Sumi
Sumi
At the table
Voice
A dry, grain-edged voice shaped by salt air and years of speaking over surf. Her breathing is usually steady and audible through her nose; when rattled, it catches in quick sharp pulls before she forces it back into rhythm. Her words carry clearly through stone passages, with a slight rasp on hard consonants.
Her speech is measured and image-rich when recalling the past, but clipped and practical when discussing immediate danger. She favors tide, stone, and weather comparisons, and will often correct a listener's rhythm before correcting their words.
Speech patterns
How to play them
Offer practical help first, then ask what the visitor knows about the tides or the damaged entrance. Sumi responds well to patience and honest uncertainty. If someone mocks the songs, she becomes brisk and asks them to leave; if they show genuine interest, she may teach a verse but will not give away every fragment at once.
Goal
Teach the next generation enough of the old songs to navigate the caves safely, while persuading Pahru that preserving them also means allowing them to change.
Motivation
To keep people alive by passing on knowledge, and to remain the person who decides how that knowledge is shared.
Appearance
Sumi moves with the careful economy of someone who knows which rocks shift beneath a tide. Her skin is polished by salt air, and her close-cropped hair is combed into precise ridges that stay neat even in the cave damp. She keeps her chin lifted to listen for echoes, then turns her whole body toward whoever speaks. An unexpected detail: beneath her practical outer wrap she wears a tiny, bright yellow bead sewn at the collar, a cheerful remnant of a childhood festival she claims to dislike.
Clothing
A layered charcoal wrap with a waxed outer shoulder cape, patched at the hem with different shades of blue cloth. She ties it with a cord threaded through smooth shell toggles, wears rubber-soled sandals indoors, and keeps a dry scarf tucked under one arm.
Body language
She plants her walking stick before stepping onto uncertain rock, and angles her head toward voices as if measuring their distance by sound. When rattled, her breathing becomes a sharp sequence of nose-inhalations and she presses her lips together, visibly holding back a verse.
- Height
- 5 feet 1 inch
- Build
- Compact and sturdy, with strong calves and shoulders shaped by years of climbing wet steps and hauling baskets.
- Eyes
- Dark brown, with a pale amber ring near the pupil
- Hair
- Black, closely cropped with deliberate comb ridges and silver at the temples
- Skin
- Deep umber, weathered smooth on the cheeks and roughened at the knuckles by salt and rope
- Age
- About 58
- Gender
- Female
- Size
- Small
Distinguishing features
Personality
13 traits and drivesSumi is generous with food and practical knowledge but guarded with anything she considers sacred. She loves the old songs as living tools, yet becomes rigid when she fears they are being changed beyond recognition. In calm company she is wry and curious; when danger is near she turns blunt and commanding. With Pahru she is tender, proud, and more defensive than she means to be.
- Alignment
- Neutral good
Quirks
Habits
Traits · 4
Flaws · 3
Fears · 3
Wants and needs · 3
Combat
AC 10 · HP 7 · 25 ft.Sumi is not a trained combatant. She backs toward narrow, familiar passages, uses her walking stick to keep attackers at reach, and calls warnings to alert others. She retreats or bargains rather than pursuing anyone. She will risk herself to protect a child or a person trapped by the tide.
Sumi
Actions
Reactions
Services they sell
Rewards they can give
Equipment
- Walking stick (tool, improvised weapon)A stout, salt-smoothed stick used for balance and, if necessary, defense.
- Song strips (personal record)A tightly wrapped bundle of oilskin strips bearing song fragments in her own notation.
- Oil jar (supplies)A small clay jar of fish oil used to protect the strips and her sandals.
Possessions
Background
Sumi was born in the tide caves beneath a coastal settlement, where her family sheltered between fishing seasons. As a child she learned the old songs from her mother, who used them to mark safe passages, remember the drowned, and teach which currents could be trusted. When Sumi was young, a storm trapped her family in a flooded passage. She survived by following a verse whose words she had previously dismissed as nonsense. The experience made her a meticulous keeper of the songs, but also taught her that memory can fail at the worst moment. Years later, Sumi raised Pahru among the caves and taught him the fragments she could remember. He now tries to preserve the songs in a lasting form, while she insists that some verses only make sense when sung in their proper place, at the proper tide. Their arguments are affectionate but increasingly strained. Sumi has also promised Oruva, an elderly fisher who lives near the caves, that she will teach the settlement's children the warning verses before the next storm season. Her immediate problem is that a new quarry road has damaged one of the cave entrances, changing the echo that helps her keep the songs in tune.
Role in the story
A living link to the region's oral history, a source of practical cave knowledge, and a personal obstacle and ally in Pahru's effort to preserve the songs.
“When Sumi was young, a storm trapped her family in a flooded passage.”
- Faction
- No formal faction. She is trusted by the cave-dwelling families and is a reluctant intermediary between them and the quarry crew.
Known connections
Media
0 imagesNo images yet.
Turn Sumi into a sheet
A high-res, share-ready sheet you can post or print.
