You were born in the ivory tower of the al-Kapur family
estate in the City of Opal, Helespolis. The oldest of just two
childern in a prestigous house, you were destined for greatness. From
an early age you knew you would be entrusted to run your house on the
day your father passed on. Your family wasn't very religious and your
father was a harsh and accomplished wizard always hungry for more
power. To him, you were merely another asset to be nurtured for his
own purposes. It was early on in your life that it became clear you
had little magical aptitude, so your father sent you to one of the
training schools of the powerful Hassaris. "If you can't wield a
wand, you will learn to stick the knife in!" was your father's
last words to you before you departed for the City of Pearl, Darvish
Kapur, at the young age of seven.
After the excitement and trepidation of the trip to
your boarding school, you felt liberated to be away from your
father's tough discipline. Your natural charisma and intelligence
made making friends easy at your school and your showed natural
aptitude in the Hassari arts, rising to be the unrivalled leader of
your class. You mastered blade and poison quickly. You were
particularly good at improvisation. Subtle and quick, you would have
had a promising future in the order if you weren't already destined
to be the head of a noble house.
Out of sight meant out of the mind of your father. Your
mother, aloof and concerned only with her own luxurious lifestyle,
was no better. Only your younger sister, Leila, would write to you
but after many years at the Hassari school without returning home
even once, you found it difficult to keep in touch. Only on your
sixteenth birthday, when you were officiated into the order, did your
father send you a gift: A rare and magical implement, the Ghost
Strike Ki, that made you even more deadly with the dagger. Yet in
your heart you were left bitter that none of your family were there
in person to celebrate the moment of your ascension.
It was in a state of anger and melancholy that you
lashed out at a fellow pupil during the final initiations before you
would become licensed by your order to take approved contracts. What
should have been a non-lethal proving contest turned bloody and the
inner demons inside you were unleashed in a violent display that saw
your fellow Hassari butchered like an animal. This was an unspeakable
breaking of the oaths that bound the Hassari as brothers and you were
flogged, stripped and thrown into the street with nothing but shame.
Your father upon hearing of this, cursed your name, disowning you and
disbarring you from your inheritance in preference to your younger
sister.
A life with the promise of power as the inheritor of
the house al-Kapur or brotherhood in the Hassari order vanished
before your eyes. In the days that followed, you scavanged like an
animal in the backstreets until you had gathered the means to survive
without becoming prey to the criminals of the seedier parts of the
city. Months past until you had mustered the energy to break into
your old school, stealing your precious Ki and other supplies before
vanishing into the night.
It has been over a year since the events that saw you
an outcast and you have made a subsistence level living as an
assassin for low-class criminals, a waste of your professional
training but a necessary means to stay alive.
Today, started like most others with you heading to the
coffee house frequented by the Bazaari, waiting for the fateful
scroll that would give you some poor mark to meet their fate at your
hands. Yet this time the scroll that was put before you did not name
a victim but reported the news that your father had perished, the
victim of a magical disaster. The hand written note by the Vazier
Hamish al-Torfan suggested your father had practiced unlawful
necromancy and his work had resulted in a terrible infestation of
shadow creatures upon your family's estate. You did not shed a tear
for the old bastard that had disowned you but only felt some sadness
at the news that your mother and sister had perished with him. Hours
and many cups of coffee have passed since you read the scroll and
realised that the life you knew was truly over. You wonder: Where
would fate take you now?
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