Tycho Northpaw

**Tycho Northpaw** is a dog hermit astronomer and cartographer.

## Background

Tycho belonged to the Dog Tribe and raised to be a hunter, but suffered from impaired sense of smell as well as hay fever and was sneezing during hunting.

A curiosity among the Dogs, he loved the stars and obesrved them in the early morning lying on his back, and catalogued every one of them. King Rex thought that Tycho was useless, as were his interests, and he was ostracized.

He went to Forever Mountains in order to watch the stars better. There he found an old building made by humans, with instruments he called "lightcatchers". With them he observed his beloved stars better, as did with the Wild Lands that the Mountains overlooked. He believes that humans did not ascend to the Land of the Clouds as some Morphs believe, but to the moon, and they carved its face to show to the Morphs they are watching them.

He became a wise astronomer and cartologist and made maps of a portion of the Wild Lands. Having met travelers who had been through them, he believes the Wild Lands arent as scary as thought.

After a wind burst threw his lightcatcher to the floor, breaking its lens. For 8 months he was unable to watch the stars or the Wild Lands.

## Quest for the Orb

He was visited by Rif the Fox with Eeah and Okk. The trio were inquiring about the Raccoons of the North Island and asked for a map of the Wild Lands. Tycho however had only one, and could not afford losing it, especially without his lightcathcer. He promised to make a duplicate if they have his lens repaired.

Chota the Racoon visited him on his way back to the Wild Lands, and provided him with further information. Tycho told him about Rif and his quest for the Orb and the Raccoon strangely became all the more eager to provide more information.

2 days later Rif returned with the repaired lens. It was revealed that the Racoon was the thief of the Orb of Storms and his "help" was intended to confuse his pursuers, and they asked him to undo the updates made by him.

## Little Wolf Lost

After Rif's adventure, Tycho lost sight of one eye and the other became foggy; he planned to return to his tribe should he could not live by himself.

He was expecting the meeting of two stars when Rif returned to him, bringin a plastic human box with a small lightcatcher-like device. Tycho recognised it as a sextant. He offered to teach him a lesson about what it is and how it works, and as Rif got tired, he hosted him for the night.

The next morning he demonstrated to Rif how it worked. On his way to fetch the timekeeper he fell down, explaining that he was losing his sight, and not even the Cat Tribe's eye-scopes could not help him.

A few days later Rif left, having lent him some books.

## Mutual Help

One day, a Hare from the Sanctuary of the Orb brought to him Sandy, a wolf-cub, to be his assistant so that he would not have to return to the Tribe as he had said to Rif. Tycho thought that he had exaggerated about his condition on his plight. Seeing the cub's knowledge on cartography and astronomy, he welcomed him.

## Sandy's Week

Indeed, Sandy proved skilled and hard-working. One Monday he repaired the fence so that they didn't need to fetch a Ferret, and was congratulated by Tycho.

The next day he caught a butterfly to sketch it.

On Wednesday Sandy discovered something new, and Tycho told him that it was a new comet.

On Thursday the cub's mother, Kyrrah the healer, came to examine Tycho's eyes; she determined that his right eye was clean of cataract but his left had worsened, so he could still tutor Sandy.

On Friday Sandy announced that it would be overcast that evening, and, as Tycho expected, he lit the beacon.

Sandy observed that his comet was becoming brighter, and Tycho suggested to alert Elara to inform the tribal leaders so as they won't see it as some "bad omen".

On Sunday Tycho wondered if Sandy finished his chores; looking for him, he found him sound asleep. He was about to ask him but decided against it, and guessed that he had.