Valaari was born in the Maruk Ghaash'kala tribe, from parents who have since died to the Demon Wastes. They have spent their whole life in Maruk Dar.
As far you remember, Valaari has always been weird.
They were a weird child, always looking above their shoulder, always staring into space. When they were a few years older, but still young, Valaari almost died fighting a creature they didn't really recall afterwards, and were found unconscious by warriors of the tribe. One of Valaari's legs had to be amputated to stop a fatal spread of necromantic energy. Valaari woke again, looking like life had been drained out of them: their skin had become grey, cold and clammy, and their hair and eyes had turned grey. Little Valaari was healthy as a bull, but they looked like death had preemptively stolen all the colours of life.
Valaari was a weird child but they became a weirder adult. They were obsessed by patterns and logics that escaped most people, but that explained how the world worked, how magic shaped reality, how symbols would appear in the dust, drawned by the breeze. Looking for them, Valaari learned how to read creatures with terrible accuracy, and devise counters to fight them with a collection of items and baubles. Some people call Valaari a charlatan, others say Valaari is Waste-touched (and not the normal way), but there is no doubt that what they do works, even when it shouldn't. Over the years, everyone has a story about Valaari helping a patrol defeat a creature by attaching a moon-blessed sock to their axe - somewhat getting past their tough skin. Or Valaari showing up at a neighbour's doorstep, whose home was plagued by lice, handing them three leaves wrapped up around a dead lizard's skin, and telling them to wave the talisman three times towards the East at midnight. The lice were gone the next day.
Elders wonder: does Valaari really have an extraordinary understanding and knowledge of creatures, life and beyond, or are they actually shaping reality? The latter is impossible of course, particularly since everyone knows Valaari has the magical ability of a dead rat... but where could they have gotten such knowledge so young?
A few voices have risen over the years, calling them demon and trying to cast Valaari out. But few people are quite as good as Valaari at understanding threats and how to fight them, and Valaari has fought really hard to prove their loyalty and usefulness. Most people simply call them Valaari the Weird - but mostly, people leave them be. Valaari is probably the only one in the tribe to sleep in their own room, without anyone else to bunk with.
Valaari today is a 35 year old genderless orc, tall and broad of shoulders, with massive horns. One's broken. Their grey skin and hair make them look like they are deathly sick, even though they are not. In the off chance someone accidentally brushes Valaari's arm, it would feel like touching a dead octopus (if Ghaash'kala knew what an octopus was). Despite this, or because of it, Valaari has a strange presence about themselves - when they enter a room, everyone looks at them, but not in admiration or awe, more like they cannot help to stare. The way people look at Valaari sometimes, it's like they have sprouted an extra arm or grown a third eye. It usually gets worse when Valaari opens their mouth. People listen - Valaari is usually right, but they look like they'd rather eat their own fingernails.