“You tell us the truth, travellers. You look at us and tell us that you do not see vermin. Vermin lives as vermin must. We move in the darkness, we avoid the cities, we take what we must when we cannot risk being seen. We are not the predators or the herd. We are vermin, and are treated as such. But a rat is clever, and cunning, and capable. We will survive, we always survive. You need not like us nor trust us, just as we need not trust nor like you. But together we may survive. Such is the choice that we are given every day. What say you?”

A female wererat, Peris is mechanically gifted and cunning, and repaired the ventilation machine when they first arrived. She views the curse of the wererat as a gift, one which gives her greater protection and abilities, and surrenders to the instincts of the animal. However, those instincts are flighty and treacherous.

Description

Short and broad-shouldered, Peris moves with a twitchy, angular grace, like a spring coiled too tightly. Her skin is pale and blotched from years underground, and her eyes are large and glassy, constantly darting as if tracking invisible threats. Her teeth are crooked and prominent, and she speaks with a wet rasp that sets people on edge. In her hybrid form, patches of coarse fur sprout from her shoulders and spine, and her claws click audibly when she walks. She wears layers of stained shawls and scarves, scavenged from forgotten trunks, always with pockets full of trinkets, knives, and traps.

Traits and Motivations

Peris is paranoid and viciously clever, with a mind like a maze: winding, cluttered, and full of dead ends for anyone trying to follow her logic. Where Bulga of Picar is a planner, Peris is an instinctive manipulator, reading people like open books and always seeking leverage. She hates wide open spaces and longs for the close, damp tunnels of the mine, which she’s come to view as her true domain. The ghosts don’t frighten her—they speak to her. Or so she claims. She revels in the curse, believing it reveals a truer, freer self that civilized society tried to cage.