Dark portrait of a grizzled man holding a playing card, painterly style

Varn “Four-Finger” Kessler A wiry, sharp-eyed man in his early forties, with weathered olive skin and hair the color of smudged ink — black streaked with early gray at the temples. His hair is tousled and unkempt, as though combed only by the wind. One hand is conspicuously missing its pinky finger, the stump clean and long-healed, often left visible to remind others of the price of bad odds. His eyes are unsettling: one a muddy brown, the other an eerie pale green, clouded with something unnatural — a faint, constant glimmer like moonlight on oil. Deep lines etch his face, telling of sleepless nights, near-deaths, and too many lost wagers. A ragged coat, once fine, hangs from his shoulders, the cuffs frayed and one lapel pinned with a bent, rusted playing card. Leather gloves cover most of his hands, save for the missing digit. Around his neck, a cord of tarnished charms and a single shark tooth. A battered flask and a pouch of cards hang from his belt, the deck’s edges frayed, its back painted with strange shifting patterns of black and crimson. He’s always fiddling with a card between two fingers, flipping it through his knuckles or letting it vanish up his sleeve, a nervous tic or a private ritual. His presence smells faintly of cold tobacco, old paper, and a metallic tang like rain-soaked iron. When the cursed cards activate, ghostly images flicker around him — thorned crowns, ink-smoke illusions, or hollow-eyed faces from half-remembered nightmares. See more