Cheliax is hard enough to grow up in with parents watching your back. It's even harder as an orphan. Growing up in Wheatflat Orphanage in Kintargo, Jack has only known two parental figures in his life: "Grammy" the kindly, if tired, older woman who runs the place, and the harsh streets of the city. His faux grandmother taught him that the people who truly love you are those who don't abandon you, even when you have nothing. The streets taught him that if you want anything, you need to snatch it when nobody's looking, and put up your dukes when someone is. It's not hard to see why Jack started working in the drug trade when he demonstrated an aptitude for mixing chemicals. Shiver in particular was a hot commodity, and even if the money he made from producing the tincture was going to a good cause (funding his orphanage family), it probably did not help those who were addicted to the stuff he made.
But that all changed after one fateful accident in his little lab. Working on harvesting some venom from Webdoline, his dream spider supply pet, she bit him on the hand, sending him into shock and knocking him out. During his trip, he glimpsed a vision of what he believed to be Kintargo, black shadowy tentacles pulling it apart at the seams and threatening to destroy the city. But a dream spider, bearing the holy symbol of Desna on its back, scuttling in and began weaving webs, tying the city back together. In fact, the reconstructed city not only looked as good as new, but better! Brighter! And the dream spider turned on the shadow tendrils and began chasing them back into the darkness and protecting the city!
Jack woke up to find himself back in his workshop. Back in Kintargo... but it had somehow lost all its prior appeal. It couldn't even compare to the splendor he saw in his dream. Jack believed that the accident had given him a vision - a mission from Desna herself! Darkness was coming to Kintargo, and without help, it would pull the city apart and leave everyone destitute! But there was hope - he could divert things, somehow. Kintargo needed a new hero, now that the likes of Jackdaw and the Silver Ravens were gone. It needed a new champion who could pull the broken fragments of Kintargo back together, and beat back the coming danger! Jack set to work destroying his shiver production and began working on new uses for the spider silk from his pet. Along with it, he started to create a new costume... and a persona to go with it! A champion of Desna, who would bring about the Kintargo he'd seen in his dreams! He might be a ruddy Chelish orphan, and certainly not the champion the city might need... but he had to try, at least until the real deal showed up! Until then, he's stand strong, clad in the bright blues and yellows of the dream spiders he worked with. He would champion the weak and downtrodden of Kintargo, and make the dream he saw a reality.
Jack became "The Dreamweaver"!
Personality:
Jack knows Kintargo needs a new hero that her people can rally around, and he's quite confident that the Dreamweaver will do the job. The big problem underlying it is... well, Jack himself. He doesn't think too highly of himself, having never been adopted, and being a former drug dealer makes him worry if he really has the chops to tackle the job he's given himself. Nevertheless, he is ready to step up to the plate and try his best, willing to give it his all so that folks like his charges in the Wheatflat Orphanage and the drug addicts he's strung out have a second chance at a much better life. Politics have never been something Jack was heavily invested in, but the martial law instated by House Thrune worries Jack, believing it to be one of the shadowy tendrils he saw threatening to tear Kintargo apart. He makes it a point to try and keep up with current events so that he can find the proper chance to unveil "The Dreamweaver" to Kintargo. (Indeed, half the reason he is going to the protest in Aria Park is to see if, maybe, it might be a good time to show the city her new champion).
Jack has never been one for worship or religion, but his brush with a fever dream has put him squarely in Desna's corner. For worshipers of the goddess, Jack is a very... pale member of the faith. He isn't entirely sure how he's supposed to pay service to her, and he lacks a lot of funds or anything that isn't unseemly to devote to her cause. Still, he's all on board with protecting her flock, and indeed, it's the only way he knows to contribute to her faith. Whether his fever dream was a vision from Desna herself or not, Jack believes it so, and if it helps her priests, so be it.
His quip-hurling alter ego and former criminal enterprise aside, Jack is shockingly brilliant and alert for someone with no formal education to speak of. He has a love of engineering and alchemy to rival even some professionals in the field, and indeed, much of the tricks he carries with him, including his "spider launchers" (a wrist mounted sheath with spider sacs), were crafted by him. If there is one area that Jack is confident and excels in, it's alchemy, even if his experience comes from peddling shiver. Even as he is constantly working on developing new ways to carry of his duty at The Dreamweaver, Jack is consistently diving ways to make his new persona come to life, including magical means.
