Huge thank you to Buckovskiart for creating this magnificent reference sheet for Iris, my big Khajiit man. He's a character I created way back years ago when playing Skyrim, and for once, I wanted to see what it's like to play a more evil character, and now he's finally gotten a proper reference which I'm really happy about x)
He's also a character I play as a homebrewed Barbarian as a Tabaxi/Harimari depending on the setting of the game he's in. His backstory is versatile enough that it fits anyway, and his actual race is less important, he looks basically the same in all variants lol.

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Once upon a time, there was a simple village living its life away from any major settlements, when one day, what looked to be remains of a ship were found washed up on a shore, and within one of the crates, a small Khajiit cub, barely an infant. There were no signs of an actual ship, just some chunks and planks that hinted at a less than pleasant situation happening over the sea. The cub was found and deposited at a local orphanage, already raising eyebrows of many as this region barely heard of Khajiits, knowing little more that they exist, but nothing of their culture, let alone how to raise one. They named him after his most prominent feature, those mesmerizing orange eyes, calling him Iris. They tried treating him like any other kid, explaining to other kids that he's one of them too, but the differences began showing up quite soon. The little Khajiit was a lot more distant than others, grew faster, and had a lot less playful childishness than others. He was also considerably stronger too, and found out early that through that fact alone, he can get what he wanted. What does he want? To be left alone apparently. The Khajiit was known for sneaking out into the wilds often, where, as he said, he felt a lot more at home than anywhere else, even if his life was threatened there at every step. That explanation didn't really convince his caretakers who often searched for him in panic, kept trying to lock up and explain how dangerous it is, but in the end, it never worked long-term. Denying the call of the wilds felt too wrong for him, and it wasn't long before his instincts rewarded him for it. At first, a mouse, then a rabbit, then a fox. As he grew, so did his prey. Evading larger beasts and hunting down smaller ones through rather brutal encounters taught him something he already felt within, that the strong get what they want. And so, he started becoming stronger from the youngest age, be it through training or spending days in on a hunt where he felt the most alive. At that point, the caretakers stopped really trying to prevent him from going out anymore, not only because he could overpower them in his early teens, but also because they just didn't know what to do. Iris was treated more like an animal than a person, they couldn't not see the bestial side of him, and thusly, he was never adopted, and frankly, at some point, he stopped wanting to be adopted. The thought of living with a human family just felt wrong considering that the forest was like his family already. Still though, that did not mean he was blind to the effort the caretakers tried to put into keeping him safe, they just didn't understand, and he didn't understand them. What was it about humans that made them act this way? Hurting him while saying it's for his good? The curiosity lead him to observe the village from the shadows quite often, watching how people interacted, seeing their bonds, seeing happiness, sadness, bitterness, joy, loss, and at the same time, he tried to imagine himself in the shoes of the humans to see how he'd feel in their situation. It pretty much never matched, their reactions were often very different from what he'd do.

Time passed, Iris grew, becoming strong enough to wrestle a bear at the age of 16 and kill a sabercat with his bare hands at the age of 17, his presence alone made people hold their breaths, and he saw it, how intimidated they are from seeing him merely walk down the street, and avoid him as a result. This is useful, he thought, appearing like this, it means that few ever bothered him, and so, he had no reason to bother them. His strength however couldn't go unnoticed, so even before becoming a proper adult, there were some who tried to put it to use, for the better of everyone. The first was a local guard who couldn't help but respect the sheer dedication to developing their physical capabilities. The thought of having a soldier like this sparked something in him, so, Iris was offered to join the military. The promise of further development of his strength with added combat prowess and contributing to the safety of the town was something that Iris wasn't against, as after all, these people were experts, so learning from them would make him stronger too. The guard was one of few people with whom Iris actually got along. For once, there was a person whose decisions and reasoning he could understand and even sympathize with. However, the time in the military was short-lived, as much as Iris excelled at physical tasks, he hated following orders for the sake of following orders. The guard tried to explain the reasoning, how it's important for coordination, how this trust in leadership helps to ease one's mind. The guard enjoyed it, Iris understood, but didn't like it himself, he trusted his own strength as time and time again the world had shown him that he is enough. Thusly, he left the military, but kept up his relationship with the guard.

The next person to notice him was a local blacksmith, also a man of great strength who saw potential in Iris, and thusly invited him to work at the forge. The two got along, both being men of few words, both communicating with seemingly no effort. Once again, Iris proved that the potential Blacksmith saw was real, as metal yielded to The Khajiit's might, over-time turning into quality pieces of equipment. Once again however, for as satisfying as it was to feel the steel bend in his hands, doing this long term simply became... boring. He lacked the patience to repeatedly wack the metal for it to become what it needed to be, and the end reward of it was far less fulfilling than catching prey. Feeling the bones crack and the taste of fresh meat was always a welcome cherry on top of every hunt, but here? The result was a weapon, or a piece of armor, that he won't use, as he had no need for it. Every wound he ever experienced healed itself in a span of a day, no matter how grievous, not even a scar stayed behind. Pain from it only made him feel more alive, letting him feel his strength push through and overpower the obstacle even more. The hands alone were enough to crush bone, to rip off a heads, so a sword just felt... useless, cumbersome to use. And the money from selling them? He didn't need it, already being self-sufficient enough with hunting that money was of little value to him. Similarly to the guard, The Khajiit asked why he chose to use his strength to bend metal all day? The answer was again simple, the blacksmith enjoyed it. Iris understood, but didn't like it himself, so he left the forge and returned to the wilds, still coming to the forge on occasion.

One day however the town was attacked by raiders, and Iris witnessed his guard friend die in battle only for the purse to be taken. The sheer idea of killing someone out of greed for money hit Iris so hard that a new form of rage triggered, and with his bare hands, he completely tore apart the raider responsible for his friend's death, and continued shredding through others. Such display of strength, savagery, and brutality from someone so young was enough to scare the remaining raiders away and prevent more harm from being done. Still, the resentment towards bandits like that stuck deep inside Iris's heart.

The rage he felt that day sparked something so far dormant. To his surprise, the anger didn’t exactly fade, not completely, but increased the closer it was to night time. By the evening, he knew that something was very wrong, and ran as far away as he could due to the overwhelming desire to hunt and kill anything that moved. By the time the moon rose, Iris was in the middle of nowhere, stubbornly holding onto his sanity and fighting the burning hatred he almost didn’t understand.

Then, the pain began, on top of the immense mental struggle, his body heated up, and a surge of primordial bestial power, unlike anything he had experienced before, filled every part of his being. It was like a pain of a hundred workouts all surging through his body at once. The growth began, as did the transformation into something monstrous. The fur darkened, eyes became blood red, the muscles grew, the bones snapped and re-shaped, claws and teeth sharpened and became longer, and there was no anesthesia. It was the most torturous yet empowering sensation he ever felt. It was as if the hatred and rage were granted a body of their own, a towering beast mixed between canine werewolf features and feline Khajiit ones. Perhaps due to the fact that it wasn’t full moon, Iris’ inherent stubbornness, willpower, or attunement and experience with the bestial nature, or all of it combined, the young Khajiit wasn’t completely lost in the pain that would drive many to insanity, and retained enough self-awareness to at least direct the beast away from any settlements and focus on tracking wildlife even if he could not stop the cursed hungering rage.

Time passed like a blur. In one moment, he was running on all fours through the mountains, in another, there was a sound of crushed bones as the blood of a goat filled his jaws. That brief moment of the kill took so much of the beast’s attention that Iris’s mind could hop back in place, but he couldn’t stop the hunger, nor cared to do it by then, so he chose to do what the beast would have done anyway and devoured the animal on the spot, feeling stronger and more powerful than he ever imagined. He didn’t have time to look over himself properly. As the feast ended, the beast wanted to take over once more. Then, a certain familiar scent tickled his newly enhanced nose.

Neither he nor the beast needed any amount of convincing to go after that scent. Those were the bandits responsible for the raid earlier today. Speeding through the mountain range, the werewolf spotted a light coming out of one of the caves, their camp.
Without thinking once, with the combined determination of a careless, cursed hunger and a wronged young man who sought revenge, he charged straight in, only enticed by the cheerful drunken singing from the inside. The first victim didn’t even see it coming due to the overload of drink that night, and after getting pounced on by the beast thrice his size, the raider was torn apart and devoured before there was even a scream.


The feast of human flesh, even if spoiled by the alcohol, was one of the greatest and tastiest meals in Iris’s life. It came with an unusual sense of empowerment that wasn’t present when eating an animal. Of course, other raiders caught up to the noise of what happened in the corridor and foolishly went to inspect it. The last thing they expected was a huge werewolf coming around the corner and murdering another with a single swipe of its oversized arms that smashed the victim to the rocky ground and crushed it under its weight as it was already reaching out for another.

The slowed reactions due to the drunken state didn’t let the second react to the rampant monstrosity in time, and was thus pulled right into the deadly jaws as they closed around his torso, biting off the top chunk of it with the head at once. Witnessing this, the remaining 4 were so terrified, they froze and watched as the third of their comrades was picked up and torn in half. Iris felt a sting in that moment, a crossbow bolt hit his abdomen, but barely left a scratch. The pain and screams of terror only empowered his rage, he barely paid attention to the subsequent stabs and cuts as he fought through and brutalized the rest. Then… there was finally silence.

Both the crused beast and Iris were satisfied to a degree, and the feast began once more. It didn’t take long before the stains of blood were the only things left after those raiders. Then, there was finally a moment of clarity. Iris realized what he had become, looked and examined his new mighty form, the dagger-like blood stained claws, arms as thick as a grown man’s torso, chest so massive that a person could stand on it while he stood upright, shoulders so broad that it allowed him reach beyond most weapons, abs like a wall of bricks more than durable enough to deflect blades, legs capable of jumping previously impossible distances, jaws large enough to fit half a person inside, the toughness as if there was armor covering him whole, all that and more, he loved all of it. Even though the werewolf had enough sanity to restrain himself and go into hiding for the rest of the night, he didn’t want to, wanting to feel the power of his beast form more, once again choosing almost the same thing the curse would have chosen and continuing to hunt wildlife for the rest of the night.

It was still a struggle to keep his nose away from the scents of people in the random villages he stumbled upon, but the beast was easy enough to distract with the promise of any prey, including unsuspecting cave bears or mountain goats. Overpowering the former brought special satisfaction as Iris knew that in his regular form, beating that with his bare hands would be a great challenge, not an impossible one, but the beast form made it almost too easy. The night went by so fast that by sunrise, Iris didn’t even start getting tired, continuously sprinting and fighting whatever he came across. However, in the moment the first sun hit his eyes, it was as if the exhaustion from the entire night suddenly struck him, and the cursed bestiality melted away like ice thrown into an active volcano alongside the bestial form.

Collapsing right where he stood, exhausted beyond belief as his body slowly reverted back to the Khajiit form, Iris could only drag himself under a random tree and rest. Never before he felt so weak in his strong body, but that only worked as motivation to keep improving. After waking up, it was already late afternoon, and thanks to the tracking skills, the young Khajiit managed to find his way back “home”, but the closer he was getting, the more reluctant he grew to even calling it that. It was nothing more than a mere shelter after all, a place to get food, to rest safely, but with the strength he had, he could do it anywhere now.

After thorough introspection during the long way back, revising the fuzzy memories of his time in the beast form, now fully mindful, he realized that he wasn’t really bothered that he killed those scummy raiders. In fact, he enjoyed it, but also noticed the hidden trap in that rage, one that could lead to devastating consequences if not under control. Iris never wished to get into anyone's way or harm innocents as long as he was left alone, but seeing a person capable of killing just to take the wallet made his blood boil. Against those, he has no regrets or mercy, murdering any he comes across with brutal efficiency, and liking it.

The cursed Tabaxi knew he couldn't stay in the orphanage any longer or people would find out, so he ventured out to explore the world and live freely in the savage wilds, learning to channel and focus his rage and Lycanthropy onto bandits and alike through rigorous training and discipline. The lifestyle may have been brutal, solitary, and not without failure, but it brought him a certain peace of mind.

Now working as a mercenary, taking whichever jobs he wants whenever he wants, choosing to live and travel alone, often sleeping under an open sky and hunting his own food, be it an animal, or a bandit. There isn't much he needs money for, but he does enjoy an occasional visit at a tavern to taste proper food rather than raw flesh, and rest in a comfy, warm room once in a while. Proper equipment is nice too. Despite his physical toughness, he enjoyed wearing heavy armor and wielding really heavy weapons singlehandedly, even though the hands alone were deadly enough, sometimes when fighting a horde of enemies, swinging a giant hammer to crush multiple at once felt good. The constant weight pressing down on his ever-growing frame was also highly welcome, acting as a passive workout considering the amount he walks. The massive warhammer-greataxe or maul-greataxe hybrid weapon he carries is custom-made specifically for him. It's larger than a person is tall and way to heavy for most to even lift, but it makes for perfect, wide, one-armed swings when Iris uses it. Later on he even delved into some magical arts, specifically the ones that bolster physical capabilities to use them during workouts, increasing their efficiency so he can push himself harder. It also helps with self-healing and increasing toughness. Later on even shock spells became something he uses on occasion as paralyzing and frying someone to death at range with nothing but willpower alone feels quite satisfying, on occasion.

Due to the obvious risks that come with using the beast form, Iris refrains from triggering it unless it’s really necessary and generally keeps it a secret, enjoying the passive bonuses he gains from Lycanthropy in his Khajiit form, like sharper senses or endurance. Those experienced on the subject and insightful enough may be able to spot the beast within Iris’s eyes, but he keeps it well concealed and on a tight leash otherwise meaning that there are very few, if any, werewolf hunters going after him, especially that he never stays in one place for too long, leaving behind empty blood-stained bandit camps, and untouched settlements near them.

Cold, focused, ruthless, calm, self-centered, solitary, brutal, quiet, efficient, intimidating, and immensely strong in muscle, mind, willpower, and spirit, he travels the world doing what he wants, taking whatever jobs he wants, killing whoever he wants, devouring whatever he wants, sleeping wherever he wants, but luckily he has standards, therefore innocents who mind their own business only feel his unmistakable presence when he passes by without a word, while those he resents recieve a swift and brutal death.