Racket was a bounty hunter, working for an orc tribe that had captured him when he was younger. He doesn’t remember a lot about his childhood, and for a long time was happy to work for the orcs doing what he did best… sneaking into places and grabbing people or things that don’t belong to him. But then he was assigned to bring in a pair of half-orc infants from the family home of a woman who had been savagely attacked by the orcs.
The poor woman had died in childbirth of her twin half-orc children, and her father had spared the children, trying to hide them away, but their orcish father found out about them and sent Racket and two enforcers to bring them back to the tribe as slaves or worse. When he saw the suffering of the family, Racket couldn’t comply, and tried to convince the enforcers to leave with him. The two orcs were not happy, and tried to grab the children anyway, bashing their poor grandfather’s head against a wall and knocking him out.
Racket took the opportunity to break his orcish chains, and stabbed one of them in the back viciously. The other orc would have likely overpowered Racket if an oread named Grok hadn’t intervened, his sword cleaving the orc in two.
Grok’s ancestry is an interesting one. His family has lived deep in the mountains for generations, and given his mixed lineage there is no surprise he was born an Oread. His mother is a half-giant. His father, a very ambitious dwarf.
He grew up alongside normal dwarves of his age, but they all knew he was different. He was no dwarf. Maybe a carving of a dwarf, but not like them. Because of this he never quite joined the society. Before he could even finish his education he was recruited to the militia. He was happy to go. Anything to get him away from the staring eyes and whispered comments. He wanted to show them that he was more than an abomination, he was strong, he was brave, he could be great.
After his first services in the militia he had earned a bit of coin and learned the skills he needed to survive on his own. He had earned respect among the ranks of soldiers, due in no small part to the fact that he had mastered the use of an 8 foot sword, but he knew this was not the life for him. He took his small supplies, and set out on his own.
He found work here and there as hired muscle. Most commonly he was sent to collect debts. A six foot wall of stone is good at collecting debts. After completing a routine job, Grok was relaxing on a bench in one of the poorer districts of town. He watched as two orcish men and what looked like a small living shadow entered a house. Shortly after they entered, he heard the sounds of a scuffle and shouts for help. Grok ran to the door just in time to see a man thrown into a wall. He had just enough time to loose his sword and swing at one of the orcs when the shadow-man climbed up the back of the other orc and stabbed him cleanly below the neck, killing him instantly.
After the scuffle ended, the rock and the shadow made a deal. Grok needed an “agent” of sorts, to help him get jobs and do the talking. Racket liked the idea of having an 8 foot sword watching his back. The two worked together well, their combined strategy building into a whole much stronger than the individuals alone.
