Ebon

A squat 210 lbs of twisted muscle and lumpy fat, posture is a perpetual lean, as if courting some unseen muse. Skin is blotchy olive-green, mottled with puckered scars and weeping pustules that glisten under moonlight. Skull is flattened on one side, making his left eye sit lower—an oozing lump of pink flesh surrounds it, half‑closed in a lazy droop. Nose is a broken hook, jagged cartilage jutting like a claw; his lips are swollen bluish ropes, perpetually chapped. Two tiny tusks poke through the lower lip, stained dark with rot. Ears hang limp, torn at the tips, each lobe scarred from old burns. Hump of scar tissue arches over his right shoulder, a souvenir from a furnace accident in Mercyland’s pits. Veins snake under his skin, throbbing when he blushes—a frequent occurrence. Hands are knobby: short, stubby fingers end in yellowed, cracked nails. Despite the grotesque deformities, moves with an almost balletic awkwardness, head tilted, chest puffed.

Garnuk is hopelessly romantic—an orcian Don Quixote who mistakes every passerby for a radiant maiden. He speaks in florid, misapplied compliments. He confuses flattery with affection, pressing his great, meaty hand over a traveler’s and squeezing until ribs ache. Dimwitted and sincere, he believes his love is destined, refusing to be dissuaded by screams or curses. He craves companionship above all: he longs to dance at moonlit festivals, share rustic poetry, and savor a warm embrace—even if that means kidnapping. He’s terrified of rejection—every spurned advance sends him into pouting sulks, drooping his shoulders and whimpering like a wounded pup. Yet he’s resilient: on the next dawn he’s right back, brandishing a wilted flower plucked from thorny brambles. He’s naïve about orcish taboos, oblivious to lustful jibes or fear his presence elicits. His sexuality is boundless; any woman is a potential beloved if they’ll tolerate his slobbery devotion.

Garnuk was born under a blood‑moon eclipse in the 2nd fortnight of Year 10015, his mother wailing that his eyes were “stained by the gods.” He grew up in an orphaned throng of deformed orcs at Vorlund’s Breeding Pits, where his “gentlemanly” awkwardness made him an outcast among even the wretched. He remembers the whipping his back during “obedience drills” and the overseers forced him to parade before nobles with other grotesques on Day 19 of Spring’s Blossoming. One spring dawn in Year 10020, he slipped from his chains to rescue a captive woman’s . That night, he serenaded the guards with off‑key odes, earning him three lashes and a bloodied lip that never quite healed, leaving a dark, puckered line. He escaped again on Year 10024’s Frostfall, stumbling into Henry’s Descent with nothing but the locket and a heart full of hope, believing destiny led him to love’s next bloom.