At five feet six inches, Omatathur is compact and striking: a dark-grey, finely ridged exoskeleton catches light like wet slate, while six black, bead-bright eyes sit in three neat pairs across his brow. His mandibles part in small, precise clicks when he concentrates and flare wide when he laughs. He walks with a brisk, forward-leaning hitch, as if perpetually catching up to someone more important. In an unexpected contrast to his martial uniform, he keeps a tiny sprig of mint tucked into a clasp at his throat, replacing it daily for the clean smell.

Omatathur is sunny and quick to offer help, yet privately keeps score of every moment a superior notices him. He is bold when protecting a stranger, but hesitant when the person he must oppose wears the Order's insignia. Among friends he jokes freely; after a public failure he becomes overbusy and formal, as if diligence could hide embarrassment.

Omatathur grew up among loading bays and temple kitchens, the only child of a servant mother and a warehouse-worker father. He learned early that a fair bargain could feed a family as surely as a strong back, and he took Cathnorunz's teaching of commerce and persuasion to heart. At fifteen, he watched a dispute over a miscounted grain shipment turn into a dockside brawl; a novice of the Cathnorunz Order stepped between the workers, settled the claim, and kept anyone from being crushed beneath a toppled cart. He learned that the Order had begun as scattered merchant guards and Temple devotees who shared food, information, and protection along dangerous roads, and that the principality later chartered them as a religious order permitted to bear arms openly. Omatathur decided then that the Order's armor could be a promise as well as a threat. He joined as a novice and has since worked hard to be noticed, sometimes too hard. His mother, Nastalinia, still sends him mint sprigs and practical advice; his father, Umstalithor, worries that the Order will teach his son to value rank above people. Omatathur is currently trying to resolve a shortage of lamp oil at the temple without accusing the supplier, who once helped his family through a lean winter.