"Variastes was strange for a wizard. He was tall and lank, his skin a mottled shade of opal in which swirled an ever-changing cloudscape. His eyes were a pale blue that matched the smaller of Doma's two suns. His nose―or rather its equivalent―was long and thin, his ears were pointed, and a shock of bright red-orange hair stuck straight up from the top of his head. However, that is not to say these features were set in stone. Quite the opposite. At times he had extra eyes, extra thumbs, and on occasion flippers. As odd as his physique may have been, not all of Variastes' strangeness came from his appearance..."