Ramunder has lived multiple lives by this point: his first began in Kalsgard, the son of Fuyuo Hirowatari and Inger Siggeirsdottir and a third-generation child of a Minkaian merchant family who'd made it all the way across the Path of Aganhei to settle in the Lands of the Linnorm Kings. That life ended shortly after Ramunder was able to walk and talk, for his father and grandfather were not mere merchants, but members of the Frozen Shadows, a clan of ninja that had come from Minkai to hunt down and kill the last members of the Amatatsu clan, settled into the guise of merchants to watch and wait in case one or more scions of that storied family had escaped them.
Ramunder's second life was a double-life, as a polite and dutiful merchant's assistant by day and as an initiate in the Frozen Shadows by night. He trained in the ways of deception and death, to be watchful and ready for when his superiors in the clan might have need of him. He idolized not just his father and grandfather, but also the training-master Omoyani, the troll-born mage Goti Runecaster and of course, the fearsome Kimandatsu, leader of their organization. While the training was grueling and cruel, it instilled in young Ramunder a sense of purpose and nobility, feeling he was aiding his family in forging a grand destiny.
One day, before Ramunder's initiation to full-fledged ninjahood, he was sent on a scouting assignment in the frigid wilds near Ravenscraeg, the remote fortress of the Frozen Shadows. The mission was routine, boring. There was very little to report, and in truth the Frozen Shadows rarely relied on such mundane information gathering when they had ravens who spied for them. But as he made his way back, and saw Ravenscraeg coming over the horizon, he noticed smoke pouring from the rooftops. They were under attack! Ramunder broke into a sprint, not caring he was just one man, not caring that anyone bold enough to attack the Frozen Shadows in their own fortress had to have been cunning and powerful enough to pierce the intricate web of lies and secrets woven to protect it over three generations. When he got to the gate, however, he saw the true extent of the devastation. Scores of ninja, his fellow students, his brothers-and-sisters-in-arms, broken and dead, fire consuming the ransacked buildings. He searched and searched, not caring for the burns on his hands or the smoke choking his lungs, until he heard a familiar voice choke out his name. It was his father, Fuyuo, gravely wounded and near death himself.
As Ramunder grabbed him and pulled him from the burning building, Fuyuo explained what had happened: a band of adventurers from Varisia had come to Kalsgard, led by none other than the last scion of the Amatatsu, seeking her birthright. The Frozen Shadows had sprung into action to intercept and slay her, but she and her allies proved too clever and too resilient, weathering everything the clan had thrown at them and turning the tables to discover the Frozen Shadows' home and come kicking down their door. Even the clan's fiercest fighters and mages were no match for them...and now they were gone, with all the clan's wisdom and treasures taken with them. The Frozen Shadows had failed in their mission...and now they would die. Ramunder protested saying as long as he and his father lived, they could rebuild and get revenge. Fuyou stopped his son mid-speech, stating matter-of-factly that he was dying, and Ramunder barely knew anything about what the Frozen Shadows truly were, that he had not been ready before and now would never be, as nothing of the clan remained for him to learn from. And it was better this way, as now the remaining Frozen Shadows were exposed and would be hunted down by Kalsgard's people. It was better to take his own life now, with some small scrap of honor left, than to live on the run as a failure and disappointment. Ramunder could barely believe what his father was saying, and tears in his eyes, he turned and ran, leaving Fuyou to die alone. It was in that moment that Ramunder's second life ended.
Ramunder's third life has been a haze of aimlessness and self-pity since leaving his home behind. Knowing there was no place for him in Kalsgard, even if his mother still lived, he took to the road and passed himself off as a mercenary, a sailor, a thief, whatever he needed to keep himself fed one more day as he tried to put as much distance between him and his past life behind. He's thought about picking up the trail of the adventurers who took down the Frozen Shadows, tracking them down and fulfilling their mission in a grand suicidal effort, but as his travels took him further south and further east, rather than across the Path of Aganhei, he realized that he'd never catch up to them, both in terms of physical distance and in terms of sheer power. He's thought about collecting like-minded individuals and re-establishing the Frozen Shadows, but he's realized as he's traveled that he's not as sociable as his grandfather or even his father were, not the kind of person who could rally a clan, and even if he was, he was no true Frozen Shadow, not initiated, his training incomplete. Ramunder's travels have taken him down through Varisia, across the Mindspin Mountains, through the woods of Nirmathas, across Lake Encarthan to the Sellen River and traveling down it to Taldor, where he's wandered the old empire southwards until reaching a small town called Heldren. He's come close to running out of coin and so he's sought employment there to earn enough to move on, but something about this job seems different from ones he's taken in the past. He feels an all-too familiar chill in the air...one that could not be felt in this warm a clime, in the season of Summer. Ramunder wonders if maybe his third life is about to quietly end...and a new one is about to begin.
