Many years ago on a mild, moonless summer night in an alley
located in the Outer City District of Baldur’s Gate a young elven boy with pale
blue skin and navy hair named Rinarin crouched behind some barrels peering out
as his father and mother argued with a group of gruff men all wearing dark red
clothing. He watched in horror, eyes wide as the men in red viciously and
repeatedly stabbed both his mother and father. His entire body turned to ice,
rigid and cold, unable to move. Luckily for him the thugs had not seen him duck
into the alley and their human eyes could not pierce the darkness to see him. He
just remained there frozen in shock until the next morning when his older
sister Lenora found him there physically unharmed, but emotionally scarred.
After the events of that night any time he witnessed
bullying and violence he would freeze up, unable to move, and had a hard time
breathing until the threat had passed. The Outer City was a rough place to live
so there were always thugs around. To avoid situations that would leave him
paralyzed with fear Rinarin did his best to stay out of their path. He crept
about in the shadows of the city, dark alleys, side streets, climbed the walls
to the rooftops, and leapt between buildings to avoid any confrontations. He
became very adept at sneaking around unseen and unheard.
His older sister raised him in place of their parents and
she was very protective of him. She chased off anyone that bothered him, kept
him fed and clothed, and made sure there was a roof over his head. She was his
sister, his mother, and his teacher. She was the whole world to him. She did
everything she could to erase the memory and heal his scars. She taught him to
read and write to keep his mind busy and eventually introduced him to magic in
hopes that it would boost his confidence and allow him to get over his fear. He
was fascinated by the Weave and immersed himself in his studies, but it did
little to ease his anxiety.
Lenora was not one to give up so she tried a different tack
and began training him with the weapons of his elven heritage. She guided him
through a series of dance-like thrusts, slashes, and footwork using a light
slender blade. The movements were slow and precise at first which allowed him
to enter a meditative trance as he went through the motions. It brought him a
sense of calm he had not known since terrible incident of his youth. He
practiced day in and out and those slow motions became faster and faster. He
now moved through the forms with speed and grace. He felt at one with the
elements. He danced with the wind, struck fiercely like a flame, flowed from
one movement to the next like water, and maintained a sturdy connection to the
earth, never losing his footing. It felt like the elements were begging to be
freed, to be released through his blade. He gave them their wish allowing them
to become part of his dance. It was quite the spectacle to witness though the
only person he ever allowed to see it was Lenora.
Rinarin was nearly full grown at this point and he didn’t
want to be a burden on his sister forever. It was time he started earning a
living. He was able to find work with one of the Outer City’s Leatherworkers
who noticed how deft he was with his hands and took him on as an apprentice. It
didn’t take long before his work was superior to his master’s. The little shop
started getting more and more business as news spread about the quality of its
goods. Unfortunately, the shops success also drew some unwanted attention from
the area gangs. One day some thugs from the Crimson Daggers, the same gang that
had slain his parents, showed up demanding taxes for doing business in their
territory. That familiar dread washed over Rinarin locking him in place. They
trashed the store and roughed up the shopkeeper a bit before he caved in and
paid them. All the while Rinarin stood fixed in place watching, gasping for
breath… useless…
That night at dinner Lenora noticed he seemed depressed,
wouldn’t meet her eyes, and kept looking over his shoulder as if someone was
going to jump out and attack at any moment. She asked him what was wrong and
after some coaxing managed to get the story out of him. She… was… furious! He
had been making such progress over the last few years and some stupid thugs had
to go and ruin everything. He seemed to have regressed back to the scared,
anxious, young boy he used to be. She did what she could to raise his spirits
and told him not to worry. She had heard some members of an organization called
The Harpers had recently arrived in town they were planning on dealing with the
gangs that were oppressing the people of the Outer City. That seemed to at
least give him a bit of comfort. His shoulders relaxed a bit and he was able to
sleep that night.
Over the next few months a masked, hooded figure wearing a
dark blue cloak with the symbol of a white crescent moon and harp began going
to work on the gangs of the city. Rinarin heard story after story of the hero
dancing about with a sword wreathed in flames taking on several opponents at
once. He idolized this Harper and wished he was brave enough to stand up to the
gangs himself. The gang activity in the area diminished and the Outer City
started to become a relatively safe place to live. Rinarin finally began to
return back to his normal self when disaster struck again.
He was on his way to work in the early morning when he
noticed a large group of people gathered in the market square. He was curious
so he weaved his way through the crowd to get a closer look at what was going
on. To his dismay he found dozens of rough-looking men wearing symbols from
many of the local gangs with several men from the Crimson Daggers among them.
At their center he could see a group of shop owners including the Leatherworker
he worked for with their hands and feet bound being forced to kneel in a line.
A thick armed man in blood red clothing walked up and down the line waving a
large sword threateningly at them and laughing and they shrunk back and
whimpered. A wiry man with a high pitched nasally voice called out for the
Harper to come out and face them now in broad daylight. This went on for a
while and they continued to get more violent and demanding as time passed. They
started beating the shop owners and making threats that they would start
killing if the Harper didn’t show.
All the while Rinarin fought a battle of his own in his
head. He knew there were too many men here for any one person to fight and that
the Harper who had been protecting them would have to be crazy to come out and
face them alone. Someone needed to do something. He was tired of just standing
by as the people in his life were threatened and killed, but his legs were tree
trunks rooted to the spot he was standing. Ice ran up and down his spine
causing him to tremble. He could hardly breath as if some large creature the
size of a horse was sitting on his chest. His mind raced trying to come up with
some way out of this whole situation, but his thoughts were like slippery eels
wriggling away as he tried to grasp them. He looked on in despair as his body
failed to move at his command.
His awareness was like candle near the end of its wick, but
just as it was about to go out the square erupted into chaos. A boom of thunder
blasted out from the center of the square knocking several of the thugs off
their feet. The crowd starting running around in all directions trying to find
a way to escape. Rinarin’s attention was still focused on the hostages and he
saw the blue cloaked figure rush about them cutting their bonds while the gang
members were still distracted. The shop owners joined the rest of the crowd and
ran to safety. The Harper freed the last hostage and was just about the make an
escape as well when one of the thugs grabbed a woman in the crowd who wasn’t
fast enough to get away and plunged his dagger into her chest. This was enough
to get the Harper to turn and begin fighting them.
The stories were true. The Harper danced around blue cloak
flapping in the wind, blade whipping out sending gouts of flame that consumed
any foe that came within reach. The hero was so fast that none of thugs could
land a blow, but there were so many of them and they were closing in. Rinarin
couldn’t see anyone else remaining in the square except the Harper and the
thugs so why wasn’t he fleeing? Then the obvious thought broke through the haze
of his mind and realize HE was the reason. He needed to get out of there, but
his legs still wouldn’t move. At that moment the thugs seemed to realized it as
well. One of them broke from the fight and started charging toward him sword
pointed at his chest. The Harper took notice, but was surrounded. In a
desperate move the hero charged through taking a few cuts in the process and
ran toward him. It was a close race. The thug had a good head start and was
nearly upon him beginning the thrust that would likely pierce his heart, but the
Harper was fast. It was too much for Rinarin to watch so he closed his eyes and
waited for the final moment.
To his surprise when the time finally came he found himself
wrapped in an embrace rather than having his chest ripped open. Relief washed
over him. His frozen limbs began to thaw allowing him to move again. The cloud
that had been covering his thoughts lifted allowing him to think more clearly.
As he became more aware of his surroundings he noticed the arms that had been
holding him tightly had begun to loosen. He noticed a warm, wet feeling
spreading across his stomach. He opened his eyes to find them staring into a
pair blue, silver flecked eyes he knew well. Lenora began to slump against him
and he quickly caught her and gently lowered her to the ground. His eyes were
drawn to the rapidly growing patch of crimson spreading across her stomach. He
tried to cover the wound to stop the bleeding, but she caught his hand and drew
it up to her face. They were both smart enough to know she only had a few
moments left and she didn’t want to waste them. Even in her final moments she
was only concerned with his wellbeing. She told Rinarin where he could meet her
contacts in the Harpers and to seek them out for help. She told him he had
talent for the blade song that far exceeded her own, that he just needed to be confident
in himself and he could overcome any problem that came his way. As her voice
was fading away she told him she loved him and would always watch over him. He
held her hand tightly, watching her through tear filled eyes, nodding as she
spoke, listening intently to everything she said.
When it was over he found himself in an alley a few blocks
away from the market square, but didn’t know how they got there. He covered her
in his cloak and carried her through the back streets and out of the city to a
spot in the nearby forest where she used to take him to play when he was a
child. He buried her there as he wept in silence, unable to find any words to
ease her spirit and send her off to the next life. The days that followed were
a blur as if he had been heavily drinking, though no ale or wine had touched
his lips. He roamed the city streets without a destination in mind. No matter
where he went he couldn’t escape the loss he felt. Her final moments played
through his head over and over. He kept thinking that if he had been able to
move… to help her… or at the very least just run away that she wouldn’t have
died. It was his fault and there was nothing he could do to change that.
Sometime later, days or weeks… he wasn’t sure, he had a rare
moment of clarity and found himself standing at the steps of a large white
stone building somewhere in the lower city with statues of lions and armored
men leading up to the building. He climbed the stairs and went inside ignoring
the strange looks he received and the whispered conversations going on around
him. He made his way up to an alter with a statue of a man holding his right
hand stretched out in front of him palm facing out. He at least had enough
sense of mind to know he was in a church, though he wasn’t sure to what God. He
dropped to his knees and pleaded with the unknown god. He had nowhere to go to,
nothing to do to, no reason to live… He was lost without his sister. He needed
a sign, something to live for…
To his amazement an answer came. To this day Rinarin doesn’t
know if he had been granted a divine sending or if it was all just an illusion
caused by his starving fevered state, but it seemed like the statue was
beckoning him to come closer. He rose to his feet, walked the few remaining
steps between him and the statue and placed his palm flat against the palm of
the statue. The same memories of Lenora’s final moments that had been plaguing
his thoughts came to him again, but this time he saw them in a different light.
He saw his sister saving the frightened
hostages in the market square, her graceful movements as she fought off dozens
of men at once, how she had always protected him that same way. He remembered
how safe he had always felt when she was around, the way she always took care
of everyone else’s problems before worrying about her own. Her final words came
back to him, telling him that he had a talent for the blade song and that he
just needed to find his confidence to use it. In that moment he knew what he
had to do. He lowered his hand from the statues palm, took a few steps back,
knelt, and then made his way back out of the church.
His thoughts were finally clear and he felt a great purpose
propelling his feet forward one at a time, step by step. He made his way to the
market and purchased all the materials he needed to make a dark blue cloak
matching the one his sister had worn and spent the next few days crafting it.
The final touch he added was a white leather gauntlet which he wore on his
right hand just as the statue had in the church where he found his way. His
next stop was his sisters grave where he said his goodbye and made his vow. The
world had lost a great hero when his sister died. How many people would she
have saved had she lived? Dozens, Hundreds, Thousands?... Only the gods know
the answer, but Rinarin pledged that from that day forward he would save them
in her place. He would protect them like she had always protected him. He would
overcome his fears and become a champion of the common people, a person worthy
of the sacrifice she had made for him.
The next day he set out for Watersdeep to meet Lenora’s contacts
in the Harpers…
(This pic from Assassin’s creed is the type of look I am
going for. The colors would be different, mainly blues, silver, and white. He
doesn’t have any facial hair, has light blue skin and dark blue hair, and blue
silver flecked eyes.)
