Lintsmith

This is my entry for 's 7th Sanctum contest

My art
stock background.
The rest is assorted psp tubes found on the interwebs.

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Lintsmith ((wacky fantasy class generator))



This guy puts you in mind of a mysterious shadow. He has round eyes the color of turquoises. His luxurious, curly, black hair is short and is worn in an impractacal style. He has a graceful build. His skin is pale. He has prominent ears and a weak chin. His wardrobe is complicated, and is mostly green and yellow. ((general person generator))


In the murky, sunless depths of the World Below The Bed, a quiet civilization dwells. Linked through magical portals often found in shoeboxes, discarded socks, or even made from the lost necklaces or bracelets from Mom's Jewlery Drawer, the inhabitants are sedate and normally somewhat simple minded. However, there exists an elite group of creatures known as the LintSmiths, who are directly responsible for the creation and maintenance of the defenders of the World Below: the Dust Bunnies.

Since the inhabitants of this strange and even elusive world are never quite the same every time they're seen (when they are seen at all, which is rare indeed), it is difficult to put an appearance to these LintSmiths. But in general they appear bipedal, elfish or impish in proportion, and extremely feral yet at the same time almost arrogantly noble. Their keen intelligence and very good eyesight allows them to spot even hidden bunches of dust, lint and other detritus. Upon gathering this raw material, the LintSmith entwines it with strands of metal, fiber or plastic also scavenged from Below the Bed.

At this point, their creations are ready for the final stage: they are given brief and sudden life. They are often responsible for scaring children (being seen as reflections of bead-eyes, the spare claw or whip of a tail from under the bed's lowest hanging curtain of covers) and they are useful in patrolling the borders of every territory. They spare the rest of the normal inhabitants of the World Below the Bed a horrid fate: they are often sacrificed in their dormant state to the Great Sucking Monstrosity that visits almost every territory on a regular basis.

To say that the people of the World Below are more afraid of Humans than they are of us would be forgetting that most inhabitants are all but fearless themselves. The LintSmiths are responsible for keeping the peace, therefore, and almost certainly prevent any kind of dangerous interaction between the Human world and the World Below.

Typical LintSmith stats:

Intelligence: high
Ego/WillPower: medium to high
Psionic Ability/Magic: high but specific
Strength: low
Dexterity/Agility: medium
Health/Endurance: low

Skills found in most LintSmiths:

Scavenging
Spot Hidden Objects
Tinkering
Electrical Knowledge
Knot Tying and Untying
Material Identification
Tactics

Social Systems of LintSmiths:

There are few female LintSmiths, for whatever reason the lack of desire to make things out of dirt or fluff has excluded many females of the same physical type as the males from really gaining in ranks. However there are a few, perhaps three in twenty are female.
LintSmiths live solitary lives usually only meeting in private groups of three to ten on nights of the New Moon. They are also opportunistic, when a territory is left unattended for extended periods of time they spend more effort creating and scouting out in the dangerous Land Outside the Bedroom. Some small pockets of LintSmith works and civilization can be found in downstairs couch corners, in discarded storage areas, and in disused guest rooms aplenty.
A young LintSmith often tinkers without the ability to embue their creation with life. Slowly they grow in their magical abilities, and with practice they begin to animate small portions of fluff or beads. Over the course of a LintSmith's life, they can learn to animate whole Stuffed Beasts, which is a practice all but forbidden in the most dire of circumstances.
Only the quantity and quality of a LintSmith's work determines their rank among the group, and rarely does one group conflict with another's territory. The instances of 'Sleepovers', a natural disaster which often both destroys the work prior and creates huge new opportunities for sleeping-bag tears and child-frightening, are always a time of danger and celebration.
For all intents and purposes, LintSmiths, like all denizens Below the Bed, are immortal. However they are not ageless. Many of them prefer an older, more wizened look complete with hair springing from unexpected places, and beards that contain plentiful raw resources. Some however enjoy a more sleek looking youthful appearance, having slowly noticed the accumulation of popular plastic toys in the form of Human females. They do not take a female shape, unless they're actually female.
There is a small splinter community which lives in the Attic Above, but the LintSmiths only know that their distant kin in those slightly brighter and much more exposed places are quite wild and more prone to use natural predators to frighten humans. Some have even been seen to ride huge spiders - but that is speculation brought only through the screaming of young children forced to 'look up in the Attic for it'.

If a LintSmith dies, it is a very sad occasion. Sometimes this occurs with a complete reconstruction of the Territory: moving day it is called, and every territory's inhabitants dread this moment. If one fails to escape through the magical portals in time, there is very little recourse to learn what fate befalls the missing Smiths.