirds of the Warden Road.
The Bicchieri Caravan was founded by D'Tarrargos Saverio burr Teramo Bicchieri in Muzis 498. His best friends were a group of young glassblowers who spent much of their spare time in experiments to turn rejected alchemical powders from the nearby school into a sturdier/lighter weight/more attractive glass bottle.
At first, Saverio's goal was to find a market for some of his friends' oddest results.
He discovered within a few trips that the most stable profit came from a two-way plan: not just selling the strange bottles and the mundane contents within them, but also in bartering for other settlements' castoff materials which would actually be of potential use back home. He might trade a crate of bright yellow jam jars for five sacks of "this smelly tree bark that burns poorly and stains everything" at fang, or a head chain of glass beads might purchase a woven box of "worthless" quartz conglomerates in @Gild'mar, but the resulting effects in glassblowing might create a set of temple lanterns that pay for a year's worth of caravan maintenance.
(Or might explode. Life is an adventure!)
The Bicchieri Caravan officially stopped trading in the Geldar Republic at the turn of the century. Officials in Morodar attempted to collect "back taxes" based upon an official audit in absentia of the past two years' trades. Saverio promptly turned his caravan around on the Warden Road. He consulted several rangers operating in the Longgrass Plains to map eight alternative routes from just below Morodar across to the southern tip of the Dryslate River and then southwest to Gren Weigh.
Fifteen years later, Saverio rewrote his twice-a-year schedule to always travel deasil around the Longgrass plains: mostly north along the Gren Road with many side forays into either Samakar, Angesh, or the wild areas of the Longgrass Plains; then eastward across the northern Longgrass Plains but keeping south of Thysbee and Rockleaf Forest and any official border crossing; southward along the Warden Road with side forays to Plume Lake and the settlements near it; a long rest at Dublinshire to make any final adjustments, and at last home to Tarrargos.
As of 578, the Bicchieri Caravan is not as large as Shire Merchant Company, for example, but it does fairly well for itself. By tradition, leadership of the Caravan is passed from father to his most interested and adaptable son, although that son might have been adopted at adolescence if the current "Caravanmaster Bicchieri" spots a promising lad in Tarrargos.
The (usually twelve) wagons are constructed with excellent shock absorption and a tendency to remain upright if they float during the rainy season. Two wagons travel empty except for bedding: they are made with extra reinforcement, in case the most valuable wagon animals need to be placed indoors for a short duration. When not in use for emergency purposes, the caravan guards not currently on duty are probably asleep in these particular wagons.
The Bicchieri Caravan sells a wide range of glassworks and things in glass containers, including preserved food, alcoholic beverages, lamps, window panes, spyglasses, mirrors, and jewelry. They purchase food for themselves and their animals, odd materials which might prove useful for future glassmaking, and any bulk product that might be put inside or around a glass jar for sale at the next stop on their journey.
Type
Consortium, Financial
Leader
Notable Members
Related Ethnicities
Roster
- Ruggiero Bicchieri, Caravanmaster
- Dacio Bicchieri, apprentice
- Fiore Bicchieri, special appraiser
- Rocco Medici, Guard Lead
- Chiara Antonioli, trader
- Ofelia Depace, accountant
- Gianmarco Endrizzi, inventory
- Delizia Filosa, cook
- Serapio Marzano, trader
- Giusi Medici, guard
- Liberata Pasquarella, guard
- Catia Di Sabato, mechanic
- Amedeo Scordato, mechanic
- Radolfo Spagna, wrangler
- Casto Trapasso, harmless
- Grato Di Tullio, inventory
- Enecone Vannucci, guard
- Enrica Venier, wrangler
- Milo Vivirito, trader
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