ORGANIZATIONS
None, but I know how to find a trader who needs a guard in any city on my map.
ALLIES
No one, really, but there are certainly traders, nobles, and pilgrims who owe me their lives. They paid me, though.
ENEMIES
The Baron (of whatever barony I grew up in...what land is this?)
BACKSTORY
I grew up in a small hamlet, the youngest of six. My parents were crofters, and always in debt to the baron whose land they tenanted. They kept my eldest brother, expecting him to tend the croft and care for them in their old age. I watched as they indentured each of my siblings in turn to the baron and his wealthy friends. My eldest sister has little freedom as a wet nurse caring for her own children and being passed from noble family to noble family as she weans each of their infants in turn. The middle three siblings are triplets, and have slightly more freedom and stability as scullery maids in the baron's manor. I do not believe that my parents want what is best for us, so when I heard them talking about my prospects when I was only 8, I tried to sneak away. Little did I know that they had already promised my labor to the baron as a stableboy.
I tried to hitch a ride to the nearest city, but the local constabulary was who picked me up, and brought me to the baron. He didn't even pay my parents, claiming my labor as the fine for my attempt to break the contract they'd agreed to.
Well I worked as a stableboy, mucking stalls, eating scraps, sleeping in stalls with the horses on cold nights. It wouldn't have been so bad if the baron hadn't been cruel. He was cruel to his horses, who were in turn cruel to each other and the servants. He was cruel to the servants. My siblings were nearby, but they had become cruel. I felt that I was also becoming cruel, just in my desire to control something from my life.
My saving grace came on my 16th birthday. A visiting dignitary's guard had fallen sick. She asked the baron for a guard from his personal retinue to accompany him, and offered to pay off the rest of that guard's contract. Greedy as he was, the baron shoved a sword in my hand and told me to act like a sellsword or he'd beat me. Well, I wanted to get out of there as much as he wanted to get paid for a contract that didn't exist. I didn't know a thing, but I was agile from dodging the bites and kicks of angry horses.
That experience brought me to the city I'd tried to flee to when I was a child. I simply hung around with the other guards and tried to act like them. I wasn't particularly adept at pretending, but no one bothered to notice me anyways, and I got to listen in on the way things were done. One thing led to another and eventually I figured out how to do things. I got to share in the plunder of a few hapless bandits, and I managed to buy out the remainder of the contract that the dignitary believed she'd bought. Then I could start actually taking sellsword contracts, and I did, plying my trade for more than 10 years, spending what I earn on immediate comforts.
All this leads us to now. The wages I earn from guard contracts seem paltry to me compared to the loot I see the nobles wandering around with. I considered becoming a bandit myself, but I've killed too many who were trying to take a measly caravan of trinkets to think that that's a balanced risk/reward. If I'm going to risk my life anymore, I want to get more out of it if I succeed. I've heard plenty of tales of treasure in my time as a sellsword, and I think it's time to take the next step. Who knows, maybe if I become rich enough, I can go back to the croft and lord it over my parents. And if I become powerful enough, maybe I can kill the baron.
OTHER
Aberrant Dragonmark flaw: You have a mood swing any time you use your mark.