Jagger

Halfling rogue, grew up in Old High Town. Has recently moved to Thais to seek his fortune.

Jagger, abandoned and adopted in Old High Town to an impoverished couple, was raised as a human by Rieda and Roder. Rieda was a well favoured bard dancer to the nobles of Old High Town, but was also notoriously unfaithful to her many lovers, but overly generous when it came to gifting expensive wines and fine silks. Roder, comparatively, was a low-level footpatrol guard, who frequently worked night shifts and slept during the day, often in silent denial of his wife's frequent outings. Because of their poor status, Jagger attended only 5 years of traditional schooling, where he was frequently teased for his size, his mother's reputation, and his unconventional natural cherry-red hair. Inevitably, his miscreant and devilish ways resulted in his expulsion. Using her connections, Rieda then managed to enroll him in the local convent gardens, as a bird-minder for the priests. Jagger hated this task even more than schooling, and was disliked by both the priests and the birds alike.

One day, a twelve year old Jagger became enraged at one of the Covent's ravens for pecking him and lashed out at it with a water bucket, killing it. The head priest, Donovan, cast him out after a heated row, where Jagger ran away to the slums. Though not wealthy, his parents had always had the basic means to keep them housed, and Jagger had not frequented them before. He came upon a fight between a town guard and some peasant children, who were defending their parents for some bread that they had stolen from the local market. The fight resulted in the guard slaying the older child for her reticence, leaving her younger sibling and parents. Jagger, who had only ever defended his father's actions seeing them as honourable, felt disillusioned at the guard's actions, and was further enraged by this scene. In his fury, Jagger followed the guard from a distance, hiding easily due to his small size. However, finding it difficult to make his way through the crowds, Jagger opted to climb onto the slum rooftops to continue the chase. He fell three times in his pursuit, goring one arm in the process (leaving a long scar on both sides, and a week-long fever), bracing himself the second time, and catching himself the third. Finally, he was able to outrun the guard and anticipate the path back to the castle, whereupon he came upon a precarious suspended hammock rigging. Before the guard could pass, he loosed the hammock rigging, sending the contraption falling several stories. Jagger fled, but later learned that a guard had been killed in the slums of Old High Town, and three prisoners had been executed to balance the flow of Karma within the city.

A week later, Roder enrolled his son in the town guard as an apprentice. His small stature made him unsuited to this job, though he found that the evening shifts gave him time to practice scaling the many different walls and terrain of the city. On several occasions, he found his mother being propositioned by various men, the most notable of whom were the captain of the guard, Donovan the cleric, and Lord Azareth, the town's brothel-master. On each occasion, she refused their offers, opting instead for their existing trysts. Occasionally, these offers were encouraged with promises of "proper employment" for her unusual son.

At the age of fourteen, Jagger's father was killed in battle defending the river from a siege of orcs from the Dark Woods. Distraught, Jagger fled to the woods where he lived on the outskirts for two weeks in solitude. When he returned, he was welcomed not first by his mother, but by an ambush of prostitutes, who kidnapped him and took him to Lord Azareth, who held him until, presumably, Jagger's mother were to accept his offer. Eventually she must have as Jagger was released onto the streets, only to find his home emptied of all possesions, and his mother absent.

He searched the town for weeks on rooftop, attempting to find her whereabouts, only to eventually learn that Lord Azareth had taken his best employees and left for the city of Port Hope, an impregnable city by all accounts. Jagger took then to living in the slums, where he was nimble but otherwise inept.

After two years of day to day living in the slums, Jagger took one more great fall after attempting to jump from one building to the covent's peaked roof. Slipping on a patch of mold, Jagger fell 50ft and was knocked unconscious. When he came to, he had been taken into a merchant caravan, overseen by a half-elf woman named Lia. She immediately recognized him and a halfling, and explained this to him. Seeing his predicament, and perhaps sympathizing by virtue of her own troubled past, she offered him passage with her entourage to the Desert city of Darashia, where she felt that his rooftop tendencies might be better used. Jagger accepted this offer, regrettably using the journey to heal rather than learn of travelling. Once in the city of Darashia, Jagger was introduced to a local guild of thieves known as the Skystorms, whereby he was excused from the local fisticuffs tournaments. One of the human initiates, Phenyl-Carter, took Jagger as an apprentice, teaching him how to pick locks, as well as proper climbing, jumping, and tumbling techniques. Jagger also took to the local cats when Phenyl-Carter was accompanying caravans to Ank'rahmun, learning from them how to remain silent and small when need be. He took a far greater liking to the cats than he had the birds in Old High Town, and was eventually given the name of Felix (prudent readers might recall that due to the high percentage of outlaws in Darashia, real-names are strongly discouraged.  Prior to his naming, Jagger held the name of "Boy" for an entire year).

Despite his weak stature, Jagger/Felix rose quickly in the ranks of the thieves there, particularly for his acrobatic nature. Felix lived in this way for seven years, honing his skills and making quick friends in Darashia as he had never been able to in Old High Town. To his delight, Felix was also able to meet other halflings in kind, and found many acquaintances with whom to practice his skills.

At the age of twenty four,Phenyl-Carter recommended to Felix that he leave Darashia for a time, to expand his skills among the "Unwelcome". All initiates of the Skystorms were not considered true members until they had become "True Outcasts", mastering the society which shunned them, and thus relieving themselves, in the eyes of the guild, of the shame of being  a vagabond.

Refusing to return to Old High Town, Felix/Jagger insetad chose to leave with a caravan for Thais, where he hoped to establish himself as a stron independent halfling.