Skritch is a narrow-shouldered goblin with long arms, springy knees, and the alert stillness of a bird deciding whether a windowsill is safe. His green skin has a dry, pebbled texture along the forearms and a faint bluish cast around the knuckles. He stands with one heel lifted, as if perpetually prepared to flee, yet he bows with exaggerated courtly precision when introduced. His clothes are patched, smoke-stained, and several sizes too large, but his tiny silver crown is polished obsessively and fitted with a leather chin strap. The unexpected contradiction is his immaculate hands: he scrubs beneath his nails before every negotiation, despite sleeping in refuse-strewn tunnels. Within a minute, most people notice that he never sits in a chair normally. He perches on its edge backward, arms folded over the backrest, watching every doorway.