Overview
The Shovel-Hand Mole Man is the quick, certain eye of The Deepdelve, a blind, shovel-handed tunnel-sculptor of the river plain who digs the cleanest tunnels in the deep and ranks the packs by the dig, the delve's quick, patient, and most certain eye. It stands little over a meter tall, watchful and quick, with the kind of certainty that comes from a life measured in clean digs rather than years. Where the Map-Keep mole men keep the map, the Shovel-Hand mole men of the deep dig the clean tunnel, and they have been digging the first clean tunnel in the first deep for a very long time.
Habitat
The Shovel-Hand Mole Man keeps to the young tunnels of The Deepdelve, a range of blind, river-fed ground where the deep is a promise and the tunnel is a treaty. Its dwellings are coaxed into the faces of the tunnel-walls, hollows of packed earth and laid stone that catch the dim delve-light on their inner face and the shelter of the deep on their outer. It favors the younger tunnels where the stone runs newest and the digging is cleanest, the places where a tunnel can be cleaned without the deep's own motion breaking it.
Appearance
A Shovel-Hand Mole Man stands about 1.26 m tall, small and quick, with dust-grey to pale bone skin that reads as bright in the dim delve-light. Its hands are shovel-broad, broader and cleaner than any other mole man's, the hands of a being that has dug a tunnel for a hundred years without a tremor, and it wears a patchwork of leather and cloth in muted grey and pale bone and carries a single dig-stone at its belt, set with a single stone-loop at the brow, the loop of a digger.
Behaviour
The Shovel-Hand Mole Man is quick, patient, and profoundly certain, a creature of long digs and long attention who rarely surprises and rarely is surprised. It listens before it digs, often for hours, listening to a tunnel or a person or a bargain until it understands the shape of the stone, and only then does it dig, and then with an exactness that feels rehearsed over years. It is not unkind, but it is not easily moved, and a debt named by a Shovel-Hand mole man is a debt the deep will keep long after the digger has gone.
Natural Weapons & Defenses
The Shovel-Hand mole man is no open-ground fighter and carries no blade, for its power is the dig and the stone itself, not force. Its primary defense is the tunnel, for it knows every corner of the young tunnels and can lead a pursuer through The Deepdelve for days until the pursuit loses its nerve and its balance. Should it be forced to act, a Shovel-Hand mole man is quick and precise, 6 m/s through the tunnels and low, and it fights to unmake a threat rather than to wound it, cutting a root, dimming a light, or digging a tunnel until the threat is spent.
Magic Alignment
The Shovel-Hand mole man is attuned to the long word of the stone, for the stone is the digging and the digging is the whole of its power, and a mole man that has a deep and a dig and a stone does not need a spell that is not its own. It is not attuned to any art that is not the stone, and it is not bound by any word that is not its own, and the not being bound is the whole of its way of being free. Its one signature thing is the digging, which is not a magic but is a thing that the mole men of the deep have dug for a very long time, and the digging is the stone, and the stone is the whole of its power.
Society
The Shovel-Hand Mole Men live in The Deepdelve in clannish, patient packs of perhaps four or five, bound by the digs they clean together rather than by blood or by place. There is no elder and no ruler, for a mole man that has dug the most and cleaned the most is simply the one the others listen to, and the listening is a digging and the digging is the whole of their society. Decisions are made in the tunnel, by a company of blind-eyed diggers that has already decided and is only agreeing, and once made they are kept, for a mole man that breaks a digging is a mole man that has broken the whole of what it is.
Culture & Lore
The culture of the Shovel-Hand Mole Man is a culture of the clean dig, a whole way of life organized around the idea that a word that is quick and patient is the only honest word in the deep. They keep no records, for a mole man that has dug a clean tunnel does not need a record, the digging is the record, and the digging is quick and patient and does not fade. Their stories are slow and quick, told in the tunnel at the dusk, and they are stories of digs cleaned and packs ranked and the quick, patient difference between them, told in a voice that is barked and means every digging.
Home
The Deepdelve is the Shovel-Hand mole man's home and its digging, a range of blind, river-fed ground where the deep is a promise and the tunnel is a treaty, where the mole men dig their clean tunnels and their quick, patient words. It is a strange and quick place, one that stands as if it were a very old animal holding its breath, and the Shovel-Hand mole man has learned to live inside that deep rather than against it. The dim delve-light that runs up through the young tunnels is the deep's own, a soft grey glow that the mole men have come to read as the color of a clean dig.
Relations
The Shovel-Hand Mole Man keeps a long, careful truce with the other creatures of The Deepdelve, a truce of clean digs that has held for a long time and is the oldest and most fragile thing in the deep. To the dim delve-light of the young tunnels the Shovel-Hand mole man is a quick, patient, and absolutely certain presence, a blind-eyed digger that is at home in the tunnels and in the stone, and the light has learned to glow wide and let the diggings pass, for a mole man that has dug you has decided you are a keeping and not a lesson.
In the Story
In the story of the deep, the Shovel-Hand Mole Man is the quick, patient edge of the tale, the place where the digs are cleaned and a pack is ranked and a digging is read. It is the figure that digs a new clean tunnel in the dusk and holds the stone very quick and very certain, and the figure that, when the truce with the map-keeping mole men grows thin, is the one that remembers what the truce cost and keeps the old dig quick and patient and absolutely certain.