Ténoch Vargai is a lean, long-winged aarakocra with rust-red and cream feathers, a dark umber beak, and alert gold-brown eyes. He stands with one foot slightly raised when waiting, as if listening for a change in the wind, and tends to balance his weight on the balls of his taloned feet. His hands are unusually deft and visibly worn from years of leatherwork, with flattened calluses along his fingers and small stains of dye caught between the scales. He wears carefully repaired leather armor beneath a white-and-ochre clerical sash, and keeps his holy symbol tied close to his breast so it will not catch on branches or rigging.

Ténoch is attentive, practical, and quietly warm. He remembers how people take their tea, which strap on a pack is rubbing their shoulder, and who has not spoken during a conversation. He dislikes grand speeches but has a dry sense of humor and an instinct for making frightened people feel useful. In danger, his calm becomes almost stubborn, as though panic were simply another torn seam waiting to be repaired.

Ténoch Vargai was raised among a high-cliff aarakocra settlement where every useful object had to be light enough to carry and strong enough to survive a sudden storm. His first trade was leatherworking. He learned to cut harnesses, flight straps, weatherproof pouches, and flexible armor for travelers who could not afford to lose a single piece of gear in the mountains. His work brought him into contact with merchants, pilgrims, and wounded adventurers, and he became known for mending people as carefully as he mended their equipment. During a winter crossing, Ténoch found a stranded caravan whose guide had died and whose survivors were close to freezing. He spent the night binding splints, sharing his own food, and praying to Ilmater, the god of endurance and mercy, until help arrived. The experience convinced him that craftsmanship and compassion were parts of the same calling. He joined a guild in the lowlands, apprenticed himself to a temple healer, and took holy vows as a cleric of the Life Domain. He still carries his leatherworking tools, believing that every repaired strap, boot, and bandage is a small refusal to let hardship have the final word.