Name: Murugaṉ Māyaṉ Age: 19 Nationality / Region: Nappanthilan Janapadas (Nepenthe Valley, Isidis Bay hinterlands) Role: Trickster / Social Infiltrator / Companion Wildcard Class: Rogue (Charlatan–Courtier hybrid) -Silver-Tongued: Murugaṉ reads desire faster than intent, and speaks to what people want to hear before they know they want it. -Resilient: Having survived rigid caste hierarchies and sudden reversals of fortune, he adapts quickly without losing his sense of self. -Playfully Defiant: He treats social rules as suggestions, bending them with charm rather than open rebellion. -Secretly Wounded: Beneath the confidence lies a sharp awareness of how conditional admiration can be. Murugaṉ Māyaṉ was born into the lower castes of the Nappanthilan Janapadas, in the lush yet rigidly stratified societies along the Nepenthe Valley. From an early age, he learned that intelligence and beauty were currencies more flexible than birth. Though barred from formal power, he mastered conversation, ritual etiquette, and the subtle art of seduction. His dark skin marked him as inferior in the eyes of many, yet it also became part of his allure—exoticized, desired, and quietly resented. As he grew older, Murugaṉ moved through salons, temples, and merchant courts, becoming a favorite "companion" to nobles, scholars, and priests alike. Gifts followed—jewels, deeds, protection—but so did suspicion. When it became clear he was not loyal but a trickster, admiration curdled into danger. Accusations whispered, knives sharpened. He fled west under cover of night, abandoning wealth for survival, and boarded the first ship that would take him far from the Janapadas. That ship carried Ilan Zhenar—and with her, a future far less predictable than anything he’d known.