Derth
Derth walks with a limp and carries books wherever he goes, mumbling to himself in the dim corridors of the Shell. He is old, possibly senile, and almost certainly not entirely sane. He is also one of the most intelligent individuals in all of Skatchen.
As one of the two revered Scribes of the Shell Rats, Derth bears responsibility for preserving the pre-Fall writings found in the tunnels beneath the Tinderlands. He copies and re-copies journals and diaries so that the knowledge survives even as the originals decay. But his work goes beyond simple transcription. His quarters are wallpapered with diagrams: conspiracy-style webs of connection that link disparate pieces of information in patterns that others cannot perceive. Whether those patterns are genuine insight or the architecture of a deteriorating mind is a question the other Shell Rats have stopped trying to answer.
Known only by his single name, Derth has spent a long life collecting and hoarding information. He may not have all the pieces, but he has a significant number of them, and the connections he draws between them are, at minimum, worth examining. The Shell Rats treat him with respect born of both his age and his accumulated knowledge, tolerating his eccentricities because the alternative is losing access to decades of accumulated scholarship.
He mumbles. He limps. He draws lines between dots that no one else can see. And somewhere in those rooms full of diagrams, something important may be hiding in plain sight.
As one of the two revered Scribes of the Shell Rats, Derth bears responsibility for preserving the pre-Fall writings found in the tunnels beneath the Tinderlands. He copies and re-copies journals and diaries so that the knowledge survives even as the originals decay. But his work goes beyond simple transcription. His quarters are wallpapered with diagrams: conspiracy-style webs of connection that link disparate pieces of information in patterns that others cannot perceive. Whether those patterns are genuine insight or the architecture of a deteriorating mind is a question the other Shell Rats have stopped trying to answer.
Known only by his single name, Derth has spent a long life collecting and hoarding information. He may not have all the pieces, but he has a significant number of them, and the connections he draws between them are, at minimum, worth examining. The Shell Rats treat him with respect born of both his age and his accumulated knowledge, tolerating his eccentricities because the alternative is losing access to decades of accumulated scholarship.
He mumbles. He limps. He draws lines between dots that no one else can see. And somewhere in those rooms full of diagrams, something important may be hiding in plain sight.
Children
