Al’Kazeer was born in Southern Katapesh, in a small village with large hafling population. His grandfather was a wealthy landowner, growing and exporting large amounts of Pesh to the ever ready markets of Katapesh and beyond, and thus Al grew up in relative luxury amid the searing dessert. Despite lacking for little in terms of possessions, Al’Kazeer’s home could be a dangerous place, the dangers of the desert never far, and he began to learn to fight from an early age, taught by his father. When ever a threat to the village or Pesh crop arose, the two were well practised at fighting in unison, and could be quite deadly in their flanking manoeuvres.
Al’s father, Rah’Ishak, was not content with the small village lifestyle, having formally adventured and worked in the city of Katapesh in his youth, only moving back to his home village when starting a family. With an older brother to take over the family business, and increasing boredom with his current lot in life, Al’s father moved back to the nations capitol, his wife, son and young daughter in tow. Al was 16 at the time, and took to the city life with great enthusiasm. Rah’Ishak picked up his old trade, acting as a broker for his fathers Pesh, but mostly doing freelance work, in a range of different fields. Picking up some old contacts, and making many new ones, Rah restarted his lucrative business, from information gathering and selling, to tour guide of the city and surrounding area and body guard for visitors with enough coin to hire him. Along with generous percentages of his fathers business, Rah prospered in the city, while Al worked along side him, learning the business.
Al took to the work with ease and enjoyment, proving to be a competent tour guide early on, having a story to tell of every street corner, and a jest to go with it. Al was extremely content with his life.
Whilst on an out of town job, taking some foreign merchants to Solku to introduce them to some contacts there, disaster struck. Knowing the danger of the roads, Rah always hired extra guards for longer trips, but the band of gnolls that struck their caravan was large and well organised, and overwhelmed Al and the rest of his group. His father, along with several others were killed in the battle, with the rest of the group taken prisoner.
After several days with the Gnoll band, who planned to ransom or sell their captives, Al managed to slip his bonds and escape, fleeing back to the city. Returned, he was a changed man, wracked with anger and sorrow. After some time of grieving, Al tried to continue his fathers work, but did poorly at it, his anger all but consuming him every time he so much as spotted a Gnoll. His mother and sister decided to move back to his grandfathers village, and urged him to do the same, but he knew he could not do so. His life was torn, wanting revenge but knowing there was little he could do to get it, wishing to work, but now finding little joy in his profession .
Thus his remaining family moved from the city, his mother leaving him with a large sum of funds. Soon after this word of Garavel’s expedition to Kelmarane reached Al. Jumping at the chance to exact some vengeance on gnolls, any gnolls, Al soon signed up.
