Rot

Overview
Full biography found here.

Appearance
Hair: Strawberry blonde, greasy, unevenly cut

Skin: Pale

Eye: Teal

Height: 6’3

Weight: (Too little) Around 140 lbs

Markings/Noticeable Features:  A rather gruesome scar in place of his right eye and eyebrow. His hands and arms are often covered in scabs, but those heal quickly.

Personality
A generally cheery man, Rot is seldom in a bad mood. He’s often very talkative, even though his human manners may not be the best – committing a minor faux-pas is more nature rather than exception to him. Not that such things will stop him from offering up his services, he is always happy to tell others their fortune. No matter how unfortunate it may be. Of course, it is also up to the individual if they choose to believe in his cryptic and morbid prophecies.

Rot has a love for death and disease which borders on obsession, not that he’d ever bring it upon anyone. Oh no, not at all. He just appreciates the handiwork of the plague mother. A god (who he probably came up with himself) whom he will not hold off from praising at every opportunity he gets.

Though often friendly, it is never certain when Rot is being sincere. He’s a lover of drama and of myths, thus his prophecies (which he hands out freely and eagerly) always sound grand yet rarely seem to come true. He’s a notorious liar in some people’s eyes. In others’ he’s a stark raving lunatic. Though he rarely raves. No, no, Rot is very soft-spoken. Often whispering so that he does not disturb his friends.

Just like his location, his loyalty is fleeting. Rot has a price, and that is not always a price with monetary value. He finds humanoids (at least those alive) untrustworthy and two-faced – stuck in petty squabbles over unimportant things, much unlike the rats who he considers family.

Abilities
- Great knowledge of anatomy (both animal and human) and butchery due to being a scavenger, it also probably has to do with the frankly obscene amount of medical journals he hoards

- A fast runner, nimble

- Good geographical knowledge of the area around the Coastal Highway

- Seems to be able to… talk to rats (and mice) and understand them. Whether this is actually magic is uncertain.

History
If you asked Rot about his humble beginnings, he would gladly tell of the rat mother that took him in as a babe. Letting him nurse her not from her teat but from one of her boils brought on by plague. Later, as he was older, he let her other children feast on his eye as starvation struck. Grateful for his sacrifice – the rats taught him their language. That of vermin, the silent whispering and chattering of teeth in the night.

Of course, not all stories told by Rot are true. Especially not personal ones.

While his real background is mostly unknown and shrouded in mystery, some speak of having seen him as a child in the slums. A strange little boy who kept to himself and whispered into the corners of cupboards.

Left swaddled in a basket on the doorstep of the old nun who ran the orphanage, there is little known of his heritage nor his parents except for the actual blanket he was swaddled in. Linen dyed a deep marine blue. If that is anything to go by (not to mention the fact that he could easily have stolen it).

Said blanket is one of his very few worldly possessions (except for the clothes on his back), the only thing he brought with him when he left the orphanage at age thirteen. Becoming a street urchin who earned his keep by telling cryptic and unpleasant fortunes, appearing wherever sickness did.

To this day, his location is never certain, other than the fact that he appears in the slums. Sitting or squatting in the filth while offering fortunes for a coin or perhaps a small offering of meat should one happen to be carrying it. If you wish to hear what information the rats may have for you about whoever and whatever… well, that can be discussed too.