Nickname: Gummy
True Name: Gm'mmrrr'kthl'aaii-zhûûn-na'khrrr-ûl
Race: Nhal'ari
Size: Small
Height: Just under 3 feet

Gummy is a tiny Nhal'ari humanoid standing just under three feet tall. She has a small, slender body with delicate, slightly elongated limbs and an oversized head. Her proportions give her an almost cute appearance at first glance, but the longer someone looks at her, the more subtly unnatural she becomes.

Her face is smooth and rounded, with a small nose, a small mouth, and unusually large, expressive eyes. Her eyes are extremely dark, appearing almost completely black in dim light. Her skin is a muted blue-grey, smooth and mostly featureless, with faint strange patterns beneath the surface that occasionally become visible when the light catches them.

Gummy's hands are small, but her fingers are unusually long and thin, with an extra joint that gives them an unsettling flexibility.

Despite her strange appearance, Gummy is generally friendly, curious, and comfortable around other people. She does not consider herself frightening or monstrous. To her, the strange things that happen to her body are simply something that sometimes happens.

The Unnatural Things

Gummy's body does not always behave as a normal humanoid body should.

Her eyes occasionally blink incorrectly. Sometimes her pupils close before her eyelids blink, creating the unsettling appearance that her pupils themselves have blinked. Sometimes her eyes remain open while the pupils blink, followed by a normal blink a moment later.

Small manifestations can also appear on her body without warning.

An additional eye might briefly open on her hand, shoulder, arm, neck, or somewhere else on her body before disappearing again. Occasionally an eye may look around independently, blink, or seem to focus on something that nobody else can see.

Mouths sometimes appear as well. They may form on her hand, arm, stomach, neck, or other parts of her body. Most disappear without doing anything, although some may smile, whisper, or quietly repeat something Gummy has said.

Gummy does not always notice these manifestations.

Other strange changes can happen without warning. Her fingers may briefly gain an extra joint. Her teeth may temporarily become different. Her shadow may develop extra limbs or move independently. Her reflection may move a moment after she does. Her joints may bend slightly farther than they should. Her ears or other features may briefly appear or disappear.

Sometimes her footsteps make no sound.

Occasionally, the footsteps of something much larger seem to accompany hers.

These events are usually harmless and disappear within seconds or minutes.

Gummy calls these occurrences normal.

Her Name

Gummy's true Nhal'ari name is:

Gm'mmrrr'kthl'aaii-zhûûn-na'khrrr-ûl

The written version is only an approximation.

The actual name contains sounds that humanoid vocal cords cannot properly reproduce, including clicks, throat vibrations, overlapping tones, and sounds that seem to occur simultaneously.

Most humanoids cannot pronounce more than the beginning.

"Gummy" is therefore used as her common name.

Whether Gummy chose the nickname herself, whether another person gave it to her, or whether it is somehow connected to the first fragment of her true name is uncertain.

When asked for her name, she generally gives people the easy version.

"You can call me Gummy."

Reality Bleed

The Nhal'ari possess an unstable connection to something beyond the material world, but Gummy experiences this phenomenon far more frequently than other Nhal'ari.

Her physical form occasionally seems to forget what shape it is supposed to have.

For a brief moment, something else overlaps with her.

An eye may appear where no eye should exist. A mouth may whisper from beneath her skin. Her shadow may become something entirely different. Her voice may briefly contain another voice beneath it.

Gummy does not always know why these things happen.

She sometimes reacts to them with mild curiosity rather than fear.

If an eye appears on her hand, she might simply look at it and say:

"Oh. That's new."

The Eldritch Secret

The Nhal'ari believe they are an ancient humanoid race descended from beings that once served an entity known as the Sleeper.

The truth is far stranger.

The Nhal'ari are fragments of the Sleeper itself.

Long ago, an enormous entity from beyond reality attempted to enter the material world. Reality could not contain its entire existence, and the entity broke apart.

The fragments became the first Nhal'ari.

Over thousands of years, those fragments developed independent minds, personalities, cultures, emotions, and identities.

They became people.

Gummy is one of those fragments.

But something about Gummy is different.

She experiences Reality Bleed far more often than other Nhal'ari.

Her body appears less stable.

She has begun experiencing strange dreams and occasional memories of places she has never visited.

Sometimes she wakes knowing things she should never have known.

Sometimes she hears a voice in her dreams.

She originally believed the voice belonged to some eldritch patron.

She may eventually discover that it is not a patron speaking to her.

It is something inside her remembering what it used to be.

The most frightening possibility is that Gummy is not slowly becoming an eldritch creature.

She may be slowly remembering that she already was one.