Age: Madje appears to be about 17, but his age is unknown. He had been in the Palace for over two decades and hasn’t aged at all.

Physical Description: Madje is a rather odd-looking example of some unknown species. He is entirely gray, a flat matte gray that is barely a color. His gray hair is short and spiky from having Madje’s fingers run through it too often. His eyes are also gray and usually bear a mournful expression. He also has a pair of gray wings growing out of his back, but they are scraggly and are missing feathers in places. Madje’s wings are large (with a span of over 6 feet) but his body is short (about 5 feet tall) and thin. He is most usually found curled up in one corner of his room when not gathering his treasures.

Markings: Madje has a series of strange scars on his skin. The scars are a pattern of swirls that no one has been able to figure out what they mean. Bands of these swirls appear on his wrists, ankles, neck, and around the bases of his wings. The Palace healers have not been able to determine whether these are real scars that were cut into Madje’s skin or a natural feature, like his wings. The scars are the same color as the rest of him and only noticeable if touched or looked at closely.

Garments: Madje wears only a loincloth the same color as his skin.

Background: Madje was picked up one night by Palace scouts because of his outlandish appearance and the fact that no one had any idea what he was (the Palace has a menagerie where strange creatures are placed that cannot be used for Keys or pages). They soon learned that this was a bad idea. Madje would not be Trained, staying curled up in a corner whenever a Trainer went anywhere near him. But Madje was discovered to be dangerous. Due to his lack of color, Madje is drawn to anything colorful, absorbing the colors and sometimes killing the bearers of that color when the color is gone. After absorbing a color, Madje’s scars and eyes will turn that color. Madje has no sexual organs at all, though he appears to be male other than that. The Palace considered putting Madje in the menagerie, but they discovered that Madje could still be used as a Key. A Master can induce sexual pleasure by having Madje absorb the colors from his clothing (a page found this out and was immediately promoted to Key for it). Madje is advertised as a dangerous Key because there is a chance that Madje will kill his Master after absorbing the colors from his clothes.

Personality: Madje was named the Key of Avarice because of the one personality trait he seems to express. He spends all of his time curled up the corner of his room unless a Master is there. When a Master is there, Madje will jump at the Master absorbing as much color as he can. He long ago absorbed the color from the room and thirsts for more colors to absorb before falling into the lethargy that drives him to hide in the corner until another Master buys his Key.

Lodgings: Madje’s room has no furniture, since most Masters do not stay long, if they survive at all. The walls and carpet were once a rich black but Madje quickly absorbed the color and the Palace saw no point in replacing them. The room itself is small; it was originally a storage closet but it was fixed up to house Madje not long after he arrived. A panel of glass can be slid across the middle of the room. It is usually used to shield Masters from Madje, but only works sometimes. Madje has shattered the glass numerous times and the Palace is looking for a stronger alternative. There is a slot in one wall through which colored pieces of cloth are shoved to give to Madje. He gathers these bits and absorbs there colors, saving the gray scraps in small piles around the room. The one time a page came into the room to remove the “used” fabric, Madje basically ripped him apart and absorbed the color of his blood, so the Palace pages leave Madje alone in his piles of colorless scraps.