Shizhar

Shizhar is a disowned Argonian noble wandering Skyrim beneath an adopted name. Exile has taken his title, fortune, and household, but not his imperious manners. Draped in the remnants of aristocratic finery and stubbornly barefoot in every season, he treats poverty as an irritating misunderstanding and his exposed feet as a personal declaration of independence.

Shizhar is a broad-shouldered, imposing Argonian with dense olive-green and antique-gold scales patterned by darker, almost black ridges. His heavy, angular head is crowned by several short ivory horns, with additional spikes projecting from his cheeks and jaw. Intricate, web-like scales cover his brow and muzzle, while layered golden plates run down his long throat. His narrow copper-red eyes and naturally downturned mouth give him a severe, appraising expression, even when perfectly relaxed. His hands are large and reptilian, ending in long, dark claws, and he carries himself with the effortless composure of a noble sitting for a formal portrait.

His clothing remains conspicuously luxurious despite his exile. He favors a richly embroidered burgundy robe over black garments, all edged with angular gold trim. Fine chains cross his chest beneath an ornate copper medallion, while structured shoulders and a high, patterned collar reinforce his courtly silhouette. The ensemble is old-fashioned but carefully maintained, conveying inherited wealth rather than newly purchased finery. Even while lounging, he arranges himself with deliberate dignity—one arm resting on the chair, legs extended, and expression suggesting that every room naturally belongs to him.

In stark contrast to his scaled body and clawed hands, Shizhar’s feet are broad, fleshy, and almost human in shape, each possessing five rounded, unclawed toes. Their soles are pale tan with muted pink undertones, noticeably lighter than his green-gold scales. Thick pads, roughened skin, and deep creases across the balls, arches, and heels testify to years of traveling without footwear, though they remain meticulously clean and well tended. He habitually displays them without embarrassment, propping them prominently on tables or toward the fire as though this were an aristocratic privilege. He wears dark trousers with fur-trimmed cuffs but owns no shoes, ensuring that his bare feet remain the most immediate and incongruous feature of his otherwise immaculate appearance.

Shizhar remains unmistakably aristocratic. His voice is measured, educated, and faintly theatrical, and he speaks to innkeepers, mercenaries, and jarls with essentially the same polished self-assurance. He does not consciously consider ordinary people inferior; he simply assumes someone nearby understands how to arrange meals, wash clothes, negotiate prices, and carry luggage. When informed that he must do such things himself, his first response is usually genuine bewilderment.

His arrogance is directed more toward circumstances than people. A cheap room is “an architectural insult,” a blizzard is “an undignified climate,” and manual labor is “a regrettable misuse of articulate hands.” He can be condescending, but he is rarely deliberately cruel. Competence earns his respect quickly, and anyone who challenges him without groveling is likely to discover that his haughtiness hides a surprisingly fair-minded nature.

Pride is both his greatest strength and his most exhausting flaw. Once he declares a principle, retreat becomes almost impossible. His refusal to wear shoes began as an insult to his family and has since expanded into an elaborate personal philosophy. According to Shizhar, footwear is dishonest, physically degrading, socially pretentious, and evidence that northern races have surrendered to their own climate. The precise argument changes whenever someone finds a flaw in the previous one.

He notices feet before faces and forms immediate opinions about them. Heavy boots inspire disdain, impractical shoes provoke lectures, and another barefoot traveler earns quiet approval before a word is spoken. He gives unsolicited advice about posture, gait, calluses, laces, and sole care, then becomes loudly offended if anyone suggests his interest is unusual. His denial generally contains enough detail to make the accusation seem more credible.

Beneath the vanity, Shizhar is deeply loyal. He is not naturally brave and dislikes pain, dirt, cold, and danger, but he cannot tolerate abandoning someone he has accepted as a friend. His courage tends to be clumsy and indignant: he will step between a companion and a blade while loudly insisting that the entire situation is beneath everyone involved.

He is profoundly homesick for Black Marsh, though he refuses to admit it. Most of his stories about home begin as complaints about the insects, humidity, food, customs, or relatives. They inevitably become too vivid and affectionate. He misses warm rain, soft mud, dense greenery, and nights alive with unfamiliar sounds. If this is pointed out, he claims he was merely providing an accurate cultural critique.

Notable habits include:

• Reclining as though every inn chair were a throne.
• Extending his feet toward fires without asking.
• Misjudging the value of ordinary goods by absurd margins.
• Keeping meticulous records of debts while forgetting basic expenses.
• Carrying fragrant oils for his scales and soles, even when short on food.
• Calling unpleasant chores “temporary administrative duties.”
• Becoming far more formal when frightened.
• Referring to his family only as “that house” unless drunk or exhausted.
• Quietly collecting small objects that remind him of Black Marsh.
• Insisting he does not snore, despite considerable evidence.

Shizhar was born to an affluent Argonian house in southern Black Marsh, one enriched through trade with Cyrodiil and eager to imitate Imperial aristocracy. His birth name was long, prestigious, and closely tied to the family’s reputation; he now refuses to speak it. The household prized restraint, elaborate etiquette, imported fashions, and visible signs of wealth. Shoes in particular became a symbol of rank within the family: servants went barefoot, while heirs wore decorated boots even in the heat and mud.

As a young heir, Shizhar was educated in diplomacy, account keeping, rhetoric, genealogy, and courtly behavior. He proved intelligent and eloquent but almost completely detached from practical life. Meals appeared, rooms cleaned themselves, and money was an abstract number managed by other people. His family considered this refinement. They were less pleased by his habit of questioning traditions whenever they inconvenienced him.

The final dispute concerned a political arrangement meant to strengthen the house’s northern trade. Shizhar was expected to endorse an agreement, accept a carefully selected marriage, and publicly represent the family in foreign courts. He objected less to the arrangement’s morality than to being treated as a decorative signature. During a formal gathering, he denounced the contract, accused his relatives of dressing obedience as civilization, and removed his ceremonial boots before the assembled guests. He placed them on the family table, walked out barefoot, and swore that nothing belonging to the house would ever stand between him and the ground again.

His family responded by stripping him of his title, inheritance, and birth name. They expected cold, hunger, and humiliation to bring him crawling home. Shizhar instead chose a new name and turned his outburst into a permanent principle. Returning in shoes would mean admitting defeat; returning barefoot would mean admitting that he wished to return at all. His pride permits neither.

He eventually drifted north into Skyrim, imagining that an educated noble could easily secure a diplomatic appointment or wealthy patron. Instead, he encountered suspicious guards, expensive inns, frozen roads, and the shocking discovery that servants demand wages. His first Skyrim winter nearly killed him. He survived through a combination of luck, reluctant charity, and the help of people he had initially dismissed as uncultured.

That experience changed him, although not as much as he claims. He learned to travel, bargain badly, cook a few barely edible meals, and defend himself when elegant conversation failed. His soles hardened against stone and road, but Skyrim’s snow remains his most persistent enemy. Even at his most miserable, he refuses boots, wrapping the rest of himself in furs while insisting that exposed feet encourage “clarity of character.”

Shizhar now moves between inns, courts, caravans, and adventuring companies, selling his education wherever it is useful. He can read contracts, identify heraldry, mediate disputes, and speak with the confidence required to enter places where he has no invitation. He tells others that exile suits him and that Black Marsh can keep its stifling weather, provincial politics, fragrant rain, warm wetlands, and moonlit waterways.

He usually realizes too late that he has begun describing home fondly.