Darro Finch – Crown Intelligencer

Name: Darro Finch
Race: Halfling
Role/Class: Crown Intelligencer
Appearance: Darro Finch is thirty-four and looks, at a deliberate glance, exactly like what his cover says he is: a tidy, unremarkable halfling clerk with warm brown skin, curly dark hair kept neat, and the mild, slightly distracted expression of someone who spends his days copying documents and thinking about lunch. He is short even by halfling standards, slight, and dressed always in the muted greys and tans of a mid-level palace administrative worker — clean, pressed, forgettable. At a second, more careful glance, one might notice that his eyes are slightly too attentive for the expression they're set in, that his sitting position in any room orients him toward the exits without appearing to, and that his hands — which hold a quill with clerk-perfect precision — carry the particular calluses of someone who has also spent considerable time doing things that are not clerical work. He wears no weapons visibly. He has four concealed ones and has not needed more than two in the same situation yet.

Backstory

Darro Finch was recruited by the Crown's intelligence apparatus at twenty-two, pulled from a minor records position he'd taken after a youth that involved considerably more door-climbing and lock-work than his official history reflects. He was identified not for any particular talent at fighting or following orders, but for a demonstrated ability to be in rooms he wasn't supposed to be in without anyone remembering he'd been there — a skill set the Crown's spymaster described, at the time, as "efficiently invisible."

He has been efficiently invisible for twelve years now, operating under cover of a records clerk position that he actually performs with genuine competence because the best cover is one that holds up to full scrutiny. He files on time, attends the correct meetings, and is remembered by his colleagues as pleasant and slightly dull. In the other half of his working life he maintains a network of six paid informants, runs surveillance on targets designated by the spymaster, facilitates the occasional covert communication, and does the kind of problem-solving that the Crown needs done without any record of having requested it. He is good at this. He is not entirely certain how he feels about all of it, which is a question he keeps deferring on the grounds that he is currently busy.