Skratti Bowens

Skratti Bowens
Gender	Female
Race	Miqo'te
Clan	Keeper of the Moon
Citizenship	Unaffiliated
Place of Birth	Gridanian Forests
Age	18
Sexuality	Secret
Height	Short
Guardian	Menphina, The Lover

A twist of the knife is painful, to be sure. But the right word in the right ear at the wrong time can be fatal.

Skratti leads something of a dual life. One half is that of your everyday adventuring type -- slaying monsters, filling quest contracts, and making gil. In the grand scheme of things, she's barely average in terms of what an adventurer should be. Easily passed over for missions, easily dismissed from attentions. It's all in service, though, of the other half of her life, that of an Information Broker deeply connected with the dark, underground places of the world.

★Information here may seem limited. This is intentional. Skratti does not share details about her life or history with people freely. Certain information and personal relationship information is ambiguous because it is not publicly discussed. Anything listed here is strictly OOC knowledge unless Skratti has discussed it with your character.

Appearance

Skratti is a short, pale, freckled Miqo'te with red hair.

She has gone through several distinct phases during her time in the public eye. The first of which was very tomboyish, complete with the dirty, bland clothes and knotted hair typical of Ul'dah street rats. This was followed by a dramatic change pushed on her by friends, turning her into a well groomed, attractive young lady.

Her most recent appearance seems to be a blend of the two, something she is more comfortable with. While she still tends to favor some of the clothing given to her as part of her previous makeover, she has dropped most of the makeup and jewelery, letting her hair grow wild and knotted into dreadlocks, giving her a slightly more feral presence.

Depending on whether or not there are strangers around, Skratti can often slip into a very quiet demeanor. If she's in a comfortable situation, though, she can become very chatty, and oftentimes has a mischievous glint in her eye.

Eyes	Hair	Skin	Body Type	Voice	Clothing	Notable Features
Light Blue/ Black	Deep Red with Soft Red Tips	Pale	Small and Thin	Quiet, with an odd cadence and speech pattern	Whatever she feels like wearing. She has no one specific style.	An odd, aetherically induced heterochromia.

Behavior and Personality

Skratti often speaks with very deliberately chosen words and phrases, punctuated by pauses or "umm's" and "uh's" due to her odd natural speech. Growing up, her family had a multitude of strange phrases -- odd sounding things, often multiple words running together, and some phrases that, to them, mean the opposite of what other people may think they mean, or phrases that sound entirely like nonsense. She spends a great deal of time studying the 'proper' way to speak, helped along by a notebook filled with 'proper' words and phrases.

Mostly quiet, she isn't so shy as to avoid a conversation, and is quick -- eager, even, to form companionships. Beneath the surface, however, lies something distant. Not quite maliciousness, there's an often dormant coldness that can sometimes bubble up, influencing her actions or decisions. Less 'evil', and more 'pragmatic apathy'.

Skratti considers herself a rather adept liar, though she personally doesn't care to lie. When it comes to things she'd rather not reveal she tends to simply bend the truth by being overly vague rather than lie outright. She is also adept at slipping in and out of personalities, going so far as to fully create fake lives, known as Legends, and live as that person totally and completely if a job calls for it.

It isn't uncommon to find Skratti simply staring off into space. The way her mind works is somewhat unique -- she is constantly crunching probabilities in her head, which almost always guide her decisions. This often enables her to give multiple points of view on any given situation. Feed more variables into her, and she can come up with multiple scenarios and their respective likelihoods of occurrence.

Combat

Skratti tends toward the more supportive side of skills, focusing more specifically on the magical aspects of combat. She would much rather let others do the hitting and make sure they don't hurt themselves too badly, rather than do the hitting herself. Despite her reluctance at fighting, she has some skill in almost every area, though she's by no means proficient in the more physical forms of combat.

Player Character Relationships

Family

Skratti speaks very highly of her family, and will often tell stories about them in conversation, though she's quite careful to never be specific about their location or what they're currently up to. If pressed for details, Skratti will usually reveal she has three older brothers, plus her mother and father, as well as a handful of older and younger sisters.

As far as she is aware, all of her family is dead. Her three brothers were married off into other Keeper clans when she was very young, all as part of her mother's machinations, and she hasn't heard a word from any of them since before the Calamity. Her father, too, is long since missing. Skratti never kept especially close tabs on her sisters -- her older sisters all left the clan to start their own, or were run off by their mother, and she never had much time for her younger sisters due to her being constantly groomed as the next Matriarch, by her mother. Of her direct family, the only one she's pretty sure is dead is her mother. She believes she witnessed her mother die before her very eyes, consumed by the flames of the Calamity. But then again, she was also a terrified young girl when it happened, so maybe her eyes played tricks on her.

(*note: As her three brothers were all sent off to join other Keeper families, they might no longer share the same surname as her. Food for thought.)

Positive Standing

Lyuri Felnica : Skratti is head over heels for Lyuri. Initially unsure of what to make of the woman, or even how to deal with her at all, a rather circuitous route of experiences led Skratti from being Lyuri's employee employee, to an acquaintance, to confidante, to finally being a person Skratti would do almost anything for, with no questions asked.

Nesi Greene : Though Skratti hasn't seen Nesi for a while, she's genuinely fond of the woman. Nesi's caring nature quickly won her over, and so Skratti considers Nesi one of the very few people worth keeping secrets for.

Nazeru Auronas : Naz seems like a decent enough person, to Skratti, and another fishing buddy is always welcome.

Aldyet Lannis : Skratti met Aldyet through their mutual friend Nazeru, and quite quickly took a liking to the girl.

Jilyan Sakura : Skratti considers Jilyan a close friend, even if the two don't hang out often enough. Off and on business partners, Skratti has little issue with helping Jilyan out with anything she might need.

Orpheus Arkouda : Skratti met Orpheus completely by chance, as she ducked into a bar to escape a sudden spat of rain. She thinks he's rather handsome, and offered him a position as her bodyguard, should she ever need one. They've since become close friends.

Roswyn Valhuri : Roswyn sometimes seems to be the polar opposite of Skratti in how they go about doing things, but Skratti feels like their different points of view on almost everything seem compliment each other quite well. Skratti doesn't quite trust Roswyn completely, but she respects her talents and professionalism to the point that Skratti will often consider how Roswyn might approach a situation, and then act accordingly.

J'nangho Jhimei : J'nangho managed to capture Skratti's interest with a song, and then cemented that interest by telling her fortune. Skratti finds her interesting, since it sounds like her line of work is the flip side of what J'nangho does for a living.

Friederike Visconti : Frie was a librarian at one point, which meant it wasn't very long before Skratti stumbled across her, and then quickly decided they would be friends.

Neutral Standing

Rhuya Lanbatal : Rhuya kind of scares Skratti, but she's interesting to talk to. And Frie likes her, so she can't be a bad person, right?

Argust Clow : Skratti finds Argust interesting. He doesn't seem to talk much, and hates crowds, which makes him seem like a puzzle to be solved.

Vasque Desmarais : Vasque introduced Skratti to oranges, a food she had never had before, which quickly became her favorite food. While they were once friends, months without speaking more than a word or two to each other has left Skratti realizing they haven't been for a while.

Chokho Viqqoh : There was a point in time where Skratti had thought Chokho might become her best friend, but a difference in how they look at the world created some kind of schism between them. Skratti spent a length of time trying to fix whatever was broken, but eventually gave up when a mutual friend informed her that Cho felt she and Skratti were not compatible.

Ennara Calian : Ennara and Skratti started as friends, and then dated for a while.. and then had a bad breakup, which left them not on great terms. Then they worked things out, and things seemed good until Ennara tried to suggest a return to being more than friends, only to break things off less than a day later. Skratti has no idea what to think about Ennara, now.

Rumors

Common Rumors

• "That tiny girl? She's always in the Quicksand, reading by herself."
• "I saw her poking at one of those ornamental displays in Ul'dah. Maybe she likes the flowers in it?"

Moderate Rumors

• "She seems to know a lot of shady people. With a mother like her's, though, I can understand why."

Rare Rumors

• "Just keep away from her, y'understand? She's got a way of finding out things you'd rather not get found out."

Player Character Rumors

• Feel free to add if you know of her!

• "Someone's got a seeecret ~♪" - Chokho Viqqoh
• "You should take some time to talk with her. She's a very interesting girl." - Roswyn Valhuri

History

Early History

Skratti grew up in the middle of a pack of children, and as the chosen female heir was given a certain amount of leeway by her family. Two of her three older brothers were both Miners, while the youngest brother was a Botanist. Skratti spent a large chunk of time learning to fish from her father, which is where she developed her affinity for the activity.

Eventually, around the age of ten, Skratti decided she wanted to become an adventurer. With how much her family roamed around she had already developed a taste for travel, but she didn't think it fair to only travel and not help people wherever they stopped. Directly opposing that was her mother, a mysterious figure for as long as Skratti could remember. If the mining or the botany didn't bring in enough Gil to meet their basic needs, her mother was always there, whispering a word or two to the right person to bring them in a fresh source of money.

For two years Skratti (with ample assistance from her father) trained in secret to become an adventurer. Her father tolerated the desire, assuming Skratti would eventually grow out of it -- and he couldn't help but dote on his favorite daughter. As they trained he explained, in bits and pieces, what it was her mother actually *did*; she was a dealer of information.

In their travels her mother would often come across interesting pieces of information, and often sell that information to interested parties if the price was right. Her mother also used this considerable network to keep her family under control, a fact that rubbed Skratti the wrong way.

One day, at the age of twelve, Skratti decided she wanted out and snuck off on her own. Glorious adventuring awaited for her, and she couldn't help but be optimistic. If the adventuring didn't go well, she reasoned, she still knew how to live off the land.

A few weeks later came the Calamity. Despite having 'wandered off', Skratti hadn't actually strayed too far from where her family was supposed to be, and through the chaos she rushed back to find them, but came up mostly unsuccessful.

There was a moment, though. A brief moment, where she was absolutely sure she saw her mother about to be consumed by flame. Enough of a moment that she was absolutely sure she could have saved her, but instead her young mind was struck by a thought. Her mother's profession was the reason she wasn't even allowed to be an adventurer in the first place, and it also seemed to be a constant source of money. With her mother out of the way, Skratti could take over and do whatever she wanted -- adventuring included.

And then her mother was no longer there, just the flames, and a passerby scooped her up and carried her away from the scene, to safety.

As far as Skratti knew, from that point on she had become the new Matriarch of her clan, a fact which she has done her best to absolutely ignore whenever possible.

More Recently

Skratti has been mostly on her own since the Calamity, doing her best at adventuring, but mostly exploring and fishing to stay fed. She occasionally dips her toe into the seedier side of the world -- that's where the best clients are for the kind of goods she happens to deal in, when the mood strikes her. She had also joined a Free Company, seeking to break the solitude of her life, though more recently she's back on her own again.

Despite her allegiance to her friends and Company, Skratti also has her hands in a massive chunk of the various undergrounds and black markets across Eorzea. A network of spies and informants, originally cultivated by her mother, became hers on the event of her mother's death. Even so, Skratti maintains the ruse that she's simply a point of contact between her informants and her mother. No reason to let them think otherwise, when her mother's reputation is a large part of how she is able to manage her affairs on her own.

Present Day

Skratti reemerged after several months, looking more grown up than before. She's gained a bit of height, a small bit of weight, and looks more like a wild animal than she ever did, even during her days on the streets of Ul'dah.

Character Connections

The following characters may have the possibility of an RP link with Skratti:

• Anyone who has lived in Ul'dah might recognize her as a nondescript freelancer named Kathrynne.
• Anyone with ties to the Ul'dahn underground.
• Anyone who frequents bars, especially the bars with a bad reputation.
• Anyone desiring access to black market goods.
• Other Keeper Matriarchs or clan members looking to absorb smaller clans to increase their own size and strength.

There's always room for interesting surprises, as well. Older or younger sisters. Long lost brothers, or members of the Keeper clans they were married into. Perhaps even the reappearance of her father or mother, if someone were so inclined.

Annotations

I used a modified version of the template page of Roswyn Valhuri after asking for permission first.