Scorch is a broad, copper-shelled humanoid scorpion standing nearly seven feet tall when his segmented body is fully raised. His shell is dark ochre beneath a coat of wind-polished sand, and his eight black eyes glint like wet stone in sunlight. His crushing pincers are kept close to his chest when he speaks, while his smaller limbs move with quick, precise gestures. His mouth is lined with small grinding teeth, and when he laughs or eats, his jaw opens wider than most people expect, revealing a pale inner mouth. Years of desert travel have dulled the edges of his shell and left the exposed joints dry and cracked. His long tail curls over one shoulder, ending in a glassy amber stinger.

Scorch is patient, observant, and unsettlingly practical. He speaks in short statements, dislikes waste, and regards panic as a kind of thirst that makes people spend themselves too quickly. Despite his reserved manner, he is fascinated by unfamiliar customs and secretly enjoys collecting badly explained sayings from travelers.

Scorch hatched beneath a salt shelf in the Red Hollows, where his clutch learned to read the desert by vibration. His people did not speak of the dunes as empty land. They called them a slow-moving animal, one that buried roads, uncovered bones, and carried messages in the shape of its ridges. Scorch became a pathfinder and water-finder, guiding traders, pilgrims, and fugitives between distant wells. He learned to sleep beneath overturned stone, to drink dew from thorn leaves, and to judge an approaching storm by the taste of grit on his tongue.