:: Random NPC—Itztli, Sheepfolk Monk ::

The sound of heavy scissors and cordial conversation greets you as you round the hay bale and pull the barn door to one side. You enter to a strange sight: one humanoid sheep shearing another with a pair of shears made of black volcanic glass. The shearing sheep is short, bald, and littered in the clipped wool from her client. Their conversation is cut short by your presence, and the mood suddenly stiffens.

"Who are you?" the bald sheep bleats warily. She brandishes the obsidian shears. "What do you want?" After only a moment her resolve seems to falter, then hardens. She eyes you and quickly finishes the shave job, turning to clean her tool in a nearby bucket. "You're done, Mary. See you in six weeks."

The other, now-shorter-wooled sheepfolk glares at you, yanks off her barber's apron, and promptly leaves, muttering angrily under her breath. Only after she is gone are you left with the sight of all the knitted woolen blankets covering the walls like curtains, giving the barn a homey look.

"My name is Itztli," the bald sheep barber declares, her grating voice pulling your focus back to the now-clean obsidian shears in her hand. "And this is for more than just shearing sheep. Now answer my questions."

Itztli was born on a farm. Not because she is a sheepfolk, mind you, but because her parents were traveling and they could not reach the city in time. She was also not named Itztli at birth. Her true name is a story of its own; one for another time. Suffice it to say that less than six months later she ended up back at that very farm with a pair of obsidian shears in her hand.

She was but a child, but old enough to have learned the arts of discipline from her mother, a former monk. Unlike her mother, Itztli took to the training as a way of life, and intended to dedicate herself to the Way through a self-imposed mission of service. For so was she taught that repetition was meditation, and service was centering.

For this reason Itztli returned to her birthplace and made a vow: she would shear any sheep that came to see her while the sun was awake, spin their wool into yarn while the sun was asleep, and knit that yarn into blankets during the times in between. As those were the terms of her vow, she never bothered to be rid of said blankets, and so most became a permanent decoration for the inside of the barn that Itztli made her compulsory home. She lived in these humble circumstances for many months.

Yet, even the humblest of circumstances was not immune to danger's searching eye.

One day in Itztli's tenth month, she finished a shave for an older sheepfolk who left her a folded piece of parchment in her tip jar. It was unsigned, but in her mother's handwriting. It read: "They have come for me. You are being hunted. Die well."