im not very good at drawing old or "ugly" characters, nor do i ever go out of my way to draw males, so heres some practice with a minor character in the lafossa setting that i wanted to get a more solid visual reference for. this is balbus, a gnoll dungeon keeper and recreational pervert. hopefully his size doesnt make him look like hes actually strong. in my design notes i wrote that i specifically didnt want him to look like he could win a fight

when eubora takes orchidee back to lafossa, she threatens to slit her throat if they kill seelie or leave them behind. so eubora drags them along, but upon arrival seelie is locked for weeks in balbus' dungeons. with eubora, balbus is tasked with confirming what kind of wanpyr seelie is. the goal is to determine if seelie is capable of functioning in lafossan society. over the weeks that seelie is imprisoned, orchidee finds a number of opportunities to infiltrate the tunnels and visit them. however, all of these instances were facilitated by balbus, whos essentially using orchidee as part of his experiments on seelie. this is where the "recreational pervert" part comes in, because balbus sure has a great time looking in on these two engaged in behavior that is not appropriate for a dungeon. its not implausible that seelies imprisonment was prolonged purely because he enjoyed manipulating them this way. but eventually he gets his kicks and eubora signs off on seelies release. theyre permitted to live in the main palazzo with orchidee under her supervision, to the deep chagrin of all her maids

balbus doesnt have a huge role outside of this storyline. maybe he makes cameos when vatatsa or cesare have someone detained. this city sure is corrupt!