Unfortunately, it was not only half-orcs who came from dark situations but some half-elves as well. Rienas was one of these. He had never met his father but understood all too well where he had come from. He had been alive this long because of his mothers incredible fortitude, she had survived the ordeal to raise Rienas. Having no other options, his human mother had moved them into the squalor of Korvosa, in an effort to support them. Regardless of their seemingly poor situation, she had constantly insisted to Rienas that they stay in this part of the city as people here knew her story and were more lenient on his half-breed heritage.
Rienas stood just shy of six feet tall with the build of an elf but a face more resembling his human ancestry. With his hood drawn up, his dark brown hair, and matching eyes, cast him as quite an unsettling figure. Having been born outside Korvosa, and bearing his half-elf heritage, Rienas was viewed, by many locals, as a lesser member of society. Contending with either blatant ignorance or being disregarded, or ignored altogether, the half-elf's personality had calloused, hardened by his resentment. His preference to avoid confronting these issues head on meant he conducted his comings and goings in the evenings when there were far less people about.
That seemed to be his lot in life until a few weeks ago when a series of events had changed his life for ever. It was three weeks ago, today, that he had come home to an empty house. Unusual as his mother was always home in the early mornings; she worked late at the tavern. His mother was meticulous with her routine and this was not like her at all. A gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach had him heading back out the door and straight to where she worked, determined to prove his intuition wrong.
Nearly at the tavern door, he could see there was a commotion inside. The gathering towns people were all whispering to each other but quieted as he moved past. He pushed the door open, heading inside, and was immediately aware of the state of the place. Tables and chairs flipped, glass and furniture smashed and blood pooled around the bodies on the floor. He just stared. Hearing the owner of the establishment speak his mothers name broke his shocked stare as he turned to the man and realized he was hearing a conversation between the owner and the authorities. Their discussion was of this being yet another of Lamm's drunken brawls turned knife fights. This time, though, there were dead victims, the three bodies on the floor, two of them patrons involved in the fight and one was a server; Rienas's mother.
Immediately after the upset, the half-elf spiraled downward. Finding out his mother had been another victim of the drunken rage of Gaedren Lamm, and that nobody intended to do anything about it, pushed him over the edge. Late one evening, overwhelmed with grief and rage, Rienas screamed at the sky. In his fit of lunacy he begged for the means of his revenge to be granted. His emotions cascaded as he cursed Lamm's existence to any power that might be listening; and it seemed one was.
