Noth, Skepti Rogue, and Vigilante Journalist and Detective (Patreon)

A unique rogue and vigilante journalist I drew on commission recently! Noth’s player also provided me with a nice backstory that I am sharing below!

Character: Noth, Skepti Rogue, and Vigilante Journalist and Detective

"Why, this?" the Skepti girl laughed shortly, soft as a quiet night "No, pardner, not quite. This ain't no hairstyle. This ain't no hair, truth be told" she smiled "Reckon I did get the darkest corner in this here place after all. Come, you can warm this seat for a while, have a closer look. This ain't looking like hair anymore, ain't it? Told ya. You're a curious one, you know? It's not a grand story, being honest, just one as old as wind. How do you say it? Curiosity killed the cat, only this time curiosity half-assed the job." Long, svelte fingers sheathed in leather drew two lines on the girl's right temple, where her antennae had left behind ugly scars after what could only had been gunshots. "Picture yourself with sixteen, hand in hand with your sweetheart strolling the woods looking for a nice place to let life do what life does when you are a pup. Now imagine you have enough bad luck to run into some shady dealings which you shouldn't know about. Damned bastard shot my friend down, then lassoed me by the neck back to him and... Well, you see the end result. What? If I searched for a sheriff? Don't be mistaken, friend, do I look like someone in need of justice? If I wanted justice, Arcadia wouldn't have gotten in my horizon, yet here I am, smoking in a dark corner of the city's crappiest saloon. Cliche, you say? Yes, of course, but that's not the point. Not being too noticed is, and nobody glares twice at the odd stick when she looks like just another boring moron playing the hard type. Well, yes, had I searched for tranquility, this'd be the last half-decent idea of a place to stay in, but I'm afraid you ain't catching my drift, bud. Don't you worry, here, have a quirley and let me ask the questions."

She smiled again, something quick and sharp flashing in pupil-less eyes of fresh blood with pyramid-shaped iris. The stranger smiled, but something clicked under the table and he noticed the girl's lips were curled with that same sharpness her eyes had betrayed.

"So, Mr. Verlom Blytoll, let me guess your next two questions: how does she know my name and why am I under arrest?"

Legends in Desterra have it that the Skepti tribes in the Dawnbreak Range west of the Administration's colonies in Newhearth Wasteland trace their origin not back to, but rather up to Skepia, the bright and lush moon of purple and emerald, hence the name colonists give them. In truth, Skepti are as alien to the continent of Desterra as every other civilized species, but it so happens that the northerner's amazement at Skepti traits is actually very understandable. First among these are the tamwa, segmented, hollow tubes of chitin-like tissue that form a lush mane, but their first and foremost function is to communicate with others of their kind through complex pheromone chains. Through the tamwa, Skepti can sense vibrations in the air and the emotions of others, a gift which has made this people quiet and empathetic, able to work together as one without need of many words.

Tamwas are gifts from the world, Skepti loresingers pray, and it would take its absence to truly comprehend how much of a truth this is. Sadly for Life, that's how she ended up in the Gallows Private Detective Agency.

After losing more than half of her tamwa's segments and many as a whole, Life's tribe started to have it hard noticing her presence and utterly impossible to connect with her as deep. Turned into a pariah in the blink of an eye, Life realized she'd lost forever the very essence which connected her people and gave a deeper meaning to their lives, choosing Nothing as her new name. Reduced to little more than a tragic ghost to her tribe, Noth didn't hesitate to accept Leigh Gallows' job offer as pathfinder when she visited her village in search of the very man who had broken her life forever: Aldread Norrigan.

Now, as Leigh's survival expert and her most reliable detective thanks to her diplomatic nature, Noth has found certain closure to her pain and is as focused as Leigh in finding Aldread Norrigan so the Administration may judge him according to the northerners' cruel law. However, even when Aldread's chase is harsh and dangerous, laden with traps, treason and brutality, Noth harbors no desire of torturing Aldread nor inflicting any pain to him. She merely wants him to be judged and things done right, so her conscience will stay clean and set Noth apart from monsters like Aldread and bitter, hate-obsessed broken people like Leigh.

But there's yet enough way ahead of her for cruel destiny to bend again.

What do you think? :)