In 2008 of January, maybe earlier(?), I made my first Digital drawing on my first tablet. I drew a little hollow eyed critter named "Skrat". And he was a vessel for alot of negative feelings I had at the time, but he also expressed a sense of freedom I had that was unlocked with art coming into my life.

...I never drew him again, because I don't really know. I believe maybe I was hoping those negative feelings in "Skrat" would die? Anyway, it's my birthday. I'm turning 34 today. And I wanted to re-instantiate "Skrat" and give him a transformation. To grow him out from the void and into a character in my Dandy Toons universe.

Meet Kusho the Street Cat.

He's a one-armed Void-Touched Cat from the Slums of Auster, and in Bondrewd's Gang. He grew up a street urchin and learned to survive in poverty through cunning, guile, might, and theft. Then one day, as a teenager, he had to escape a situation by biting his own arm off and survived by eating it. The event left him with hollowed out eyes, like that of a skull's, and his entire face otherwise became ashen black. Kusho joined Bondrewd's gang after the event and as he grew into an adult he developed a power to summon the Phantom of the Limb he'd consumed.

Now Kusho lives as a beggar, trickster, informant, and thief. He wears a magical mask of a goofy green fox with a happy, unmoving gaze to hide his scarred appearance, and his identity. To those who are unaware of him donning the mask, the magic of it makes them believe they're talking to a fox, and to everyone else it appears to be someone talking to an unmoving piece of painted wood.

Kusho wears a cloak that can be inverted. When using his Fox Disguise to feel like someone else and trick others in the rich side of the port Kusho wears Golden flexible shoulder-guards with dark blue cloth draping from it. These conceal his arms, and lack of a missing arm, and allows him to perform the illusion of being a two-armed fox for others. He also wears a fox-tail accessory to disguise his heavy tail-tip.

When in his home district of Auster, Kusho inverts his clothes to reveal the ratty underside patched together with the rags of his hometown. Their colors are merlot and mauve, the colors of Bondrewd. When on the run from guards, he can swap from his disguise to his true identity quickly, but not vis versa.

Kusho hides the fox mask and tail in a burlap sack. And anything he steals, or anyone he abducts, he stuffs in the burlap sacks and then conceals it by swallowing the sack. He can retrieve the sack like coughing up a hairball, or more easily by tugging on the strings of the sack. Kusho is MOSTLY blind after their childhood events. THey have True Sight for up to 10 feet around them, and blind sight for 30 feet beyond that which can only see silhouettes.


I love Kusho, and am looking forward to roleplaying them in Dandy Toons sometime!


"Kusho Core i"

Young street urchin in churches sleepin'
With no home, all alone, in alleys creepin'
Out lurkin' for hope or something to steal
No support to cope with or share how they feel
Any rapport? Nope, 'n no care. What's the deal?

Nobody's there...
Nobody's here.
Family's where?
All gone for years...
Now blackened stare with hollow, dry tears

From young grown to old
And now a lost vagrant
Went from warm to cold
Eyes are all vacant

All trash is now gold
He'll dash for morsels
He'll smash things and people
And do what he's told

To remain in the gang
And acquire more soul
Kusho's got their back
Until he finds a goal

He's part of the fold
He's one of the old boys
Hostile in Auster, he'll accost ya, he'll creep
His home makes him whole
Don't be lurkin' his streets!


Author: [[Sigtin]]
Emotion: [[Dandy Cores]]
Date: 20251112


Thanks for reading.