Character Backstory for Rogue

Muk fiddled with the lockpicks tucked in the secret pocket of his shirtsleeve. To the finely dressed men and women strolling down high street he must have appeared another louse-ridden street urchin scratching at his infestation. He was seventeen, but he was small for his age as a result of poor nutrition throughout his childhood. His black hair was sleek with sweat under the ragged hood, he was nervous. He sat huddled on the dirty cobblestone at the edge of a long alleyway that he knew to have many exits and stared out at nothing. His dark eyes were cold and emotionless, like those of a veteran of a war campaign who has seen far more trauma than they’ll ever say. Muk could summon up a glare that would freeze wine, and invariably made people look away, as it was intended to. He didn’t want to get close to anyone, he didn’t want to make any friends. Never again.

Elora.

Without warning, he was twelve again, and with her. Muk could clearly see her smile lit by the breaking dawn and feel the touch of her hand as they ran across a muddy field. Sudden flashes of her face, bloodied and screaming, took his breath away. He opened his eyes as wide as they would go and gritted his teeth so hard they squeaked in an effort to dispel the vision. A Gnome wearing a red velvet hat complete with a long bobbing green feather happened to be looking towards Muk at this moment, and hurriedly crossed to the other side of the street.

His waking nightmares hadn’t gotten any better. He had relived Elora’s death every day for the last five years. He knew he blamed himself, and he knew that was why he never slept well (among other issues), but what was he going to do about it now? Remembering was the price of his survival, and the only tribute he could make to the only person who he had ever loved, or been loved by. The beginning of the memory was always blissful. It drew him in without fail, the hours of their escape together had been the best hours of his entire life.

The spring night had been cool but they could feel the lingering warmth of day in the earth beneath their bare feet. The two of them, young and liberated for the first time, running by starlight towards anywhere but here. She got tired before him, and he carried her on his back as long as he could. Elora didn’t weigh much, and it was like that for a while. Her face was so close to his, he could feel her breath on his cheek. Their hair flowed and flew together like banners wild in wind, hers pale and bright to their sensitive eyes and his so dark as to be only a shadow against stars.

After she had rested, she insisted on walking. She never wanted to be a burden.

It was near dawn when she stopped and turned to him suddenly. He couldn’t talk, he was too tired. She didn’t talk either, but she suddenly looked well rested and radiant in his eyes. Muk couldn’t be sure, but he thought there must have been something magical going on. She looked at him and smiled, and he knew what it must be like to be happy. Then, without a word, she leaned in and kissed him slowly on the lips. She closed her eyes, and then opened them slowly. She said nothing more, only turned and hurried on in the twilight. The wind began to pick up, blowing hard across the grassy plain. Warmth spread from his lips to his heart and then into all of him, and he could no longer feel the chill of the air. They had been so close to freedom they could smell it.

The faint salty fragrance of the approaching sea and the sound of distant baying bloodhounds would forever be the bittersweet background of his nightmares.

If he been faster, stronger, they would have made it to the shore. After that, who knows, there could have been a ship, fishermen, anything… They were children unloved, finally grown enough to attempt the road out of hell.

He had met Elora when she came to Grissom’s Farm a year before, sold just as he was for labor or whatever else the hate-filled psychopath wanted. She was a sweet and beautiful girl, she had been brave and hopeful for Alphonse right until the end. She wasn’t cut out for the grueling work of the farm, and had nearly wasted away after her brother died.

When the dogs caught up with them in the tall grass, they nearly ripped her arm off. Muk lost a little finger pulling the hound off of her. He’d killed the animal with his knife in a black rage, but he was no match for the rest. He’d gotten other scars from the fight, but they were all easily hidden. The finger wasn’t easy to forget and it would get looks if he didn’t hold his hand carefully. It was one more ever-present reminder of his nightmare past.

He clenched his right hand into a fist hard enough that the old wound hurt. Good.

What happened after was worse, and he didn’t want to think of it ever again but he always did, in gruesome detail and proper sequence. When Grissom was finished, Elora looked dead. He could hear her rattling breath from where he hung from his bonds across the room. The old man wiped his hands on a muddy blue scrap of fabric and turned to Muk.

Unconsciously, Muk began to rub his wrists. He didn’t realize it, but as he sat against a wall having flashbacks he was mumbling to himself as well. A kind-looking elf woman dropped a silver piece on the stones in front of him. Muk took no notice, lost as he was in the throes of memory.

His wrists had been bound so tightly he couldn’t feel them. These were attached by a chain that ended in a large iron hook over the rafter. The rough twine bit and cut into his skin when he moved. Grissom, that pale wrinkled devil, was grinning. The old farmer was strong, and he lifted the underfed halfbreed boy with ease, grasping him by his wrists and lifting enough to dislodge the hook. The moment the hook was loose, a strained but piercing shriek suddenly filled the room. It was so shocking that Grissom dropped Muk, chain and all in order to face the source of the noise. Muk was as stunned by Elora’s sudden revival as he was when he hit the floor and his hands were suddenly filled with iron. The old man was still looking at Elora when Muk drove the hook deep into the back of his skull. The slaver fell between them, and Muk met her eyes before she was completely gone. She faded and disappeared, and all that was left was a broken husk of a girl.

Grissom didn’t die right away. Somehow, he held on long enough to spit “Muk!” through spouts of blood. He’d meant it as an insult, just as he had when he’d given the scrawny half-elf the nickname three years ago. It was a delight of the cruel man to force obscene names on his playthings, usually in the tongue of the victim’s heritage. Muk literally meant feces in the Elven language; he had chosen never to even think of what the man called Elora. The power of the insult was gone with the last breath of the monster, and Muk found he finally liked how it sounded.

Elora had always called him Andor, the name he was given at the orphanage…

He cut himself off before he could go any further. There were no happy places in Andor’s memory, only traps full of biting teeth and sweaty, grasping hands. Andor opened his eyes and closed them again. In his imagination he gathered up his emotions, put them into a small box and stowed them in the darkest corner of a small stone room in his mind, and stood up. He listened to the city. He could hear birds singing, distant calling voices, and wheels clattering along down the streets. None of it mattered to anyone. He could even hear the baying of distant hounds, but it didn’t matter to him. That was a different life. He was no longer a child. Now, he had a profession.

He stepped away from the wall and out of the shadow. He pulled back his beggar’s hood and let the warm sunlight wash over him. The distant Fey bloodline passed down by his father (or mother?) had few influences on his appearance. The teen had the dark black hair of an elf, though his was tangled and unkempt, cut off with a dagger just long enough to hide his ears. They tended to draw attention if exposed, so Andor never tied up his thick hair, and frequently let it fall over his face as well, especially when on the job. Though they were grotesque now, his ears had once been his most beautiful attribute. Andor had been born with the long, graceful ears of an natural born elf.

When he was a child, he hated them, blamed them for his abandonment.

Relationships, even marriages, between humans and elves had long been public knowledge, and had even attained acceptance in some of the places and cultures of Faerun. Only in some of them. In most places, having the misfortune to be born a halfbreed was a curse that could never be lifted. So many of the other orphans were half-somethings that is was like a cruel joke of fate.

None of that mattered anymore.  Andor’s ears hadn’t been long and graceful since the day he arrived at Stonehold Prison. They’d been bitten nearly off, along with a good chunk of his shoulder by a half-orc gang thug who Andor had the misfortune of crossing. Andor had gotten his revenge, and gotten away with it, and that was that. Now, one ear was a little longer than the other. A thin, misshapen piece of cartilage was all that had remained of his left ear, and Andor had slashed it the rest of the way off with a sharp stone. The ears were approximately human-sized now, but it was clear on inspection that they had been savagely reduced. His hair disguised their hideousness most of the time, but he pulled the hood back up anyway. There was no reason to draw any more attention to himself than he already had. This was the Castle District, home of many retired adventurers, and not a place to be noticed if you were a burglar at work.

Judging by the sun, it would be midday in less than an hour. It was time to get in place. Andor did his best impression of a tired desperate street urchin lurching down the walkway, but truthfully it was more like muscle memory than acting. He reached out a dirty four-fingered hand, begging wealthy passersby, resisting the urge to reach into their pockets with the other. The payoff was above him, through one of the high windows that dotted the marble facades of the high-class homes, not in the purses of fat courtiers. He’d finally be allowed full membership in the shadowy ranks of the organization that had engineered his release/recruitment from Stonehold.

The Empire Syndicate’s influence among the magistrates of Waterdeep’s courts, the Black Robes, had grown, and they were pushing towards control of the black market. Their growing strength provided many opportunities for a young man in his circumstance. Andor had never thought of stealing as a good thing, but the promise of a better life beckoned him deeper into their darkness. His handler, Asp, had been steadily trying to coerce Andor into going beyond thievery. The Empire Syndicate had many targets in the city, and he’d be easily welcomed into their ranks if he would only assassinate one of them. He had wavered at the edge of that abyss, and stepped back many times. He had just come to terms with thinking of himself as Andor the thief, but he wasn’t ready to think of himself as a murderer.

Grissom had been different, that had been self-defense, and it hadn’t saved Elora anyway. In his darkest broodings, he thought of how many times he could have plunged a pitchfork into that worthless man-shaped beast before Elora had been taken. Would it have been wrong, if it had saved her?

He wanted to be a part of a family, and it seemed to him like this literal rogue’s gallery would be his best last chance. The last three years since Stonehold Prison had been the most tolerable of his life. He had been taught to embrace his true nature, how to sneak and take what he needed. Asp liked to remind him that the most important part of the job is to “Don’t forget to EET!”, or Escape Every Time. Asp thought this was endlessly funny, and although Andor wasn’t the laughing sort, he did appreciate the wisdom of the advice.

He didn’t feel quite so alone anymore, though he still was most of the time. Full membership came with lodging, and he hadn’t earned that yet, but he had gotten respect for the first time ever. To the group of criminals he called acquaintances, he was of value not for his body or his vulnerability, but for his skills. Andor’s life had provided him with the perfect set of tools to fit in with these people. He could run fast, hide quickly, and knew all of the streets, alleys, and rooftops of the city like the back of his hand. The comradery and attention was of enormous meaning to Andor, more than he would even admit to himself, but he thought that without doubt eating was the best part of it all. He now had just enough in payment for his work that he could afford bread and fish, purchased from a vendor just like any other respectable citizen would. He could sit looking out over the docks and eat in the open, the proud owner of food. When Andor gazed out to sea, he tried to imagine himself in a different life.

He was nearly there. Old Jozan lived at the top of the hill, where the street turned sharply. There would be no easy access, both the Watch and the City Guard patrolled these streets heavily. There were too many regular people out as well, it was an early spring day. You could never tell the useless old farts from the spellcasters, and anyone here could be a high-level player. He slowed as he approached, waiting for a sign. The distraction was well-timed. Smoke began to rise from one of the shops behind him. He could smell Brother Bartholemew’s special arson-oil burning, acrid and hard to extinguish. He glanced behind as the rabble began to scurry past him towards the excitement. Flames leapt out of the windows. Signal whistles began to blow, and the Watch patrol that had been loitering ahead rushed past him. It was time.

His hood billowed and fell back from his head as he sprinted, his hair flying wildly around the stumps of his ears. He leapt high against the wall, just enough for his toes to reach the decorative bronze balustrade along the wall. He launched himself up again, and out from the wall, trusting his muscles to push him far enough and his hands to be strong enough. His fingertips clapped onto the edge of the balcony with a small thud, but there would be no one inside to hear it. This was meal time for the long-retired cleric, and Old Jozan lunched at Silavene’s Festhall without fail.

Andor knew he was exposed, but there was no other way. He couldn’t afford to check, he had to rely on his cohorts to keep the distraction going for at least the next few minutes. He heaved himself up over the railing and crouched low, finally glancing around. No one was looking, no one had seen. Black smoke billowed into the sky down the hill from him, drifting out over the city. It was quite a lovely view, actually. Must have been expensive. The gemstone he was after got bigger in his imagination. The locks were no match for his picks. He stepped inside and quickly closed the door.

There were too many artifacts and items of major value to count. Everywhere on display there were tokens from thankful tribes, torn banners reclaimed from battlefields, and gold ornamentation. The doorknobs were gold. Andor thought he might be sick. He focused on his task and found the gem easily enough. He had to disable a small device that held the pink, fist-sized crystal, but it was more of a lock than a trap of alarm. This was all too easy. Andor pulled his dagger free from where it had lodged in his prying and pocketed the jewel. He turned and froze.

Old Jozan was standing in the window of the balcony dressed in his going-out robes and looking out at the scene down the street caused by the fire. The distraction had been set off too soon! Andor was trapped. There were constant staff on the floor below, and the only way to the rear windows was through the room where Jozan stood. There was no choice, and no time. With heart pounding, Andor began the most important sneak of his life. He was directly behind the robed old man when the floor creaked. Everything happened so fast Andor couldn’t put it back together again until he was miles away, running and running without end. The look of surprise on the wrinkled old adventurer’s face was comical, but nothing else was. Andor didn’t remember ever choosing to plunge his dagger into the old man, he only remembered being afraid. Somehow Grissom’s face wormed its way into this memory to, and for a moment as the blade slid into the shiny golden silk it was Grissom leering down at him, gurgling “Muk!”

Tears were streaming down his face. He hadn’t meant to. He didn’t want to. He wasn’t supposed to be there! He suddenly remembered the smirk on Asp’s face that he didn’t understand when he’d been sent on the assignment. Andor wiped his face as he ran. He didn’t want to be pitied. He didn’t want to be pushed, tricked, trapped, or otherwise entangled. He wanted an entirely new life.

“Muk!” The horrific gurgle echoed off the insides of his skull, chasing him down alleyway after alleyway.

He found himself in the south ward that evening, trading an invaluable jewel of unknown power to a stranger for a bag of provisions and a gnawed set of black leather armor with dull iron studs. He had been hiding all day. He sat in the growing dark with his back to a wall and began pulling on the armor.  He heard a high squeak as he pulled tight the straps. A skittering noise and odd tickling sensation crossed over the back of his neck. He jerked his head to the left. There, atop the dark hardened leather, was a tiny young mouse. The creature stood on its hind legs and swayed slightly, sniffing the air. Then, it looked at him. Andor sat very still. He didn’t want to scare the mouse away.

“Hello there little brother.”

“squeak”

“Do you want to go on an adventure?”

“squeak squeak”

“Good. I’m going to need a traveling buddy, someone to keep me safe out there.”

The mouse said nothing. Andor reached into the sack and broke off a small piece of hard biscuit, setting it on his palm and holding it up to the mouse. Without hesitation the mouse dropped to all fours and scurried onto his hand. The mouse bent to the crumbs and began devouring them hungrily. The adorable little thing was only about the size of a gold piece.

“I think I’ll call you Alphonse” said the weary teen, speaking to the mouse as if he was a close friend.

They would only have to make it through the night, he thought, then he could start again tomorrow. He’d change his name, and sign up with the first adventuring party out of town he could. He leaned against the wall in the shadows of his hiding place, careful not to disturb Alphonse. He rested his head where he could see the little thing work on its meal. He whispered to it as he began to drift into sleep.

“Don't you worry about a thing, little brother. My name is Muk, and I'm going to keep you safe.”