Leander Mulberry's page

This kit includes a backpack, a bedroll, a belt pouch, caltrops, chalk (10), a flint and steel, a grappling hook, an iron pot, a mess kit, a mirror, pitons (10), rope, soap, thieves' tools, torches (10), trail rations (5 days), and a waterskin.

Leander's birth was much anticipated, though none expected the outcome. His parents had been trying for several years to conceive a child but had failed before. His mother, who worked as an archivist for the Riftwardens after failing the tests to become a field agent, blamed it on her exposure to the occult artefacts kept in storage. Her husband, a field chirurgeon, blamed the Worldwound. When finally they did manage to conceive a child they were overjoyed. The fact that upon birth he had clearly been tainted by the Worldwound changed nothing about that.
Leander was a troublesome child. As a child he was far stronger than normal Halflings of his age and he appeared to have no control over the scaled tail he dragged behind him. Often this frustrated him just as much as it did his parents, as did his tendency to steal and hoard small objects from around the house. Through patience, love and a hard hand when needed they taught him to handle his urges. He'd still steal things but he'd then take care to put those things back without his parents noticing.

Once he went outside Leander quickly discovered the rest of the world wasn't as patient. When he tried to steal something out here people would attack him before he even had the chance to pick it up, let alone the chance to return it. He quickly learned that the best way to deal with those situations was to drop what you were holding and run, people rarely followed the thief if they still had their belongings. In case where running wasn't possible you had to talk himself out of it, something that wasn't that easy when you looked like he did. The result was that he spent quite some time hidden away, laying low while guards searched for him, or at home while his mother talked to the people he got in trouble with.

Things got better, or worse according to his mother, after his aunt came to visit. She was a smuggler and a thief herself, though with a noble cause as she saw it, as she worked with the Bellflower Network. She had come all the way north to Mendev because she had to lay low for a while to prevent her getting caught. It was from her that Leander learned the better tricks and to use his wits instead of his charms when it came to saving his hide. Through her he also came into contact with Chaldira, the Halfling goddess that more or less promoted these acts of daring-do. When she showed him her tattoo of the goddess' holy symbol he just knew he had to get one as well. Before she left Mendev again a few years later, Leander was barely an adult at that time, she gave him a necklace depicting the blue bellflower of the Network and he has worn that ever since.

For many years after things went very smooth. The tricks his aunt had taught him served him well and he managed to stay out of trouble. It wasn't until he tried to lift a purse from one of the city's Witch-Hunters that things turned sour. The man knew what he was trying to do before he had even done it and after that Leander had to run for his life for the man and his comrades came running after him, blades drawn. The only way he could escape was through the gates, between the legs of an arriving patrol, and before he knew it Leander was deep in the Worldwound.

What he saw there scared him even more than the men that chased him out of the city. He had to lay low, avoid demonspawn and strange creatures around every corner and find his way back to the city. It took him hours to even find the direction he had to go in and when he finally thought he found a way he found himself cut off. Ahead of him was a clearing where cultists where chanting over some poor soul, hardly more than a child, and it was screaming in agony. He dared not move further as the cultists were also accompanied by what looked like a lump of flesh flying with wings that should be too small to bear it aloft, no doubt some kind of demon.

Saviour came from the other side of the clearing as several well placed arrows caused the demon to come crashing down as one of it's wings had been torn to shreds. In the madness that followed a woman grabbed him by the arm and dragged him along towards Kenabres. At first Leander struggled, but then he saw her other hand tightly clenching a symbol of Desna and he instead started to run along. Soon they were far from the clearing and the cultists and while he felt sorry for the other youngster he was happy to be away from there. As the walls of Kenabres came in sight they started to hear the sound of a patrol coming their way. Leander could see a faint smile curl around the woman's lips as she ruffled through his hair and pushed him onto the path in front of the patrol.

The initial reaction from the patrolling crusaders was hostile and they drew their blades, assuming the thing in front of them to be the spawn of the Worldwound. It was the Bellflower chain around his neck that saved him as a halfling crusader recognised it. The patrol then picked him up and escorted him back to the city, where he ran to his parent's home as fast as his legs could carry him.

Leander is roughly the same size and shape as a normal halfling his age. He stands just over 3 feet tall, dresses modestly and has auburn hair. What does stand out are his bright, yellow eyes but the truly strange part that clearly marks him as something different from a normal halfling are the scales that cover part of his head, his back and the top of both hands and feet and the long, scaly tail that drags behind him, almost doubling his length.
He tends to wear leather armor in red and black and carries several small blades on him. On his upper left arm he has a large tattoo of the holy symbol of Chaldira Zusaristan, a short sword with three notches on the blade. On the cross-guard he had a small butterfly added after his rescue by the unknown woman, in homage to her.