Karrin Var

Overview

Karrin Var, known among allies and enemies alike as Blackcheek, is the calculating leader and founder of The Red Fang . She has a reputation that makes her smugglers behave more like clergy and her killers more like accountants. Her leadership is not loud, but it is absolute and it is most certainly followed closely.

Appearance

Karrin is a woman in her middle years, with sharp, angular features and the kind of smile that unsettles as much as it enchants. Her moniker Blackcheek comes from a jagged birthmark running down the left side of her face, which she flaunts rather than hides. She dresses plainly when working, preferring muted travel leathers, but in council she adorns herself with jewelry that speaks not of wealth but of promises kept—each piece a subtle token tied to a past bargain or fulfilled oath.

Personality & Traits

• Pragmatic Visionary: Karrin believes chaos is bad for business. The Fang thrives on precision, discretion, and wit.
• Venomous Charm: She is able to disarm with words as deftly as she commands fear with silence. Her laughter is rare but genuine—usually at someone else’s expense.
• Calculating Coldness: She views loyalty as currency: precious, finite, and not freely given. Even Longteeth know their place is earned daily.

History

Karrin rose from the ranks of Berdusk's black-market scribes, where she traded in “lost manuscripts” and copied tomes the churches preferred to keep under lock. Her genius was less in theft and more in distribution: she knew where every stolen word would fetch the highest price.

When the Fang began to fracture under competing leaders, Karrin’s subtle hand brought unity. She did not kill rivals—she bought them, bound them with secrets, or made them vanish into profitable exile. By the time the dust settled, Karrin Var was the Fang’s center of gravity.

Methods of Leadership

• Silent Votes: Important decisions are made by anonymous slips, a tradition she imported into the Fang’s culture to ensure no one can trace dissent.
• Three Rules: She enforces the Fang’s creed (No corpses, No witnesses who matter, Leave no trace) with religious fervor. Violators are erased from memory as surely as from membership.
• Debt as Weapon: She excels at turning failures into chains of obligation, transforming Milkteeth into tools without ever lifting a blade.

Relations

• With the Harpers: A wary respect. She considers them idealists who lack the discipline to truly shape the world.
• With Aewen Wael (Rafin): Officially, he is a nuisance. Unofficially, she acknowledges a strange kinship: he plays in shadows as she does, though without her patience, and he maintains a commendable ethic, though he's fairly unruly.
• Within the Fang: She is both admired and feared; even Longteeth rarely speak her name without a hint of reverence.

Adventure Hooks

• Audience with Blackcheek: The party is summoned to meet Karrin herself—whether to strike a deal, pay a debt, or explain a crime.
• The Black Ledger: A book Karrin keeps personally, recording debts too dangerous even for the Fang’s network, goes missing. She will kill—or hire—just about anyone to recover it.
• Rumor of Betrayal: Whispers claim one of Karrin’s Longteeth is feeding the Harpers information. Karrin may seek outsiders to root out the traitor without tainting--or tipping off--her inner circle.