Iskandariel Acaciahunter was a wild-elf born at the Mwangi Expanse and raised by a tribe of rangers and druids. He grew to love the wild, but he could never make a natural connection to it as much as the other tribespeople could.
However, he was determined to know more. Iskandariel started roaming the wild to study nature in his own way: through the arcane through which, he found a friend: a skittish compsognathus. He did his studies in secret, however, for he knew that if his tribespeople found out about his less-than natural studies, they would shun him… or worse.
That day finally came. Iskandariel found himself running through the forest with his reptilian friend by his side. The next thing he remembered was opening his eyes by the river south of Katapesh with the dinosaur licking his face and a little girl trying to wake him up. This girl was Haleen.
It was Haleen who gave Iskandariel his name; the elf wishes to forget his wild-elf name. It was also her that helped him name the compsognathus: Haroun. The three grew up together. Haleen became a swashbuckling adventurer, while Iskandariel stayed a man of study under the watchful eye of Nexian transmuters, Gebbite necromancers, and native genie-binders. He mixed all of these cultures with what he learned in the wild to perform magic rarely seen at Katapesh: wood magic. It was this talent that he used when joining the Duskwalkers.
One day, Iskandariel woke up, and to his confusion, Haleen had disappeared. She had only left a letter, telling him to forget about her. The letter seemed off, as if she was forced to write it. Iskandariel had only then realized that for the past few days, Haleen seemed morose and depressed.
It had been months since Haleen's disappearance. Sightings of a woman to her description at Kelmarane were reported. It made no sense. Kelmarane was a ghost town. However, what Iskandariel knew was that she could be there and that a man named Garavel was looking for mercenaries to depart for the region.