Erika Lewerenz // Teiresia

Teiresia is a roughly man-sized... East African land snail, at least on first inspection. Most of the time, she moves entirely as expected, having a helixoid shell pointing out behind her from height of what turns out out to be shoulders in the few times she feigns semblance to a biped. Two tentacles spawn from there, serving as fingerless arms, though she's extremely proficient in wielding them, and quite capable of handling melee weapons, especially staves.

Should no such object be at hand, she has a further defensive mechanisms: her face is an initially well-disguided medely of spikes. Her mouth is usually a fairly unassuming vertical slit in her face, but can open up to fold out two sets of four vicious, claw-like spikes, each capable of moving individually, like single-jointed fingers - though, like fingers meant to grip, she usually moves them in unison. Further into that maw are a few triangular, serrated teeth - it's a place you don't want your hand to be in, because if it is, it's going to be torn off right along with your forearm.

Since her snail 'eyes' are purely decorative, but invite to poke at to see if they withdraw like with a real snail's, they, too, hold slumbering claws, four each - shorter, considerably less sharp, but enough to jolt a fright into anyone who dares pat either. They're arranged so that three of the claws point up and one down and to the side, giving the appearance of a clawed paw - and like a clawed paw, it tends to close around on whatever dared to do the poking, though this is rarely painful for the offender, more likely to be uncomfortable.

Her pace is not quite that of a snail's - she moves in a more serpentine fashion, and like a serpent, is capable of incredible bouts of speed, though only over very short distances.

If all defenses fail, of course, she can withdraw back into her shell, which is fairly sturdy, but like all shells in nature, fairly suspectible to repeat blows by rocks.