• Height & Weight: 2'8" 25 lbs
• Apparent Age: 2
• Character Build: Average
• Body Type: Bipedal
• Usual Clothing: Light. His fur is very good for insulation so he typically goes light on the clothes.
• Voice: High pitched childish
• Usual Scent: talc, shampoo

Full Description
Raphael is a Skyvel, a species from a fairly chilly environment. Itâ₠http™s similar to a mammal. He resembles a mishmash of earthâ₠http™s carnivores and omnivores. He has a short muzzle and large eyes, similar to a cat. His eyes have 4 color receptor cells, and can see clearly in a large variety of lighting conditions. He has wide triangular ears, reminiscent of a red pandaâ₠http™s, and large digitigrade feetpaws, allowing him to walk on snow without sinking in. He has a large fluffy tail which he uses for balance, as his hips arenâ₠http™t quite as well adjusted for bipedal motion as a humanâ₠http™s. His tail, when fully fluffed up, is a bit larger than the rest of him. His hands have 4 fingers and an opposable thumb, all with sharp retractable claws. His feet have non-retractable claws.

His fur pattern changes from season to season. Some consistent features are small â₠http˜teardropâ₠http™ stripes running from his eyes down a short distance of his nose, a lighter colored belly and chin, and mottled fur in patches which ostensibly help with camouflage across his sides and back. During fall, heâ₠http™s a golden cream color. During winter, heâ₠http™s much lighter off-white with the patches fading. During spring, heâ₠http™s a richer golden color, and during summer, his fur is thinner and darker colored.

At 2 years of age, Raphael is very small, under 3 feet tall.

Raph originally came from contemporary earth, but was turned into a species from the Gilor/Mirachoco universe. He spent a few months on Nomania, another nexus realm, thereafter.

Raphael was born in 1994 to a pair of reasonably well off parents. Which is for the better. â₠http˜Raphâ₠http™ had medical problems apparent from a young age. He suffered from seizures, and a handful of nerve problems that led to him being unable to walk. He started receiving treatment at age 3, was able to walk at age 6, and had his last seizure at age 8. Starting at age 4 he attended a special school for children with such physical disabilities, but after he was effectively cured, he moved back to a general school. As it turned out, he was pretty smart compared to most of his peers. He easily excelled in the general populace after in his previous schools he was given lots of attention and small class sizes.

When Raph was 10, and his medical condition just a fading memory, his parents decided to have another kid. This time they went with artificial insemination and some genetic screening in order to make sure she wouldnâ₠http™t have the same problem as Raph. Soon enough, Raph had a little sister. Raph wasnâ₠http™t entirely thrilled about this. Up to this point he had been an only child, and one who had been getting a fair amount of attention to boot. He had a 2 year phase of trying various things for attention before he outgrew it.

When he got into middle school, he got over this by learning to make friends. He found some fellow nerds and started getting into some of the classic hobbies with them. He started playing D&D and Magic: The Gathering at a local game shop. As he progressed into high school, he got into his schoolâ₠http™s FIRST robotics team. There he learned quite a bit about mechanics and electronics. While his interests in this were promising, he was much more interested in physics. In his senior year of high school for the science fair, he actually built a miniature synchrotron for the win.

Raph went onto an Ivy league college where he started studying physics. He still participated in robotics competitions for his first year, but after that he was overshadowed by engineering students. Instead he took part in competitions at his local hackerspace, building a miniature particle collider for example. He was migrated out one day during the summer on his way home from a friendâ₠http™s Pathfinder session.

When he came to Nomania, he went through a red breach. The breach turned him from his former human self to a small genderless furry toddler. Lost and confused, he was quickly taken in by Tagor who helped him in this transition. The change significantly altered his brain. While most of his memories and skills were intact, he did have to adjust to the regression. With some time, he got used to it enough to be functional.

He noticed that his size wasn't changing at all, which he expected to be increasing since by all indications he was a youth. Deciding to take a trip to the skyvel homeworld, Raph and Tagor learned about the species. There they learned that Raph has a medical condition that, when exacerbated by his lack of gender, will keep him from ever maturing. Raph's readjusted his outlook once again, and still seems to have adapted well enough to the situation.

The Skyvel are a species from a relatively cool planet. Itâ₠http™s along the lines of moderate ice age Earth, with summers that melt snow, but even far south there are long-term glaciers and usually most of the planet, as far down as 39 degrees north, sees winters with multiple feet of snow for up to half the year. The world has 3 large moons in resonant orbits. The Skyvel evolved to survive in the cooler latitudes, and have 4 different coats of fur they progress through as the year goes on.
The Skyvel are very similar to mammals. They have 2 genders, warm blood, and various body temperature regulation mechanisms. They use similar biochemistry to the Gilor, Humanity, and the rest of the galaxy, a situation explained by panspermia (The exact location of the origin of life is unknown, but there are sufficient biochemical similarities, such as oxygen breathing, use of liquid water, and breakdown of sugars, that it is generally accepted). The Skyvel physically resemble a mish-mash of earth carnivores, but in reality they are omnivores. They have short muzzles and large eyes, not dissimilar to a catâ₠http™s, but with 4 color receptor cells and can see clearly in a huge variety of light conditions, from sunny day with bright fresh snow to dark, moonless night. They have triangular ears on their head, often covered in fuzz. Theyâ₠http™re said to resemble a red pandaâ₠http™s or foxes. They have large feetpaws, to allow them to walk on snow without sinking in. They also have large fluffy tails, which they use for balance. Their hips are not as well developed for bipedal motion as human hips, so the tails help them balance. In addition, when sprinting, they tend to go on all fours. They have 4-fingered hands with opposable thumbs (So base 10). They evolved from certain tree climbing animals, so their fingers have sharp retractable claws, while the feet are nonretractable.

The Skyvel typically live 80-100 years. Thereâ₠http™s often significantly more noticeable age differentiation with Skyvel than with humans. Infants and young children have different patterns and mottled fur, to act as better camouflage, when they get older grey fur usually forms in distinctive patterns, allowing a Skyvel to hazard a guess at anotherâ₠http™s fairly easily. Skyvel have a huge range of sizes and traits. They can stand from under 4 feet tall to nearly 7 feet tall ( extremely rarely) when fully grown. Their fur comes in a variety of colors, but in adults the pattern is typically restricted to a solid color with a lighter colored belly and chin, with maybe a few highlights. Stripes and other patterns are typically only found in the summer coats.