Kett Galtik is a medium-sized male tiefling with deep russet skin, blunt swept-back horns, amber eyes, and a long, expressive tail that curls around the leg of his chair when he is thinking. His black hair is worn shoulder-length and tied with faded red cord. He dresses in a weather-stained robe beneath a fitted leather coat, with a holy symbol turned inward beneath his shirt and a battered guitar decorated with geometric brass studs. He looks lean rather than frail, with the careful posture of someone accustomed to guarding his ribs. Within a minute of meeting him, most people notice that he repeatedly checks the tuning pegs of his guitar even when no music is being played. His voice is normally warm and resonant, but when frightened or furious it becomes thin and breathless, forcing him to pause between words.

Kett is dry, observant, and quick to notice hypocrisy. He performs confidence more easily than he feels it, using jokes and nimble guitar work to keep conversations moving away from his wounds. He is unexpectedly gentle with frightened children, abandoned animals, and anyone being pressured by a charismatic authority figure. He dislikes being thanked, because gratitude reminds him of the social debts his former sect used to control its congregation.

Kett Galtik was raised among the Ashen Covenant, an insular tiefling religious sect that traveled between hidden settlements and shuttered shrines. The Covenant taught that survival depended on obedience, secrecy, and absolute trust in its Veiled Shepherds. Kett became an acolyte, then a cantor, mastering its old hymns and the stringed instruments used to lead worship. His voice carried through crowded prayer halls, and his family considered his growing reputation a blessing. His marriage was arranged within the congregation, and for a time he believed the sect offered the only safe home a tiefling could have in a suspicious land. The illusion broke when Kett discovered ledgers showing that the Shepherds were diverting offerings, selling access to sacred rites, and taking children from poor families under the pretense of religious service. He began quietly collecting testimony and hiding copies of the records inside hymn books. Before he could expose the leaders, his own family betrayed him. His wife identified his hiding place, and several relatives beat him nearly to death before the Shepherds declared him a blasphemer and excommunicated him. Kett survived because a traveling musician found him in a drainage ditch and taught him how to earn coin on the road. Now he wanders from town to town as an itinerant bard, playing lively guitar music with rapid fingerwork and mournful, ornamented melodies reminiscent of Flamenco. He sings about frauds, false saints, and the strange dignity of people who refuse to kneel, while pretending that nothing matters enough to hurt him anymore.