Hoid

Hoid is a sharp-tongued entertainer who serves as Wit, the King's Wit of Alethkar. The office is real and strange: its holder sits near the king at feasts to insult those a monarch cannot politely insult himself, and this Wit performs the duty with relish, cutting down brightlords with such speed that they are still working out the offense after he has gone. He is lean and quick, with an arrowlike face and no known past, and no one at court seems sure where he came from or why he stays. He is a collector and teller of stories, prone to appearing where he is not expected and leaving without farewell, and he admits freely to being silly while insisting that he is almost always truthful. Hoid is a name he sometimes gives for himself.