Lairu is a young lutrai from the island chain of Cekus, taken from his home by czath slavers during his earliest memories. He grew up in the dingy slave district of the Tamaran capital, a lost soul amid an island of hate, making toys for the spoiled children of the empire. His cunning and resiliance have kept him alive, made him wiser than most of his kind, and taught him that there's simply no advantage greater than being the underdog. He is gentle and kind, but strong inside, and dreams of one day becoming a knight. This whimsy is perpetuated by the books he is compelled to illustrate from time to time; nobody expects literate slaves, especially lutrai.

        Lairu tries to live his life by a code of valor, or at least, a couple of rules he's thrown together. He will stick up for fellow underdogs, usually other slaves, and share his food readily with those in need. He will try to cheer people up, even at the cost of his own pride, and often makes a fool of himself just to get a laugh. Even the czath taskmasters are amused from time to time. There is no hatred in his heart, only a distant, waning hope for a future that may never come. As such, he can be quite a sap, and is easily tricked. This seems to keep him going as much as it detracts from his common sense, and he is frequently punished for daydreaming.

        Wretched living conditions and a poor diet have left Lairu looking rather scruffy. Still, for a slave, he has a vibrant, undrugged vitality, and a friendly, open expression. He is lean, but not gaunt, about five feet high, with a heavy tail that trips him up from time to time. He's much more graceful in the water. Lairu has also fashioned himself a wooden sword, which is generally dismissed as harmless, even when he's caught with it. He calls it 'Neogem', a name from his dreams, and has decorated it with years of patient lutraic designs.

KAZI    (Male Koba)

        Kazi is a fairly typical koba, in that he is somewhat tempermental, rather thick-headed, and exceptionally graceless. He's as strong as an ox, and a little smarter, his body toughened by years of forced labor and beatings. The koba has little ill-will towards his captors, however - he's been a slave all his life, and knows no better. Instead, he listens to Lairu's tales of the outside world, relying on the lutrai to furnish him with a vividness he otherwise lacks. True enough, Kazi cannot see colors, only dull shades of grey and sepia. This is a trait common to most koba, along with his tendency to eat nearly anything when he gets hungry, which is often.

        Kazi is generally a good-natured if somewhat amoral individual. He can be very insensitive at times, but this is due more to a lack of understanding than a lack of compassion. Without being overly talkative, he relies more on actions than words, and clings to the simple belief that effort is the only real truth. He is loyal and quite brave, though his short fuse can get the better of him at times, as can his lack of tact. He has a practical solution to just about everything - his fists.

        The koba is average for his kind, a little under six feet, with a heavy, muscular frame, and a long, semi-rigid tail. His sleek hide is dun brown with darker markings; good camoflage in some cases. His huge, kangaroo-style feet and heavy haunches give him a fierce kick, and he can jump twice as far as most creatures his size. He can also bound at high speed as long as he's moving in a straight line, and ram down just about anything with his thick skull. Coupled with his tough hide and lack of insight, Kazi is made virtually immune to the daily punishments of his trade, and recovers quickly from even the most severe beatings. He can also go for a week without water, as he doesn't sweat.

        Haxle is very unlike other hoomiku. Whereas the bulk of his kind pride themselves on knowledge and reputation, Haxle finds comfort in his music and a variety of terrorist activities. He was exiled from the Haizat community for speaking out against (and attempting to sabotage) the ancient ship's restoration, thus jeapordizing the colony's 'stability'. This goes without saying - Haxle is a little unstable himself, and will rant now and then about nothing in particular. He is extremely intelligent, if a little soft-spined, and has about him a certain paranoia, relying on his unreliable inventions to tell him everything he needs to know. He speaks several languages and, like most of his kind, is a remarkable problem-solver. He just tends to overthink.

        Haxle's antisocial behavior isn't hard to understand, though it can make him hard to deal with from time to time. He has bad mood swings, and lacks the usual orchestrated calm of his people when it comes to dealing with his emotions. Instead, he retreats into music and tinkering and uses both to express feelings he can't put into words. This is no surprise, considering the highly-mathematical language of the hoomiku. In truth, he is deperately lonely and craves companionship, and will make a terrible fool of himself around anyone he is even remotely attracted to.

        Haxle is a wanderer, and it shows. He rarely has enough to eat, and tends to make his living from town to town, fixing things or improving them. He's tall and rather gaunt, with a slightly-starved physique that hints at his kind's poor adaptation to the local cultures beyond the hidden colonies. He wears an unusual piecemeal ensemble of pouches, belts, vests, and bandoleers, each meant to hold some vital thing he almost never uses. This can lead him to long, frustrated searches though his belongings whenever he wants to find a certain item, which was probably lost months ago. His prized possession is his guitar, Liberator.

ALZERA    (Female Cepn)

        Alzera is the descendant of the cepn assassin, Keptai, who slew the Solinar king some four centuries ago. Keptai was said to have been the only member of the sortee to have refused the reward of immortality granted by the Spiral. Instead, he left the high council, becoming the first ever to abandon his station voluntarily, and died a natural death many years later. Alzera is Keptai's legacy, and a reluctant one, at that, upon discovering the family secret that had been whispered from every deathbed throughout the centuries. Unable to contain her shock, the young cepn fled the city of Noctae, and has been trying to reassemble her view of the world ever since. It's made her somewhat cynical, and hostile to say the least. She hides all this inner turmoil well, an important skill among cepn.

        Alzera is both cunning and ruthless, traits that run deep, in spite of her recently-shattered illusions. Having never been exposed to the outside world, she now searches for new truths and perhaps a role-model. Her devotion is somewhat faltering - she will slip into old ways under stress, and is often suspicious for no particular reason. This is hardly surprising, given the nature of the place from which she emerged. Her new surroundings have been of little comfort - she meets a far less civil distrust and hostility in many of the people she encounters, and has been forced to flee for her life on several occasions. She is full of venom, but much of it is directed inward. The rest of the world becomes catharsis.

        Alzera isn't quite as gaunt and hollow-eyed as the majority of her kind, having given up blood in favor of more hardy surface fare. She tends to crouch or hang from high places when at rest or even conversing, a posture which makes her harder to sneak up on. Hollow bones account for her low weight and considerable agility, though this also makes her somwhat more succeptible to injury. Her clothing is very light and minimalistic, allowing her the most flexibility, though she will often wear a long hooded robe to cover her features from the hostile observers she percieves all around. To them, she is murder waiting to happen.

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