Sn'erf

 is a character in Torment: Tides of Numenera.

Background
Slouched before you is a figure clad in a dusty, unremarkable robe. Loose folds of rough cloth shift to reveal a vaguely humanoid form with elongated facial features and two elaborate biomechanical arms. You can't help but notice the size, the shape, and even the number of its digits changing as it tinkers with a bizarre-looking device on the table.

It glances up at you. Its eyes are the size of your palms. You realize it is a visitant - a being from another world. The visitant's mechanical fingers race over the device before it, bending at bone-breaking angles to adjust and tweak the parts within. Sn'erf (Snelanarga(with a brief poem about the ambient temperature of dust in moonlight here)gonthas(the word that describes a color similar to 'blue')ramalerf) is an exile from another world, banished for inadvertent sacrilege and perversion.

Sn'erf is a visitant explorer who arrived in Sagus via the Bloom. Its species procreates by ceremonially removing limbs when they reach a certain age. The limb is then grown into a new being (Removing different body parts allows the creation of biologically different castes; removing legs creates soldiers/warriors, arms create laborers/craftsmen, heads create administrators/leaders.) The lost limb of the parent does not grow back, and in fact it is considered a great sin and disrespect to one's offspring to replace the limb.

Unfortunately for Sn'erf, who gave up both arms to create its two children, it was studying a numenera artifact when the artifact suddenly activated, grafting itself to Sn'erf and forming a pair of biomechanical arms. This was seen by its people as a great sacrilege, and it was disowned by its children and banished. Sn'erf has wandered ever since, becoming fascinated with the ways in which other species procreate - such things had never crossed its mind, and it made a detailed study of them. Eventually, Sn'erf found its way to Sagus Cliffs, where it was welcomed at the Order of Truth as a visiting scholar. It now resides there, doing research on various forms of procreation.

Sn'erf talks explicitly of reproductive practices, but at a scholar's distance. It is fascinated by the differences it has discovered, but does not understand why people find the topic uncomfortable/exciting. At some point, it tried to learn about human reproduction, but its contact decided to be funny and Sn'erf is beginning to quietly suspect that procreation does not involve 2-26 partners, impalement of the abdomen, and a post-coital handshake.

Quests

 * Foreman's Brood: Manufactures the Procreative Surge Turbine for the Crippled Foreman.