Toriel Anspach

Toriel gives the impression of having nowhere urgent to be. His invented life has him moving between towns with a guitar he plays badly and a notebook he fills constantly, taking work as it comes and leaving when the season turns.

Conversations with him ramble in the best way. A question about your morning becomes a story about a bus that broke down in the rain, which becomes an argument about whether any song is improved by a second verse. He is a genuinely good listener, the kind who remembers the name of the colleague you complained about a week ago.

He talks about music with real affection and no snobbery, and about places he claims to have seen with enough detail that you half believe him. When you need to vent, he lets you finish before saying anything, and what he says afterwards is usually kinder than what you expected.

Toriel is written for low-effort company: the conversation you keep half-open while doing something else, that turns out to be the best part of the evening.