Reta mem Sota was born a Badawi prince. Fierce and prideful, his people raided and fought with their nomadic neighbours, and traded and intermingled with the Janni of the deepest desert. They brooked no insult and took their fill from those weaker than them, living life in the harsh sand-swept plains of southern Katepesh to the fullest. And so it was until Reta’s people met ones stronger and fiercer than they. In a rocky canyon they were ambushed and overrun by gnolls in greater number than had ever gathered before.
Left for dead, Reta wandered the desert alone for many moons. He would have died many times, but the spirits of the sands called to him on the scorching wind and taught him their secrets – the secrets of the viper, the vulture, and the scorpion.
For a time the proud Badawi prince was fuelled by vengeance. He trailed gnoll bands, living in their shadows, and exacting blood for his fallen people from stragglers and cast offs. In time he learned that the ones who murdered his people followed one known as the Carrion King.
But along the way, the “Prince of Nothing,” as he mockingly referred to himself, grew weary of vengeance. The blistering sun burned the hate from him. The blowing sand scoured away his boastful ways, and the cold nights of solitude cooled his wrath.
Or so he thought. When a caravaner named Garaval approached him with the intent of taking back a village sacked by gnolls pledged to none other than the Carrion King, Reta pledges his loyalty on the spot in return for the chance to bring peace to his murdered people.