Deruma is a lean, small Kenku with glossy black feathers tipped in smoky gray, sharp amber eyes, and a narrow, expressive beak. She wears fitted dark leather armor beneath a weathered charcoal cloak, with a red silk cord tied around one wrist as a personal token. Her belt carries daggers, thieves’ tools, chalk, wire, and tiny vials of colored ink. Several feathers near her left temple are missing, revealing a faint scar from an old rooftop chase.

Deruma is observant, irreverent, and intensely self-reliant. She treats conversation like a game of reconnaissance, cataloging accents, habits, and weaknesses while pretending not to pay attention. She is quick to mock authority, unexpectedly protective of outsiders, and fascinated by people who keep promises when breaking them would be easier.

Deruma was raised in the rain gutters and bell towers of Veyr, a city where every locked door concealed either wealth or trouble. Her first lessons came from a burglary crew that used her Kenku mimicry to imitate watch whistles, crying children, and the voices of respectable citizens. She learned to move silently across slate roofs, copy seals and signatures, and leave behind just enough confusion to make the guards chase the wrong shadow. The crew called her Little Echo, though Deruma never liked the name. To her, an echo belongs to someone else, while she has always wanted to be the first voice in the room. Her criminal life ended when the crew's leader sold out several members to protect a noble patron. Deruma escaped with a ledger containing names, payments, and blackmail material, but her closest friend did not. Now she travels as a professional thief and occasional information broker, using the ledger as both shield and bargaining chip. She joins adventurers because dangerous ruins offer better pay than city burglary, and because every expedition gives her another chance to uncover who ordered the betrayal. She insists she seeks only freedom and coin, but secretly she wants to expose the people who taught her that loyalty was merely another kind of lock.