Fikir is the playtest character used to test the rules for the griot character archetype. The griot is a social and investigation support type character who specialises in monster lore. They also collect and use trophies from monsters and start the game with one.

This illustration by Willem Hampson shows him holding the severed tongue of a snake monster. The tongue remains fresh and writhes and drips saliva indefinitely. Fikir uses it to smell the air and lead him to new clues.

Fikir's supernatural gift is the Gold Mouthed. He can turn up the supernatural charm so that everything he says is believed and those who hear him speak will do, almost, anything he says.

When his stigmata triggers someone will glance at him, and, for just a split second, they see his face split open to reveal thousands of eyes staring out unblinkingly. Then its gone and with a shudder the person who witnessed this looks away and wonders if they imagined it.

Luka is a eunuch sorcerer who uses Greco-Egyptian runes, chanting and magical materials to conjure and control the elements.

He was expelled from the secret imperial colleges of magic when his stigmata started to manifest. Cold mist in summer, lighting strikes on a cloudless day, flurries of snow in June. He now scrapes together enough dinarii to keep a roof over his head by preparing Aer and Aqua spells to trap or disable monsters in swirling vortices of air or gushing water.

As a pre-pubescent castrati his voice never broke and he will never grow a beard. He is less muscular than the bearded ones and is tall and will never go bald (odd that he shaves his head).

A Ghassanid Arab from Jabiyah in the Golan Heights. Halima has travelled to Constantinople in search of fame and fortune as a monster hunter. Disappointed to learn that carnificis are looked down on as dangerous but necessary evils she nevertheless revels in using her skills in potion making, poison brewing and alchemical devices to rain down chemical terror on the monsters her cohors hunt.

She can control Fate in minor ways causing unlikely things to happen around her: swarms of rats to appears, clouds to block the sun, a wheel to come off a wagon, a tile to fall from a roof.

Not keen on getting her hands dirty, and always smelling beautifully of oud, Halima has a personal slave to do all the dirty work of collecting monster body parts and fluids for her concoctions.

Captured from Persia during times of war Sohrab served as a slave for the Roman empire, first as a shipbuilder, then in the military. It was during his military service that his supernatural strength emerged. At first he was put to good use on military campaigns but soon jealousy and fear emerged amongst his fellow legionaries and he was discharged.

He now roams the empire as muscle to hire but as only monster hunter cohors will hire him his life is now one constant battle of his titanic might against the terrors of the monstrous enemies he encounters.

His stigmata is that just by looking at him you can tell, deep in your soul, that he could quite literally tear your head from your shoulders and rend your limbs from your body without even breaking sweat.

His trauma is that he once killed someone accidentally due to his unnatural strength. It is up to you as his player to decide what happened.