Alaw Jec's page

Alaw Jec is of the desert. His soul is irrevocably bound to the lands of Osirion. Like the ibix or black-horned king snake, he is a creature of the untamed sands. Compared to his contemporaries, he is equally feral and chaotic. But, like the endlessly shifting dunes of the trackless, burning wastes, Alaw Jec will not be suppressed by any man, bandit or slaver. Above all, Jec's life has forged him to be resolute in the face of adversity and fearless against the forces of tyranny.

Alaw Jec is a survivor and twice escaped slave. He was enslaved by his fellow villagers before eventually being captured by marauding brigands. Having escaped twice, his fate would eventually lead him back to the sweltering streets of Sothis. Here, after spending several years in the city's underground, he would eventually be called out and identified as a run away slave by his vengeful guild mates. The cruel slave lords of Sothis were all too willing to collar Jec and return him to the city's infamous slave markets. Jec would spend the remainder of his youth like he spent his adolescence - as a shackled slave. Fortune would smile on him this time in that his new owner was the local pasha - a man of ways and means. Eventually the pasha would provide him the keys to his own manacles ... but at a perilous price.

To fully understand Alaw Jec, though, one must understand the desperate nature of his past. Jec was born in the arid hinterlands of Sothis - a forlorn settlement called the Oasis of the White Palm. Jec's father, a struggling trader turned indentured servant, would be killed by marauding bandits when Jec was just an infant. Jec's mother, a thief and cunning grifter, had neither the time nor compassion to care for Jec or his older sibling. Jec would be sold into slavery while still in utero to finance his mother's wanton ways. Born into bondage, Jec was doomed to a life of toil and desperation.

The slaver raids on White Palm were the defining events of Jec's childhood. Jec vividly recalls the horde of bandit raiders attacking the settlement and delivering death to all those who stood before them. The craven bandits would then kill any survivors that they did not value for labor or for indentured soldiers. As a result, Jec harbors a deep resentment and enmity towards brigands of any kind - and particularly towards the bandits that reside within the Brazen Peaks. These bandits, a particularly gruel and insidious faction, would transfer their brutality to their new found slaves. Jec would be forced to develop an iron will and unbreakable strength under the deprivations of his slave masters. Unlike his fellow captives, whom were often short-lived, Jec would go on to survive the trial by fire and would eventually emerge stronger for it.

Jec's trajectory as a rogue has been a slow evolution stoked by the fires of slavery. When your next meal is dependent upon you sneaking past the pantry guards, you learn to become proficient in stealth. If your freedom is contingent on unlocking your shackles and cell door, you become a master of lock picking. Such was Jec's training until he regained his freedom in Sothis.

One fateful summer night in Sothis, an event occurred that would forever change Jec's life. Shortly after the witching hour, while he slept in the shadows of a back alley, he was approached by four cloaked guilds men with daggers drawn. The men demanded blood for his life. The required blood was to come from a rival guild thug. With little choice, Jec made the hard choice required for survival, as he had done his whole life. It was to be the first of many lives he would take in service of the guild. And it was easier than he suspected. Afterward, other individuals and groups started paying Jec to kill for them. He limited his killing to only those nefarious few with their own blood soaked hands - but it was killing all the same. And thus Jec would begin a lucrative career of assassination. His rise in the Sothis underworld would be his greatest achievement.

Jec would leverage his contract killing to become a member of a prominent thieves guild. The guild would teach him not only the art of stealing, deceit and extortion, but also the essential skills required for self-defense in combat. But the guild's way of fighting was not the stationary combat that his slaver guards practiced on him - the guild taught Jec the art of the sneak attack. For in the rogue's world, survival required fighting dirty - the balance between life and death required every conceivable advantage. Jec, having always been a survivor, became an apt pupil.

But, in the Sothis underground, Jec would find that there is no honor among thieves. His guild mates would sell him out to corrupt government officials in league with the local slave lords. Within a fort night, Jec's brief tenure of freedom was over - once again he was a slave. As fate would have it, his new master was the pasha at the Oasis of the White Palm.

Within the pasha's compound, Jec would come to find religion. But his religion was not to be the official worship of Sarenrae that was expected of the settlement commoners. Jec would embrace the worship of Pharasma that he found among the settlement's cults. The Lady of Graves suited both his fatalistic tendencies and his obsessions with the after life. In a way, Jec would come to rationalize his former life as an assassin by equating himself to a psychopomp of sorts. Pharasma would thus become the moral compass that would allow him to compartmentalize the death that filled his life.

And thus Jec's story comes to his final escape from slavery. The pasha would fall on hard times and would become hopelessly indebted to the Sothis government. As luck would have it, the pasha's ill fortune would manifest into an opportunity for Jec to regain his freedom. A powerful merchant house within Sothis was seeking to enrich itself through the acquisition of relics from Osirion's ancient necropolises, and they needed a cunning thieves to navigate the crypts. Jec, whom still retained his reputation as a street hardened killer and a skillful operator, was an obvious candidate. Jec would be released from imprisonment on the condition that he join a band of thieves at the remote, sand blown town of Wati. Alaw Jec, the eminent survivor, accepted the contract without hesitation - for he knew that no man, bandit or slaver would suppress his fate's design.

Alaw Jec successfully survived the first crypt that he raided. The relics he returned from that tomb enriched his masters and would fiance future expeditions. He would go on to become a prominent expert on the ancient tombs and ruins in Wati. His expertise in acquiring and appraising ancient Osirion relics has led him to the most recent auction of relics within Wati.

Alaw Jec's boundless determination burns like the desert sun. Though he is craven in the face of overwhelming danger, he embodies the nomadic philosophy of living to fight another day. Jec suspects all and trusts no one. A life of betrayal and treachery has taught him that all in this world are suspect. Jec's personality shifts like the deserts sands to transform into what is called for at the moment. He calculates every action and conversation based on what he perceives can be gained by the exchange. Thus Jec is purely transactional when dealing with both comrades and adversaries alike - he only seeks to maximize his position and further his own goals.

And what then are Jec's goals? First and foremost - survival. Make it to the next meal. Wake up to see another day. Live to experience another season. A history of close calls with death have taught Jec to assume absolutely nothing from life. The cruel fates of this world care nothing for a poor slave like Alaw Jec. If his life is to be lived, he must make it.

Out of necessity, Jec has learned to be a minimalist when it comes to material items. Through much of his life he was a scavenger whom made do with whatever tools he could find. His clothes and weapons reflect this mentality. He wears patched leather armor and a wind frayed robe and head scarf. His weapons are functional but are worn, rusted and chipped. His equipment is second hand and often stolen or damaged. Jec cares only for the functionality of his items - not their value. Jec knows that in a fleeting life, material wealth is a mirage that he cannot afford to harbor.

1. Skill Focus (Perception), Skill Focus (Disable Device)
2. Rogue Talent (Minor Magic)
3. Weapon Focus (Rapier)
4. Rogue Talent (Major Magic)
5. Dazzling Display
6. Rogue Talent (Certainty - Acrobatics)
7. Skill Focus (Intimidate)
8. Rogue Talent (Trap Spotter)
9. Shatter defenses
10. Rogue Talent (Defensive Roll)
11. Improved Great Fortitude
12. Rogue Talent (Slippery Mind)
13. Improved Lightning Reflexes
14. Rogue Talent (Improved Evasion)
15. Spring Attack
16. Rogue Talent (Feat - Wind Stance)
17. Lightning Stance
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