Raeges Infiliren

Raeges is a slightly older adult Northerner standing 172cm or 5'8 tall and weighing 56kg or 123lbs. His poverty is clear in his looks; he's skin to bones with minimal muscle, his usually unkept hair and unwashed body, his simple clothing, and most notably the fingers of his right hand that are still stuck in their fractured position from past torture and the inability to pay someone to correct them. His skin tone is a fairly saturated red that leans towards orange. Instead of a regular tail tip, his is much more stretched out and only has the top side of the arrowhead. He also has a darker fleshy spike not far above the tip.

Through dark eye bags, a permanent scowl, and as unshaven beard on his chin Raeges' fatigue is clearly visible. He has a bit of a button nose and despite his financial situation still shows somewhat fatty cheeks and a smooth, round jawline. His amber eyes tend to be accompanied by thin blonde eyebrows, their colour matching his long hair well. His horns are a light brown in colour and are kept short, pointing backwards in a smooth curve. He wears a round wooden earring in both ears.

His clothes were made to protect against the harsher days where no fire could be made, consisting largely of materials such as fur insulation and wool pieces. No clothes are thrown away, so some of them are pretty battered. Dressing in layers, he wears a thick shirt, a green wool turtleneck sweater with long sleeves, a coat over this sweater kept closed by a black leather belt, and lastly a green-brown cloak with brown stripes over it, a hood, and fur by the neck area. He always wears warm green wool trousers and thick brown boots, and protects what's left of his hands with fur insulated leather gloves. He's often seen with a light green bag over his hip, a tool to help him carry as much as he can with one functional hand.

Colour palette

Art by HeyAnkey

Raeges was born to a couple of criminals that wasn't all too eager to birth a son into a cruel poverty stricken world, but that also couldn't bear to give away or murder their newborn. He was raised with a moderate amount of love as his parents worked in dangerous conditions. They feared that creating a strong bond with someone who could realistically starve to death every day would only lead to misery, but they didn't deprive him of his basic needs or the attention a baby needs. Despite their initial intentions, they eventually grew to love their toddler and ended up prioritising Raeges above their own health, but this change came pretty late and had already left an impression on the child. 

His parents worked together with a small band of about eight other men and women who would plan out their movement and find ways to keep the entire group covered and out of sight of the law. In the past few years, they had been living off of a country-wide tax loophole for traders that yielded them enough money to survive with, but they regularly moved from town to town to avoid raising suspicion and to avoid discovery of the loophole. It was a dangerous line of work, but working legally under the corrupt government wouldn't put enough food on their tables and they loved their country enough to hope one day its old government would restore it to its former glory so they didn't want to emigrate.

The members of this group became parental figures to Raeges more than his parents, as the people enjoyed having a little one around to remind them of a life before misery. Baby Raeges had no way of knowing how bad their situation was, and it made the situation more bearable knowing there were other outlooks on life, goals that each and every one of them could eventually attain if they were lucky enough to escape this life. He was an inspiring presence and a strong reminder of hope.

Raeges grew into a toddler, then a child, then a teen. He grew up being taught valuable survival lessons by his group, many of which about dealing with cold, hunger, poverty, money, general famine, law evasion, tax evasion, laying low, and doing business on the street. He was a good asset, learning quickly how he could assist in gaining the group more money and comfort. The group wasn't very keen on outsiders outside of trade, and Raeges grew up with this idea as his world vision. As long as they had each other, things would be fine. 

He still felt the aftermath of his parent's care around getting attached to him, which persisted to a minor extent way into his teens. He had an okay relationship with them, but compared to the rest of the group it was a little mediocre, and Raeges was a grumpy teen over it for quite some time. He grew out of it as he became a young adult, but it did kickstart the early bitterness in his personality.

That the loophole could exist for so long was not just a testament of how hard it was to find, but also how incompetent the officials were. When the loophole was finally closed Raeges was 27 years old, and his group felt threatened by the idea of being persecuted for carrying out over thirty years of it. It having taken so long for a money obsessed government to close such a loophole, they must've been one of the only few who used it, and if they were found out the consequences wouldn't be light. On the other hand, by combining the loophole with their trade they managed to survive, how would they without that extra income?

The uncertainty shook the foundations of the group. There still wasn't much that went above family and community, but with the law breathing in their neck no one knew what to do next or how to handle the situation. Their grand scheme hoped that some heroes would've taken down the big corrupted officials by now and didn't account for this not happening.

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