Shem Peraṭi represents the proper noun in “Milhamah: Fighting Words” and is the father of the story’s main protagonist, Shem ‘Etzem. Just as ‘Etzem has an affinity for garlic, Peraṭi favors mushrooms.
Peraṭi is a famous researcher, engineer and inventor who built some of Avgad’s finest pieces of technology. The Bavel Macrostructure hired him to create a network of Bavel Gate portals. However, he longs to quit and pursue his research of shoresh roots. (He keeps a secret inventory of dozens of specimens.)
Rumors call him a mad scientist who splits otiyot letters and rearranges them into time-warping chronograms and space-warping anagrams.
While Peraṭi is a private, fiercely independent person, he also is an aspiring musician. Sometimes, when he enters the public square, he disguises himself in a shabby overcoat and busks for change. He goes nowhere without his Postlude Lyre and Shredding Plectrum, as well as his disintegrating Ṭoref Scrambler for self-defense.
Peraṭi gets his powers from the טפר shoresh family, which governs fathers, plectrums, mushrooms, privacy, inventories, specimens, small change, playing stringed instruments, shabbiness, scramblers, tearing, creating, disintegrating, splitting and quitting.