Nexus Character Directory

[Slii Arhem]

Slii Arhem

Alias: The Rat Man

Gender: Male

Race: Human Mutant (Skaven Ancestry)

Age: 33

Alignment: Neutral

Profession: Rat Catcher, Thief

Power Rating: C+

Description: Slii is remarkably thin, his yellowish, parchment-like skin showing the outline of every bone and organ in his body. His pointed nose and chin stick out over his sallow cheeks and pursed lips like a twisted, inhuman snout. His eyes are rhuematic and clouded, pupils hidden behind the whitish grey film that covers them. It is unknown whether or not he can actually see, but most think he just guides himself with a particularly sharp sense of smell. He wears a patchwork cloak stitched together from animal hides and sinew, and sewn into the hood is a greying wolf skull he slips over his head like a helmet, the end of its snout almost touching his crooked nose. Under that he wears a pair of scavenged jeans and an army jacket given to him by one of his clients.

Personality: Slii is as paranoid and cautious as the animals he cares for, seldom breaking into the surface world during the day, preferring the cloak of shadows to hide his egress should things go foul. To Slii there is no place for man-friends. There are only clients and customers, and he'd prefer not to have to deal with either.

Equipment: Besides the random assortment of animal bones and teeth he carries in fur pouches and the pockets of his jacket, Slii carries only one weapon. A first glance or from a far distance it looks like an ordinary braided rope. But at the first touch of his hand, Denmother writhes in his grip, stretching, curling, thickening and wrapping around things and people nearby of its own accord. Those who have studied it up close hesitate to speak of it, but if pressed or plied with drink will admit that it seems to be made of nothing less than thousands of braided rat tails, all holding themselves to each other by some foul magic and still oozing rancid green fluids from their severed ends. There is one man who has seen it twice in its natural state, and before he died of a wasting sickness passed on the knowledge that the second time it was much longer than the first.

Abilities: Slii's abilties aren't well documented, because in the rare occasions someone corners him with intent to harm he simply curls up to take the beating. There are rumors, unsubstantiated but growing, about the rash of illness among those that persist in harming the Rat Man. Most chalk it up to his general poor health and filthiness rubbing off on those that touch him, but some aren't so sure. Were someone to threaten his life directly they'd find him more than a challenge, as he possesses skill in the sorcerous powers of form shaping and necromancy, in part due to the warpstone still leaking chaos radiation into his skull.

Back Story: Slii was a deliberate experiment by an Imperial Collegiate mage to bring out the bestial ancestry of men through the use of wyrdstone shards implanted in the brain. He happened to be the first, and only, successful test of the procedure, for as a child he had been blessed by his mother, a worshipper of Nurgle, and bore a mark of chaos that prevented it from killing him outright.

Instead, the process changed him, giving him an affinity for rats unsurpassed even by his skaven relatives. He could speak to the rats, shape and control them more easily than the most skilled of clan Moulder, and continue to alter their forms even through the boundries of death.

Nurgle, pleased with his chosen child, has heeped blessings upon him one after another, though the whispers of vile madness go ignored in his ears.

After coming to the Nexus, Slii has done what comes natural to those of his ilk. He has tunnneled. His tunnels connect much of the red zone, and a few are rumored to extend past the walls seperating Inside from the rest of the world. Smugglers who have tried to beat a map out of him to gain access to these tunnels never found them, but the rumors persist. He has been careful to collapse any tunnels that accidently break through into Underside, as he is even more wary of what waits below him than he is of those on the surface.

Misc.: Slii is a thief by profession, taking jobs to steal objects of value from one person for another person's gain. In exchange he generally demands grain and other staples to feed his growing horde of rats that constantly breed and multiply in the tunnels. He also does rat catching, although some joke that it is more akin to a protection racket, involving him telling the rats in question to lay off certain houses for awhile. The jokers aren't aware of how close that is to the truth.