Abomination Vaults PF2E

Game Master Januaryfrost1971

Jhereg is a short, broad shouldered man of Osirion descent, born on the slopes of Asuulek's Mouth in the far west of that nation. His skin has been bronzed from a youth spent in proximity to the lake of magma in which his clan's lord and regent, Asuulek, slumbers. Trained as a warrior and protector of the great & terrible dragon, his body is hard slabs of muscle and scar tissue, tattooed with draconic runes marking him as property of Asuulek, the rune wrapping across his shoulders, over his biceps and chest, encircling his heart and rising up and over his shorn scalp.

He wears dragon scales, shed by the kin of his master, sewn over hard boiled leathers, and embellished with bone and shards meant to emulate the fearsome nature of his former lord. Armed with a quiver of short spears, and a massive maul crafted from bone, iron and wood, in the fashion of a dragon's maw. Jhereg appears a truly brutish and fearsome warrior when in more civilized company.

The Draegaran people, subjugated by the ancient red dragon, Asuulek, their very blood infused with the strength of primordial flames, are the protectors of their slumbering Lord. The children are taken from their mothers and fathers at birth, raised by the elders of the caste into which they were born, speaker, sage or slayer. However, Jhereg and his sister, Jhegaala, shared the same womb, and so felt a kinship for one another despite the customs of their people. So it was that they came to know one another, to love one another, as brother and sister, in a manner frowned upon by their clan. It was felt this familial love would overcome their loyalty to Asuulek, and doom the clan to ash and flame. Knowing this, Jhereg and Jhegaala continued to meet in secret, sharing the details of one another's lives, their hopes, their dreams, their desires.

As the twins entered their fifteenth summer, the clan was visited by a scholar, Abiyombe, a representative of the Arcanamirium, so wide spread was that academy's fame, that the people of the Draegaran allowed him to remain with them for a season. During that time, the meetings between Jhereg and Jhegaala became less frequent, so intent was she at learning from the Arcanamirium scholar that she ignored her brother. However, the times they did meet, Jhereg was overjoyed at the excitement and passion within his sister, as she, finally, found opportunity to learn from someone outside the Draegaran. Abiyombe, however, was sequestered with the scholars, so his outside views would not distract the slayers, or the speakers, with his heretical ways. In time, the emissary offered the young Jhegaala sponsorship at the academy in Absalom, while she wished nothing more than to leave, she needed to speak of her desire with her brother, and so she met with him leaving Abiyombe for a time.

Together the twins decided that they would leave the Draegaran, to escape the oppressive servitude that they had been born to, to travel to new places, to meet new people, and to study under the most prestigious of instructors at the academy. And they would do it together, however, when Jhegaala returned to the scholar's lodge, she found that the elder's had learned of Abiyombe's heretical offer to remove the children of Draegaran from their clan's solemn duty to Assulek. To protect their clan, the elder's assaulted the emissary, when Abiyombe, wounded, saw the twins return, he knew, full well, what had happened. Pressing a note of sponsorship into Jhegaala's hands, he erected a magical barrier, buying the twins time to flee for the Inner Sea, there to travel to the seat of civilization, Absalom itself.

The twins fled as Abiyombe's barrier fell, his life buying their own. For a fortnight they fled, evading Draegaran slayers and scouting parties, both through Jhereg's familiarity with his brethren's tactics, and through Jhegalaa's growing arcane powers. Over the next year, the pair made their way, on foot, across Osirion, Both marveled at the sights and sounds of the wider world, the taste of fruits, fresh and suit, compared to the ashen colors of their home and tasteless tubers that they grew up on.

However, the Draegaran had not given up pursuit of their corrupted children, so fanatical were they in their service to their terrible master, Asuulek. The slayers stalked the heretics, and dogged their heels, the twins never staying in one place too long, for fear that the slayers would kill those that the twins hoped to befriend. As they closed to their goal, less than a month away, an obsidian dart pierced Jhegalaa's thigh, infused with wyrmblood ichor, it's poison ran through her. Untrained in the healing arts, Jhereg could only watch in horror as the poison coursed through his sister, robing her, first, of mobility, then of the strength to even breath, until she died in his arms. After a night of mourning, he wrapped her body in leathers, and carried her to the boat himself, where he petitioned the captain for travel to the Isle of Kortos and Absalom itself.

On arrival in Absalom, he was turned back from the halls of the Arcanamirium, the youth was no scholar, and had no aptitude in the arcane arts, and his sister's loss, while tragic, was none of their concern. Still possessed of his sisters remains, he grew increasingly disoriented in the metropolis, and sought refuge in the wilds, eventually settling in Otari, a rural lumber town. It was there he met Vandy Banderdash, who, mortified at Jhereg's story, helped him inter his sister's remains. He has stayed in Otari, aiding the wood gatherer's where he can, and honoring his sister, by allowing himself to become tutored in reading and literacy by the Dawnflower's librarian, Banderdash herself.