Introducing Saber!
Saber is a swordfish-like creature from Barin. I’ve decided he and Nash’s species is referred to as “Barinichthys”. He has similar aspirations to Nash, wanting to be Barin’s new champion. He and Nash are friends, however, so he’d feel like he’d be doing Nash a disservice by (indirectly) kicking him out of Velo’s entourage.
As implied in the picture, Saber lost his dorsal fin (presumably in a fight he thought he could win), so he has a false one going down his spine. He could potentially take it off, but he doesn’t want to because he feels naked without it. On a similar note, Nash is also missing his dorsal fin, and alternates from a plethora of prosthetic fins. His favorite one is the prosthetic with three spikes.
The other species mentioned in this picture, the Slygs, are those eyeball slugs featured in Deep Sea Driving. They’re typically dormant, but can get hostile and destroy the technology the Barinichthys population worked so hard to build. So Saber, rather than using a machine or getting an army, has tasked himself with fighting them off! And he does have the energy and precision for it, so perhaps it’s a good fit for him...
