Curio
Where there is knowledge to be found, books to be read, treasures to be hunted, or trinkets to be..."collected," Curio can be found. As long as it's below the surface...
One umbral imp of many, Curio's particular brand of mischief comes in the form of her bottomless want for learning. Thankfully, the Underrealm has no shortage of secrets to uncover.
Appearance
As an umbral, Curio's form is ever so slightly malleable, but her preferred form is much more solid than the average for her kind. She thinks this might be due to her long time spent travelling and communing with the fleshed races of the Underrealm. This solidity of her form has affected her such that her interior resembles musculature, and her exterior resembles short, wet fur.
Despite this, Curio's umbral nature is manifest in the dimly glowing yellow energy within her eyes, claws, face, and the vents in her horns.
Curio has a relatively humanoid, somewhat feminine torso and head. Her torso is slender and host to two pairs of arms, each terminating in clawed hands with three digits a piece.
Curio has long, powerful digitigrade legs with clawed feet. She has a trio of tails, two of which are smaller and one of which makes up nearly half her total body length. All three tails are fully prehensile, and the primary tail is extremely physically strong, such that Curio can support her entire body weight on it.
Curio's face resembles a near-black mask, her most distinctly umbral feature; she has three large eyes with yellow pupils, white irises, and black sclera. A mark of yellow umbral energy glows beneath each eye. Enormous, ox-like horns grow from the top of Curio's face, lined with small vents that glow with more of her umbral energy. Her face is also framed by what seems to be hair, near white like drow, but tinged ever ask slightly in yellow.
Despite this, Curio's umbral nature is manifest in the dimly glowing yellow energy within her eyes, claws, face, and the vents in her horns.
Curio has a relatively humanoid, somewhat feminine torso and head. Her torso is slender and host to two pairs of arms, each terminating in clawed hands with three digits a piece.
Curio has long, powerful digitigrade legs with clawed feet. She has a trio of tails, two of which are smaller and one of which makes up nearly half her total body length. All three tails are fully prehensile, and the primary tail is extremely physically strong, such that Curio can support her entire body weight on it.
Curio's face resembles a near-black mask, her most distinctly umbral feature; she has three large eyes with yellow pupils, white irises, and black sclera. A mark of yellow umbral energy glows beneath each eye. Enormous, ox-like horns grow from the top of Curio's face, lined with small vents that glow with more of her umbral energy. Her face is also framed by what seems to be hair, near white like drow, but tinged ever ask slightly in yellow.
Skills and Abilities
- Keen Acquisitor: Curio is clever and deft, having several good eyes for picking out treasures (and fakes, by extension). Finding, identifying, acquiring, and stashing "good finds" is her forte. Skilled and coordinated with all four hands!
- Fast and Flexible: Despite being rather sizable, especially compared to drow and many of her kin, Curio can move lightning quick when she wants to. She can coil her body much like a snake's and her claws are strong enough that she can climb and crawl along cavern walls with relative ease.
- Umbral Anatomy: As she's a being of the evergloam, she is possessed of all the natural quirks of their biology and aptitude for shadow magic, though she barely practices.
- Conservation Over Confrontation: Curio loathes fighting. Unless cornered she will almost always flee from danger. However, her great natural strength and claws mean that she is not helpless should she be forced to defend herself.
Personality
Intensely inquisitive and known to easily get lost in her explorations and studies, but not naïve. Somewhat off-putting in how adamant she can be about finding out more about something once her interest has been caught. Is known to speak in riddles and adages, the latter of which are often nonsensical (because she made them up herself). Generally non-hostile or aggressive and doesn't view others as threats unless she knows for certain she has reason to. Refers to herself almost exclusively in the third person. Understands what flirting and attraction are; finds flirting funny and enjoys when fleshfolk get flustered, but is not overtly flirtatious.
Biography & Lore
Once little more than a three-eyed slug that pulled itself from a pool of primordial shade, the umbral larva that would later become Curio's first act was to crawl precisely three yards from its spawning pool, roll onto its back, and stare at a chunk of bioluminescent moss on the ceiling of the cavern for forty six hours. On hour forty seven, the larva began to think, and its first thought was that perhaps it was becoming bored.
Were there more interesting things to stare at? Another eye or two might help figure that out, and so it formed them. Touching the moss on the ceiling might be nice, it thought, and so it formed arms, and then another pair for good measure. Getting there might be hard if it was forced to crawl, and so it grew legs. When it rolled onto its belly to wander off, it noticed a cave rat trundling by; the larva thought tails seemed fun, and so it formed three of them.
The larva wandered and explored and learned of its surroundings, and each new thing it saw brought it clarity and joy, but also questions. Each and every answer gave it more questions, more and more. Then it found people. People were dangerous, the larva quickly learned, and the larva did not want to die; dying would mean the larva could not learn any more things, and that was counterintuitive. So the larva sucked on glowing cave moss until it was much, much larger. Stronger too. Strong enough to begin living around people.
People were not as scary as the larva initially thought. In fact they were fascinating, and they made strange noises and had stuff on their heads that they called hair, and about half of the people had a shape that the larva quite admired. And so it became she, and she became Curio.
The name was given first by the people that Curio had been living near, explorers from the surface and Underrealm alike that had grown fond of her presence. "Archaeologists," they'd called themselves, and Curio thought this was a good profession indeed. She liked their clothes as well, and so they made her some and showed her how to make her own. This was good, she thought.
Time passed, and Curio grew, both physically and mentally. The more she learned, the more she wanted to learn. She was good at learning, and finding. People gave her shiny coins to find things, and other people would take the shiny coins in exchange for more interesting things. Like a shelter for all of her things that she was collecting.
By now Curio has made a name for herself and sort of settled in Zar'Ahal. There stand's Curio's reliquary, and to this day she continues her trade, a welcome if odd presence among the Onyx Kingdom.
Were there more interesting things to stare at? Another eye or two might help figure that out, and so it formed them. Touching the moss on the ceiling might be nice, it thought, and so it formed arms, and then another pair for good measure. Getting there might be hard if it was forced to crawl, and so it grew legs. When it rolled onto its belly to wander off, it noticed a cave rat trundling by; the larva thought tails seemed fun, and so it formed three of them.
The larva wandered and explored and learned of its surroundings, and each new thing it saw brought it clarity and joy, but also questions. Each and every answer gave it more questions, more and more. Then it found people. People were dangerous, the larva quickly learned, and the larva did not want to die; dying would mean the larva could not learn any more things, and that was counterintuitive. So the larva sucked on glowing cave moss until it was much, much larger. Stronger too. Strong enough to begin living around people.
People were not as scary as the larva initially thought. In fact they were fascinating, and they made strange noises and had stuff on their heads that they called hair, and about half of the people had a shape that the larva quite admired. And so it became she, and she became Curio.
The name was given first by the people that Curio had been living near, explorers from the surface and Underrealm alike that had grown fond of her presence. "Archaeologists," they'd called themselves, and Curio thought this was a good profession indeed. She liked their clothes as well, and so they made her some and showed her how to make her own. This was good, she thought.
Time passed, and Curio grew, both physically and mentally. The more she learned, the more she wanted to learn. She was good at learning, and finding. People gave her shiny coins to find things, and other people would take the shiny coins in exchange for more interesting things. Like a shelter for all of her things that she was collecting.
By now Curio has made a name for herself and sort of settled in Zar'Ahal. There stand's Curio's reliquary, and to this day she continues her trade, a welcome if odd presence among the Onyx Kingdom.