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Ressik Pike
[Character Picture]
[Character Picture]
| Age | Early 30s |
| Species | Least Weasel |
| Pronouns | He / Him |
| Size (Extra Small, Small, Medium, Large, Extra Large) | Extra Small |
| Build | Lean and wiry |
| Rank | Freelance Operative (Alkamarian Agent) |
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION:
Ressik Pike is a narrow strip of a beast of all angles, corded muscle and sharp edges. Short even by least weasel standards, he carries himself with the wary wiryness of a creature used to tight odds and narrow escapes. His fur is a muted brown, dulled by travel grime, with a paler throat and belly that rarely see proper washing.
His eyes are a dark, smokey hazel that read nearly black in poor light, watchful and rarely at ease. When he smiles, it is thin and humorless, a faint baring of teeth that never quite reaches his eyes. His paws are calloused, claws worn smooth at the tips from rock and brick – the paws of a digger, climber, and scrambler rather than a duelist.
Ressik dresses for anonymity: dark, close-fitting clothes in Vulpine Imperium cuts. He wears a battered coat, trousers with too many pockets, and an apple cap he can tug low over his eyes help him vanish into a crowd. He has an unmistakable Alkamarian lisp that betrays him being not quite local.
PERSONALITY:
Ressik is a cold-blooded pragmatist with the nerves of a cornered animal. On the surface, he is quiet and self-contained, content to let louder beasts fill the air while he watches and listens. He prefers shadows to spotlights and back doors to grand entrances.
Under that stillness lies a mind constantly running contingencies. Ressik plans, re-plans, and keeps a running tally of exits, weapons, and threats. He is not a mastermind, but he is clever enough to carry out other beasts’ designs, and to walk away when those designs turn sour.
Paranoia rides close to the surface. He keeps his back to walls, flinches from sudden movement near his periphery, and assumes kindness hides an ulterior motive. He trusts very few, and never entirely. Even with long-time partners, there is always a part of Ressik that is waiting for the knife in the dark... and the planning to have his own knife ready first.
STRENGTHS:
- Stealth and Small Spaces: Ressik’s size and training make him excellent in cramped, dangerous environments. He can wriggle through crawlspaces, cling to beams, and vanish into rubble or Slups back-alleys with unnerving ease.
- Planning: While he feels fear keenly, Ressik channels it into preparation. He is good at spotting weak points – in buildings, patrol routes, and beasts – and exploiting them with minimal noise and fuss.
- Situational Awareness: He notices who’s watching whom, which door stays locked, and which Minonice patrol shifts look understaffed. He’s not formally trained as an officer; his experience is the brutal schooling of survival and small jobs gone right (and wrong).
- Underworld Navigation: Born far from Bully Harbor, he nevertheless finds his footing quickly in the Imperium’s criminal strata. He has a nose for the sort of taverns, back rooms, and dockside corners where beasts like him can trade coin for silence.
WEAKNESSES:
- Foreign and Marked: Ressik’s Alkamarian origins are hard to hide completely. His accent, mannerisms, and occasional slips in idiom mark him as “Kharrie” to those who care to look. In the wrong crowd, this can draw lethal attention.
- Limited Loyalty: He is not loyal to the Imperium, and his loyalty to Alkamar is transactional at best. He works for pay, leverage, or survival, not for flags or thrones. Employers expecting patriotic devotion will be disappointed.
- No Front-Line Fighter: Ressik is no duelist or brawler. Corner him and he’ll stab, run, or both, but in a fair fight against a trained soldier, he’s badly outmatched. His strength lies in not being where the blows are thrown.
- Paranoid and Guarded: His inability to truly trust makes long-term alliances brittle. He assumes betrayal, which can become a self-fulfilling prophecy if he preemptively sabotages others to avoid being the one left behind.
BIOGRAPHY:
Ressik Pike was born in one of the industrial boroughs of Alkamar, where smoke from refineries turned the sky the color of old bruises. His early life was unremarkable by Alkamarian standards: cramped housing, work from a young age helping maintain shafts, cellars, and storm drains. He learned quickly that the safest place in a street fight was below it.
As the Unified Kingdom increasingly turned its attention outward, Ressik found steady work attaching himself to whatever quietly state-adjacent ventures would have him. Sometimes that meant escorting “cargo” bound for private buyers. Sometimes it meant “inspecting” coastal fortifications by night.
When whispers of a fourth war with the Vulpine Imperium grew louder, beasts like Ressik became more valuable. Not as soldiers, but as feelers and spies. Eyes and ears in foreign harbors. Deniable paws that could vanish if caught, leaving diplomats free to deny and generals free to plan. Eventually, quiet inquiries reached him about Bully Harbor, its opera houses, its docks, its Ministry presence, and the simmering tensions in its poorer districts.
Ressik took ship under false papers, entering the Imperium as just another itinerant mustelid looking for “work.” He built a life out of rented cots, back-room jobs, and the occasional carefully chosen heist. Ressik treats it all as part of a larger, slow-burning game: gather coin, favors, and information enough that when the real war comes, he won’t be the one caught underfoot.
POSSESSIONS/REAL ESTATE:
- Weapons: A narrow, well-kept belt knife with a plain hilt and a second, smaller back-up blade sewn into the lining of his coat. A length of weighted cord folded in a pocket.
- Gear: Coil of thin but strong rope, a short prybar, a couple of waxed cloth pouches for powder or small items, a pocket sand timer, a stub of charcoal for quick notes, and a small selection of simple lockpicks.
- Clothing: Dark, close-fitting coat with multiple hidden pockets, plain shirt and trousers in neutral tones, scuffed boots, and an apple cap. All deliberately forgettable.
- Lodgings: No fixed address. Ressik rents short-term space in low-profile boarding houses or flophouses around Bully Harbor, moving frequently so no one place learns too much about his comings and goings.
SKILLS:
| Physical | Mental | Social |
|---|---|---|
| Stealth [Seasoned] (4) | Tactics & Planning [Proficient] (2) | Deception [Proficient] (2) |
| Knife Fighting [Novice] (0) | Perception & Surveillance [Proficient] (2) | Streetwise (Underworld) [Proficient] (2) |
| Climbing & Tight Spaces [Novice] (0) | Intimidation (Quiet Menace) [Novice] (0) | |
| Total Points in Category: 4 | Total Points in Category: 4 | Total Points in Category: 4 |
