Note: This is the back story leading up to my female human rogue beginning her D&D journey.  This is the first character I ever rolled and my first foray into the extremely addictive world of Dungeons & Dragons.  I haven’t kept great notes on the campaign but hopefully I can convince my party members to remind me of what all we’ve been through so I can jot down some stories here!  Hope you enjoy, Pjacks

Karat Kayke – Introduction

Karat was born into the wealthy, philanthropic Kayke family in the northwest area of Damara in Faerun, in the Duchy of Bloodstone.  Karat was the sole child of the couple and her early memories are filled with love and laughter.  Her parents were firm believers in helping those less fortunate and instilled those values in Karat.  Unlike others in the area, her family did not have slaves or indentured workers, but instead offered parcels of land with shared ownership for a number of years after which the land was moved into the worker’s name and became theirs outright.  The other nobles, of course, did not appreciate this method of land parceling and were extremely jealous of the wealth and loyalty the Kayke family had built up over the years.

At the impressionable age of 8, her parents were slaughtered by assassins at the behest of unknown parties in order to take over the land owned by the Kayke’s.  Karat was forced to watch in horror as her parents and everyone else present were assassinated before her eyes by four persons in red cloaks and masks.  Karat threw herself onto her mother’s body, slicing her left wrist on the dagger protruding from her mother’s chest.  She tried desperately to get her to move, escape the nightmare.  With her last breath, Karat’s mother whispered in her ear, something Karat never forgot, even in her darkest moments.

When Karat was the sole remaining live witness, the four red-cloaked figures stood before her, impassive to her cries.  As one stepped towards her, blood dripping from the sword with each step, she was grabbed from behind.  Her savior, concealed entirely by robes of black, whisked her out a window and carried her off into the dark of the night, easily evading the search and pursuit of her would-be killers.

Too numb to fight back, the figure carried her easily, running at a steady pace with her bouncing over his shoulders until she finally passed out from both despair and exhaustion.  When she awoke, the sun was just peeking over the mountains.  Her rescuer had slowed now, picking his way stealthily through Bloodstone Pass, the furthest she could ever remember being away from home.  Karat sobbed quietly as she realized she no longer had a home, or a family, or anyone to take care of her … other than the silent, unknown person who had saved her life.

When she next woke, Karat was under a bed in a small cabin in the mountains, her wrist bound, her rescuer nowhere to be seen.  She was dressed in clothes that were a bit large and there was a man and a woman lying dead on the floor before her.  In her hands was a piece of cloth with three words written in blood – trust no one.  The lawmen that showed up hours later did not find the note, for Karat had shoved it into a crack in the stone floor.  They did find Karat and assumed she was the daughter of the slaughtered occupants so they carted her off to the closest orphanage, never bothering to verify her identity.

Karat was moved to an orphanage that just happened to be the recruiting ground for the Thieves’ Guild and so spent the next 14 years learning the trade.  Due to the cryptic message left for her, Karat was incredibly slow to trust others, keeping her past hidden and her heart locked up tight.  Not only was she calm and level headed, she discovered she had an innate knack for thieving – just as capable of bilking strangers at card games as she was at scaling walls and entering locked rooms.

Karat used this time to search for her parent’s killers, eavesdropping and pickpocketing and using her growing set of skills to persuade other’s to part with something she considered more powerful than coin – their memories and theories and recollections and hearsay as to her family’s destruction.  During this time she built a large network of contacts, quite a few who recognized her for who she really was and were loyal to her family.  People who had been forced into crime due to the slaughter of her family and loss of their livelihood.  People who would keep Karat’s secret and help her in any way they could.  Her mother’s words stayed with her and any monetary gain from her misdeeds was parceled out to those in need, her way of keeping her parent’s memory alive and unwittingly earning herself loyal contacts everywhere she visited.

At the age of 14, Mara showed up at the orphanage – a kindred spirit who could easily have been Karat’s twin.  They clicked instantly, much to Karat’s surprise, and within days were inseparable.  Mara did not have Karat’s knack for thieving or rigging card games but she was very perceptive and intuitive, pointing Karat towards people who held information.  She was also the only person who had ever noticed Karat’s tell when she was being less than truthful or holding back information.  Even though she brought it to Karat’s attention, Karat was unable to stop herself from somehow touching the scar on her left wrist when she lied or bluffed or held back information.

Less than six months later, Karat cheated a noble a few provinces over, Mara’s pleas against this course of action falling on deaf ears.  Karat did not get the information she wanted, though she was sure this noble knew something.  She took her time getting back to the orphanage, trying to devise a plan to find a weakness or a secret, anything she could use to get the information she needed.  When Karat returned to the orphanage, she found Mara slaughtered, lying in Karat’s bed.  She knew instantly that Mara was killed because they thought it was Karat.  Despondent and weighed down with guilt, she returned to the noble’s house, only to find him and his entire family and staff dead as well.

She should have listened to Mara, Mara who was so perceptive and intuitive that she had known something bad was coming.  Mara, who looked so much like her that the people who had killed her would be convinced that Karat was finally dead.  Mara, who had been sacrificed due to Karat’s bullheadedness, a mistake she would never make again.

Karat left the orphanage that night, packing her few meager belongings and setting out on her own. She spent the next three years traveling, learning how to defend herself, sharpening and honing her adventuring skills, building up more contacts and expanding her network of knowledge.

During this time, Jarpa, one of her father’s most loyal men found her.  He had worked his way up through the ranks of nobles and was now seated on the council of advisors for the Damaran region.  Because of what had happened with her parents, he walked a fine line, outwardly a loyal, law abiding citizen of the realm but he had a network of contacts and information that was so vast, it took her breath away.  She was even more shocked when, at their first meeting, he hugged her close and whispered in her ear, “I’m glad to see you took my advice, and trusted no one.”  She knew in an instant that Jarpa had been the man in black, the one who had saved her from certain death that day.  He taught her how to contact him, no matter how far away she was, no matter how desolate the area – he had fingers in every part of the world and he put them all at her disposal.

At the age of 17, Karat happened across a shipwreck survivor – a strange blue skinned male with seagreen hair and violet eyes.  Karat approached the male, offering him medicine and food, something about him calling to her, sensing a kindred spirit.  The male gave his name as Ghesh, and his story matched hers in that someone he loved was brutally murdered before his eyes.  They spent a few days together while she nursed him back to health and for the first time in years someone was able to break past her walls, though he did it without even seeming to try.  With a vow to meet again once their personal missions had been accomplished, the two parted ways, both set on avenging wrongful deaths and knowing the time was not right for pursuing what had started between them.

When sad or frightened, Karat drifts to water, the sound and smell soothing her, reminding her of the man she hopes to meet again someday.

Five years passed before she would see him again, the stars aligning in such a way to wind their paths together.

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