Alkeria keeps his dark hair combed back with fussy precision, though one stubborn curl always slips loose above his brow. His polished, swept-back horns frame a broad, expressive mouth; when he laughs, his slightly crowded teeth show, and he chews with quick, thoughtful little bites. He dresses in a weather-darkened leather coat over a vivid blue waistcoat, with a lute strap crossing his chest and a small infernal charm at his throat.

Alkeria is quick-witted, observant, and generous with a joke when a room grows tense. He distrusts grand promises but has begun to trust small acts repeated over time. He is more comfortable turning grief into a song than speaking of it plainly.

Alkeria learned early that a well-timed chorus can cover a quiet door latch. He grew up taking messages and lifting purses for a crew that worked the alleys around the town of Sedgewick, a place named for the reeds that choke its canals. He was useful because he could imitate a guard's whistle, flatter a mark, and vanish into a crowd before anyone thought to look for a horned tiefling. When the crew's patron, a priest of the exiled god Vathruk, turned a neighborhood shrine into a slaughterhouse, Alkeria lost the people who had made his first crooked home feel safe. His anger fixed on the god, and he swore to find a way to end its reach in the world. For a while, revenge was the only song he knew. That changed on the road, where he fell in with people who refused to let his fury decide every choice. Sesh, a soft-spoken herbalist who smelled of crushed thyme, helped him recognize that keeping the dead in memory was not the same as making every living person pay for them. Alkeria still hunts the god's surviving influence, but now he hopes to protect the people it would hurt next. He makes a living as a bard, trading songs, secrets, and theatrical distractions, and has learned that a performance can rally a village as surely as it can empty a pocket.