Triv Windfoot
“Climb first, panic later.”
Triv Windfoot is... A wildcard to say the least. The sort of folk whose name shows up in tavern stories, museum plaques, and rescue reports in equal measure. A tall, lean streak of a Mustelish, restless motion wrapped in patched scale-mail and an outrageous clutter of pelts, belts, tools, and jangling trophies, he looks less like a person and more like an ambulatory trap kit held together by sarcasm and stubbornness. Born in the shadow of The Grandgleam Forest and hardened by every misfortune the forest could hurl at him, Triv carved out a life by slipping past death with the same irreverent ease he slips past tripwires. He is a master spelunker, ruin-diver, trap-breaker, and acrobatic scout, skills honed from a youth spent outrunning slavers, beasts, curses, and his own clan’s disappointment. The Scholar's Guild keeps him on retainer not just out of affection but out of sheer statistical necessity, as he is one of the very few specialists who consistently returns alive from sites that swallow entire teams whole. Opportunistic, smarmy, and too clever for his own safety, Triv has become something of Everwealth’s accidental celebrity mascot of survival, a native success story in both race and actions whose grinning audacity defies a world notorious for endings that leave only bones behind. Whether he’s retrieving artifacts, dodging The Merchant's Consortium's claim-jumpers, or stealing a map from a ruin that should not exist, Triv Windfoot thrives exactly where everyone else dies.
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Triv Windfoot is wiry, long-limbed, and unnervingly quick, a Mustelish built for sudden bursts of motion and impossible contortions. His stamina is exceptional from years of spelunking, ruin-running, and sprinting away from things with too many teeth. Though far from imposing, his agility alone keeps him alive in places where armored knights die standing.
Body Features
Triv’s fur is a rough, earthy brown with a white underpatch running along his jaw, throat, and stomach, following the sharp patterning common among wild weasels. Decades of near-fatal encounters have left him marred with scars across his torso, thighs, shoulders, and tail, thin white slashes, punctures, burn-marks, and bite-tracks. He proudly refers to these as his collection, remembering the story behind each one with the accuracy of a scholar and the enthusiasm of a drunk bard. His limbs are long and dexterous, built for climbing, leaping, and squeezing into places no sane adventurer would attempt.
Facial Features
His face is angular and alert, dominated by bright amber eyes that flick ceaselessly from detail to detail, and thin whiskers that twitch whenever he’s thinking, or lying. His muzzle is short and expressive, capable of a wide range of smirks, snarls, and mischievous grins. A faint claw-mark crosses the bridge of his nose, earned from a “misunderstanding with a rather territorial owl-bear,” which he will happily recount to anyone who asks.
Identifying Characteristics
- Dense brown fur with stark white underpatch.
- A latticework of scars he treats as autobiographical entries.
- Long, expressive mustelid tail wrapped with trophies, rings, cord, teeth.
- Amber eyes with a perpetual glint of opportunistic calculation.
- A habitually crooked grin suggesting he knows something you don’t.
Physical quirks
Triv walks with a loose, bouncing gait, always on the balls of his feet as if ready to spring. When standing still, his tail sways behind him in restless, looping patterns that mimic his train of thought. He taps his claws against his thigh or armor plates when planning, sniffles sharply when annoyed, and bares his teeth in a grin whenever danger looms, a reflex he insists is “confidence,” not panic.
Special abilities
- Acrobatic Savant: Triv can twist, contort, and rebound off surfaces with inhuman speed, slipping through collapsing tunnels or dodging traps designed to kill larger, slower folk.
- Mustelish Reflexes: His reactions verge on preternatural, he can catch falling objects, slip bindings, or dart through hit-zones before a foe realizes he’s moved.
- Trap-Sense: Years of ruin-delving have honed a sixth sense for danger. He spots pressure plates, airflow changes, or false stonework with uncanny accuracy.
- Burrow-Dive Rush: A signature maneuver, Triv drops low and lunges in a serpentine burst of motion, striking from below or darting between an enemy’s legs.
- Resilient Survivor: Despite his wiry build, Triv endures poison, exhaustion, and injury far better than most, allegedly because “I’ve been killed so many times it stopped taking.”
Apparel & Accessories
Triv dresses in layered practicality, fitted scale-mail reinforced with various plates scavenged from ruins or purchased with his 'winnings' as he calls his loot, over which he drapes multiple belts, tool loops, straps, and pouches. Pelts stitched along his shoulders and hips provide warmth and padding, each from creatures he personally hunted. His gear clinks softly with metal hooks, climbing spikes, carved teeth, compass pieces, small charm totems, and the occasional half-rotting trophy he forgot to remove. He eschews cloaks, too easy to snag in a falling corridor, which he claims “has saved my life more than any shield.”
Specialized Equipment
- Triv’s Harness: A complex system of ropes, pitons, and fold-away spikes allowing rapid climbing or emergency drops.
- Whistle-Net Trap Kit: A Mustelish design he uses to disable traps or ensnare beasts; Hums faintly when sprung.
- Hook Knives: He wields a pair of modified climbing hooks converted into daggers; Used for grappling, sweeping, and throwing; A dance-like form of combat all his own which he has become a master.
- Windfoot's Satchel: Packed with chalk, scent markers, glass beads for terrain mapping, and more questionable trinkets he refuses to explain.
- Trophy Belt: Holds teeth, claws, tiny masks, and relic fragments, each tagged with a scratched symbol recording where it came from.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Triv Windfoot was raised among a pair of seasoned Mustelish Treasure Hunters who dragged him through half the wilds of Everwealth before he could even pronounce “trap.” His earliest memories are of being perched atop crags in Boulderrain Woods, soot-streaked from near-misses in The Ashwood, and half-soaked from waiting at the edge of The Hungering Marsh while his parents retrieved some prize “definitely worth the risk.” One day, in a ruin deep beneath the forest, they told him to wait by an old stone archway, the shape of it etched forever in his mind, and vanished inside. They never came back. He survived on instinct and charity from Mustelish bands until he learned to survive on skill, throwing himself into adventuring with an almost reckless hunger. Over time, he made a name retrieving relics from the burning hollows of the Ashwood, spelunking Dwarfish pits beneath The Cloudrend Mountains, and outrunning beasts of all shapes and sizes by the whisker-width. Though he claims to have “gotten over” his parents’ disappearance, every ruin he enters, no matter the region, stokes a quiet hope that the next corridor will resemble the place he last saw them.
Gender Identity
Triv views gender the way most Mustelish do, as a practical descriptor rather than a sacred truth. He identifies as male because it fits the shape of his life and how he moves through the world, not because he places any moral or social weight upon it. Among his people, skill defines worth, gender simply trails behind it like a tail in the wind.
Sexuality
He considers sexuality another instinctive current, something to follow when it feels right and ignore when it complicates survival. Triv is casually bisexual, drawn less to gender and more to wit, agility, and a certain sharp-eyed spirit he admires in fellow hunters and scholars. Long-term commitment rarely appeals, the road is always calling, and in Everwealth, staying put is one of the few true dangers.
Education
Triv’s education is entirely experiential, trap-breaking in the Boulderrain, ruin-mapping in the Ashwood, and herbal survival learned the hard way in the Hungering Marsh. Scholars later tried to categorize his knowledge, but he was already too worldly to fit into formal structure. He reads, writes, and calculates well enough, but his true learning lies in scar-earned intuition and the lived geography of Everwealth.
Employment
Before becoming the Scholar’s Guild’s favorite (and most exasperating) freelancer, Triv scraped by as a wilderness scout, monster-avoidance guide, ruin diver, and pelt-runner. His portfolio includes retrieving artifacts from Ashwood firepits, charting stonefall routes through the Boulderrain, and personally escorting academics into, and miraculously back out of, the Moonpine Forest. Today he works “when it pays,” which it usually does, because few alive have his combination of flexibility, cunning, and sheer refusal to die.
Accomplishments & Achievements
He is credited with mapping three previously unknown tunnels of caverns beneath Moonpine Forest and retrieving an intact Lost Ages lockbox containing a feather of the now extinct phoenix after journeying through an underground complex that's halls branched for miles, brimming with traps and magickal defenses; What he considers his finest work, now proudly displayed at the Museum of Fallen Graces in Wardsea. There are also tales of outsmarting an entire bandit company by collapsing a boulder-run behind him. As-well as some tavern stories of outrunning a pack of Ember Wolves, Triv neither confirms nor denies these or any rumor about himself if he can help it, electing only to grin and let you decide which is true.
Failures & Embarrassments
He once fell through a false floor in The Bog of Lies and was stuck waist-deep in mud for six hours until a passing grave-robber hauled him out for a silver coin. Another time he misidentified a harmless fungi patch in the Grandgleam, only for it to explode in embers that burned off half his whiskers. His greatest failure, though he rarely speaks of it, is never returning to the site of his parents’ disappearance, a place he has hoped to find countless times yet never succeeded.
Mental Trauma
Triv’s trauma is subtle, tucked behind humor and motion. Waiting still is unbearable for him, the memory of being left behind in the dark or left to dwell on the horrors his travels have exposed him to makes stagnation feel like suffocation. He avoids thinking too deeply about abandonment but refuses to let it break him. In truth, the only thing he fears more than death in a ruin is the possibility that he will never uncover what happened to his family.
Intellectual Characteristics
Triv possesses a cunning, trap-springer’s mind: intuitive, quick, spatially brilliant, but occasionally chaotic. He can calculate the arc of a falling boulder or the tension of a tripwire faster than he can remember polite greetings. He is a lateral thinker to a fault, approaching every puzzle as though it were out to kill him, because in Everwealth, many are.
Morality & Philosophy
His guiding rule is simple: “If you can walk away with your life and your principles, you’ve already beaten the odds.” He believes survival is sacred, cowardice is sometimes wisdom, and generosity should be practiced whenever it doesn’t doom you. Though jaded, he cares deeply for the vulnerable, especially abandoned children, he’ll never repeat the cycle he lived.
Taboos
Triv refuses to leave anyone behind in a ruin, even enemies. He will not steal food from the starving, set traps for fellow Mustelish, or speak lightly of the dead. He also avoids any job involving slave-catching, which he considers the lowest profession in Everwealth.
Personality Characteristics
Motivation
Triv is driven by a restless compulsion to keep moving, to map one more ruin, slip through one more death trap, and pry one more relic from Everwealth’s ancient jaws. Beneath this wanderlust lies a quieter flame, the hope that one day he will stumble upon the ruin that swallowed his parents, and finally piece together what happened behind that stone archway in the Boulderrain. Yet even this longing never anchors him for long, the world is vast, full of wonders and horrors, and Triv cannot abide stillness when the unknown calls louder than grief.
Savvies & Ineptitudes
Savvies
- Expert trap-spotter and disarmer, even in pitch darkness or “where the walls breathe wrong.”
- Near-supernatural agility from years diving through collapsing ruin halls and skirting Marsh sinkholes.
- Encyclopedic knowledge of wilderness hazards, can identify Boulderrain stonefall patterns, Ashwood ember-cycles, and Moonpine predator routes at a glance.
- ented negotiator when coin or survival is at stake, especially with bandits who would prefer not to die today.
- Skilled in scent-tracking, balance-based combat, and improvised ropework.
- Hopeless at long-term planning (“If it takes more than three steps, it’s a chore”).
- Bad with bureaucracy, paperwork, and anything involving forms.
- Cannot cook to save his life, his rations famously taste like boiled regret.
- Disastrous with romance unless it involves climbing something.
- Terrible liar when emotionally invested, his whiskers betray him.
Likes & Dislikes
Likes
- Ancient ruins, especially ones that “look like they want you gone.”
- Warm broth after a cold night in the Moonpine Forest.
- Collecting small, strange artifacts no one else sees value in.
- The sound of a sprung trap missing him by inches.
- Scholars who pay on time.
- High places and narrow ledges, he feels at home there.
- Deep water, especially the still, dark kind found in the Hungering Marsh where wicked diseases like Glasspox and Mirebone lie-in-wait.
- People who boast without earning their scars.
- Waiting… for anything.
- Slavers, poachers, and anyone who cages living things.
- Horses (“Too tall. Too dramatic.”).
- Being touched without warning, especially his tail.
Virtues & Personality perks
- Loyal once he chooses someone, even if he pretends otherwise.
- Compassionate toward the vulnerable, especially abandoned youth.
- Courage that borders on recklessness, yet often saves the day.
- Quick-thinking under pressure, his mind sharpens when death is near.
- Deeply resourceful; if you give him bark, twine, and a rock, he’ll build a solution.
- Honest in small things, reliable in dangerous things.
Vices & Personality flaws
- Compulsive risk-taker; He will always choose the difficult path if it promises a story.
- Avoids emotional intimacy, fears losing people the way he lost his parents.
- Occasionally greedy when rare relics are involved.
- Prideful about his agility and refuses to admit age is slowly catching up.
- Secretly believes he is living on borrowed time and acts accordingly.
- Hoards small trophies from his adventures; refuses to part with them.
Personality Quirks
- Twitching whiskers when he senses danger, his companions trust these more than maps.
- Talks to traps aloud as if negotiating with them.
- Always checks ceilings first upon entering a room.
- Collects pebbles from every ruin; keeps them sorted by “vibes.”
- When anxious, he climbs, trees, shelves, rafters, anything.
Hygiene
Triv maintains a level of cleanliness best described as “functional wilderness tidy.” His fur is brushed often enough to prevent matting but carries the perpetual scent of pine, ash, and damp stone. He avoids perfumes or soaps that might give away his position in tight forests. His armor and pelts are kept meticulously maintained even when his fur is not, he claims equipment deserves more care than he does.
Representation & Legacy
Though still alive (and loudly insisting he is “nowhere near finished”), Triv Windfoot is already a minor Everwealth folk figure. Loggers in the Moonpine speak of “Windfoot Routes”, dangerous ledges he once used to outrun a Deathrattle. Marsh hunters tell exaggerated stories of him wrestling a Marrowtoad for its poison gland. Scholars commission paintings of the “Windfoot Leap,” a pose of him soaring between collapsing ruin pillars. If he dies, Everwealth will remember him as the Mustelish who survived everything he shouldn’t have, who dove into places no one returned from, and occasionally came back laughing. His symbol among treasure hunters is a stylized pawprint over a sprung trap, meaning: “If Windfoot could do it, so can we.”
Social
Reign
Triv has no literal reign, but his era of influence as Everwealth’s most reliable freelance delver spans roughly fifteen years. His most memorable “reign” moments include retrieving the Moonpine Cartographer’s Lens from a collapsing ice-chasm, surviving a migration of Ship-Snap Turtles along the coasts of The Battlement Cliffs, and famously outrunning a Boulderrain cliff-break while dragging two scholars by their collars. His “reign” ends only when the land stops trying to kill him, which is unlikely.
Contacts & Relations
- The Scholar’s Guild - His primary employer; they rely heavily on him, even as they complain about his attitude.
- Lumber Camps of the Boulderrain - Several camps consider him a semi-mythic local nuisance/protector.
- Alchemists - Hire him for Marsh specimens; Swear at him almost as often as they pay him.
- Hunters of the Ashwood - Respect him, though they do not understand how he’s still alive.
Family Ties
Raised by Mustelish treasure-hunters, who vanished after descending into a ruin near the Boulderrain when Triv was a child. He has no confirmed blood relatives, only a few surrogate uncles and aunts among old scavenger bands. There is also a lingering soft spot for any child waiting for parents who will never return. His family is absence shaped into a drive.
Religious Views
Triv is a practical nonbeliever. He respects the gods in the same way he respects rockslides: “Acknowledge they exist, avoid getting in their way.” He occasionally mutters small thanks to Druvain, the god of labor and transformation before repairing tools, or a superstitious apology to Ny'yala, of cyclles and fate, when crossing old ruins.
Social Aptitude
Triv is friendly in a mischievous, opportunistic way. His charisma comes from confidence, humor, and quick instincts rather than charm or refinement. He reads people expertly, lies poorly unless he’s improvising, and befriends strangers faster than he trusts anyone. Crowds amuse him, rules confound him, and etiquette annoys him. Beneath his smarmy exterior, he is attentive, surprisingly patient, and capable of quiet sincerity, but only when the moment demands it.
Mannerisms
Triv flicks his tail when lying, annoyed, or sizing up a trap. He taps wooden surfaces before stepping on them, sniffs the air habitually when entering a room, and scratches at scars when telling their associated stories. He gestures constantly while speaking, often reenacting past disasters with exaggerated flair. When startled, he drops into a crouch without thinking.
Hobbies & Pets
He keeps no pets, “animals have better sense than to follow me.”
His hobbies include:
- Carving Moonpine scraps into animal figurines.
- Mapping ruins.
- Cataloguing scars like book chapters.
- Competitive trap-disarming (mostly with himself).
- Collecting odd stones, shells, or metal fragments from ruins.
Speech
Triv speaks quickly, wryly, and with Mustelish sharpness in every consonant. His tone is light even in danger, his humor dry as sandstone. His accent is an odd blend of Grandgleam wildling slang and Boulderrain miner jargon, peppered with Rootthorpe alchemist curses he learned the loud way.
Wealth & Financial state
Triv exists in a perpetual state of comfortable instability. He is technically poor, owning little more than his armor, tools, pelts, and trinkets, but he has constant liquid coin because the Scholar’s Guild keeps him employed. He spends money as soon as he earns it, usually on gear repairs, bulk jerky, alchemical burn-ointments, rope (he burns through rope like a religion), and bar tabs he forgets to settle until someone reminds him. He has no savings and no debts, because he refuses to owe anyone anything except grudging goodwill.
Ethnicity
Honorary & Occupational Titles
- “Windfoot” (Clan-name).
- “The Rockslide Rascal”.
- “The Marsh-Dodger” .
- “That Damned Mustelish” (Bandits, universally).
Age
46 years old.
Children
Gender
Male.
Eyes
Bright ember-orange, narrow, and perpetually half-squinted. His eyes are small and sharp, gleaming like coals in dim light, giving him a foxlike cunning and a perpetual look of calculation.
Hair
His fur forms a subtle dark-brown-to-black crest along his head and neck, the closest Mustelish equivalent to hair. It is kept short and functional, often knife trimmed in uneven tufts after long journeys. Wind and motion ruffle it easily.
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Triv’s fur is rough brown with a scruffy white underpatch.
Height
6'4"
Weight
180 lbs.
Quotes & Catchphrases
- “If the ground looks safe, assume it wants you dead.”
- “I don’t cheat traps, I outthink ‘em. The traps can complain to the rubble.”
- “Dangerous? I’ve stopped to eat in worse places.”
Character Prototype
Triv Windfoot blends the acrobatic cunning of Indiana Jones’ trap-running reputation with the sardonic opportunism of Han Solo and his jaded demeanor; A scavenger who's survived too many close calls. He is equal parts treasure hunter, trouble magnet, and folk icon, dangerously competent, annoyingly smug, and impossible to kill in any way that sticks.
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