Appearance
Personality
To those he meets, Aden is typically a glib-tongued lighthearted fool, always good for a laugh and some shenanigans. Yet within his close circle, his friends know him to be far more complicated. Though the darkness of vengeance is long past, Aden holds a bright fire for the downtrodden of Magnimar. Too many suffer under another's heel. Having grown up on the street, and has little need for the finer things in life. Part of his earnings always makes its way into a number of charities that help the needy of the city (and each has been thoroughly vetted by him). He has connections throughout the Dockway, Underbridge, and Beacon's Point, cultivated over a lifetime on the street.
Background
Everyone knows that in and around Rag's End, all who live there pay 'tribute' to Rassimeri Jaijarko. Barigrin Underhill, owner of Barigrin's Barley Brews, paid his protection like the other merchants in the area. Bari's beer was well liked throughout the city, even in the better districts of Magnimar, so he was never short to pay. And he provided Jaijarko's men with plentiful ale to keep them friendly. But a strange set of circumstances would ultimately lead to folly for the Underhill family.
Kurtrali Mettani, one of Jaijarko's strong-arm lieutenants, got heavily intoxicated on Bari's Brews before pulling a job he had been assigned to. The incident was a disaster, the thug's mission utterly failed, three of Jaijarko's men were lost, and the underlord of Rag's End was publicly embarrassed by the affair. He was furious. He took Mettani's left hand and right eye as punishment. Mettani, shamed because of the halfling's wicked concoctions, blamed Barigrin and impaled him on a spear before torching the family's brewery, with the whole family trapped inside.
Except Adegard. The young halfling had a rebellious streak even before his teens, and had slipped out of the house after 'going to bed' to take in the sights and sounds of the City of Monuments. And so, he returned to find his home engulfed in flames and his father dead before it, left as a macabre warning that the young lad did not understand. Though locals tried to put out the fire, it was fruitless, and the dawn revealed only the burnt remains of a once-vibrant brewery. In the chaos, no one noticed the diminutive boy crying in an alley nearby.
Some time later, Seeshah Raccas, proprietor of the Shucked Oyster, a notorious den of ill repute, was negotiating with a vendor behind her establishment when she heard a strange noise coming from the refuse bin. Having one of her muscle investigate, he lifted a tiny, scrawny lad from the bin, who was busily stuffing his face full of food. At first thinking it a truly young human child of 7 or 8, she quickly realized the boy was a halfling, and likely reaching into his teens. Of course, halflings develop a bit slower than humans, but the child had a brightness to his eyes despite the traumatized state he seemed to be in. Seeshah brought him inside and left him in the care of a couple of her girls, who nursed him back to a semblance of health. Eventually, the boy spoke, and gave his name as "Aden", the nickname his mother used for him. He shared little of his past, and eventually the girls gave him the moniker of Blackfoot, on account of how filthy his feet were when they found him.
So Aden Blackfoot became a friend and sometime employee of the Shucked Oyster. Though he had a place to stay there (a cot inside an old shipping container in a back storage room), he more often crashed with the myriad other street urchins that inhabited Dockway and Underbridge nearby. He learned the craft of a beggar and grifter. In addition, he ran errands for Lady Raccas and her girls, whether to procure goods from the Bazaar of Sails or deliver messages to frequent guests. As he got older and worked the travelers of the city more, he managed to befriend the Princess of the Market herself, Sabriyya Kalmeralm, who was amused by the con the young halfling pulled on a Chelaxian merchant. Along the way, one of the girls taught him how to mend the wounds that the girls occasionally ended up with from bad clientele. In turn, he used these skills to treat the malnourished and beat up urchins he ran with.
And so it was that he met 'The Doctor'. Aden still had rather little to his name, and much of it was spent helping his fellow urchins. As was there way he supplemented his needs with the skills of his fingers. He had made his way to a hospital in the Naos district, managed to get inside and into one of their supply rooms when a talented young doctor finishing his daily duties happened upon him. Caught offguard, Aden tripped over a box and tumbled, the bag of supplies sent scattering across the floor. Initially thinking the lad a ruffian stealing narcotics or goods to hock, the young doctor looked down and noticed the collection of bandages, antiseptic, and suturing equipment upon the floor. Holding a scalpel at the ready, he interrogated the would-be thief. Aden, totally caught, strangely opted to tell the truth rather than to spin a skillful lie. Dr. Butler, as he learned his name later, was surprised by the lad's honesty, and, to Aden's shock, helped bag up the supplies. Dr. Butler knew there were countless in need who could not afford the high-prices services of the hospital, and if a street urchin was trying to help his fellow downtrodden, why should he stop him. From that night grew an unlikely friendship that would see both benefit in times of need, which continues to this day.
Over the years, Aden eventually opened up to the girls of the Oyster about his past. One of them recalled a loudmouthed braggart telling a tale that matched the one Aden shared. Aden, now into his tweens, found the fire of vengeance burning within him. Turning to his friend Dr. Butler (who had now gone through his own troubles and worked as an investigator), the pair managed to track down the identity of Kurtrali Mettani. He stalked Mettani for days in multiple guises, intent that his family be avenged. As he did, he realized how many others were hurt and oppressed by Mettani, and his quest for vengeance evolved into a mission to protect those who could not be protected. One night, as he closed in on his quarry, he knelt before one of the monuments of the city. Offering an oath of justice for such people, he went forth to end it. Aden knew it would be dangerous, and he could likely loose his life. Yet as his plan unfolded, he found himself able to do things he'd never been able to. In the morning, Mettani was dead, and Aden Blackfoot now had a new purpose, to help those of the City of Monuments who could not help themselves.
