¶ 🐦 Background
“In a land like Ustalav, faith don’t save you. Standing saves you.”
Clutch was never meant to survive. His egg was found half-buried in the cold earth outside Ravengro, a village haunted by old superstitions and older ghosts. A widowed tavernkeeper, Siska, took him in despite the villagers’ whispers that a feathered child was a bad omen.
Ustalav is a land that sharpens people like knives. As Clutch grew, he was mocked and feared — called a harbinger, a “gravebird,” a freak. But where other children bent or broke, Clutch hardened. When laughter turned cruel, he fought back. When fists came at him, he hit back harder. When creatures of the night stalked the village, he didn’t run — he stood his ground.
By ten, he was scrapping with farmhands and fending off wild dogs. By twelve, he was testing himself in backroom brawls in Lepidstadt, the knowledge center of Ustalav. He’s been cut, broken, bitten — but never beaten. That’s where the name “No-Tap” came from: in the ring under the Flickering Lamp, when a half-rotted ghoul got its claws around his throat. Clutch passed out—spasming, paralyzed, pupils blown. They thought he was done. But he came to minutes later, gagging on bile and fury, and drove his beak into the thing’s face like it owed him rent. No one who saw it forgot. And Clutch? He never tapped. Not then. Not ever.
¶ Present Day
Years ago, after wrapping up a late-night bouncer shift at The Final Exam, Clutch was jumped in a dark alley by what he thought were pranksters from the Nocturne Phi Theta fraternity. That illusion vanished the moment fangs flashed and their ferocity struck—these weren’t drunk students playing vampire.
They were the real thing.
Clutch fought back, brutal and desperate, but the tide was against him. He would’ve died there—bled dry in the gutter—if not for Eram Vos, a half-mad scholar with too many secrets and too little sense. Vos dragged Clutch from the brink, patched him up, then left as quickly as he arrived.
Clutch never forgot.
The beating he took that night never left him. Neither did the sense of powerlessness. After weeks of recovery—and training—Clutch made an unorthodox choice. He took up a Dedication to Kurgess, the Strong Man, not out of faith, but out of grit. Kurgess wasn’t a savior. He was a fighter who rose to godhood with fists and backbone. That was something Clutch could stand behind.
Years passed. Then one night, Vos returned—wounded, hunted, starving. No explanations. Just a sealed scroll case shoved into Clutch’s scarred hands.
“Take this to Absalom. Find the Sooty Lads and Lass. Tell no one.”
No promise of pay. No guarantee he’d make it there alive. Just a debt.
And Clutch honors his debts.
¶ 🧠 Philosophy
- Hold your own, no matter the odds.
- Keep your word, even if it breaks your beak.
- Payback kindness-and pain-with interest
- Survival matters more than comfort.
¶ 🏋️ On Kurgess
Clutch doesn’t worship. He spars.
To him, Kurgess isn’t a god to kneel to—he’s a reminder that strength, earned through pain and resolve, can elevate a soul. Clutch took up a Cleric Dedication in the Strong Man’s name not for divine favor, but as a pact with power he understands: the kind that wins clean and stands tall.
¶ 🍻 Places and People That Shaped Him
- Ravengro: His village of origin — cold, suspicious, tight-knit. He carries their distrust of outsiders and their stubborn will.
- Lepidstadt: Where he earned his name, fighting in smoky tavern basements under gas lamps and noble wagers.
- Siska: The tavernkeeper who raised him and taught him decency. They parted bitterly when she begged him to leave the fight pits.
¶ 🪙 His Symbol
- A worn leather disc etched with a chalk ring — once a fight token, now his talisman.
- Fist wraps stitched with three red marks, each one a stand when everyone thought he’d fall.