Domenico Acerbi was born to a wealthy trading family with a small amount of noble blood, and named for his grandfather from the noble line. He was born with a twin sister named
Marita Acerbi. They were very close in their childhood and, while Domenico was expected to look after his sister and keep her safe, Marita was the far more responsible of the two. While she kept her brother out of trouble, sometimes she allowed him to experience the consequences of his lack of foresight in order to teach him a lesson (which never stuck for very long).
When they were thirteen, they started their combat training. Domenico as a cavalier who would represent his family's name and Marita as a paladin of Abadar. While she was doing her training to learn how to heal, Marita spent a lot of time with one of the family's servants, Serana, who would become a good friend to the twins. By the time Domenico and Marita had come of age, Serana started to become more interested in Domenico's impulsive and adventurous nature, since she wished for an exciting life rather than one of simple servitude. For this reason, she pledged her service to Domenico specifically with the Acerbi family's blessing. She started to become attracted to and protective of Domenico, but she hid it by being relentlessly critical of his decisions.
Domenico, Marita and Serana travelled everywhere together, despite being rather different sorts of personalities. While Domenico liked to drink and gamble while out, Marita spent more of her time networking and getting to know each other and Serana enjoyed just getting a chance to be out and having fun. The first time the three saw combat together, they were simply caught in the crossfires of two rival groups in the city. While the battle between the two gangs raged in the tavern they were in, innocents were killed in the crossfire, all escape routes blocked by fire. Domenico and Marita fought admirably to protect themselves, and Domenico prayed to Lady Luck (already his deity of choice) that if he, Marita and Serana were delivered from this, that he would pledge his service to her. So when the tavern collapsed and killed everyone inside except for the three, who all came out of it with merely scratches and the wounds they sustained in combat, Domenico truly became dedicated to following the path of luck.
It was not long after that Domenico was given the horse that was to be his cavalier companion, a magnificent stallion named Rexus and Marita was sent off on a campaign for her order. Domenico had not spent much time separated from his sister, and without her help in keeping his nature reigned in, the first night after she was away, he got drunk and spent the whole time gambling, losing his horse and all his funds to Martin Kardos, a clever noble who had always looked down on the Acerbi family, seeing them as less than true nobility. He laughed that Domenico deserved to be left penniless for daring to challenge a superior man such as he, but that he would leave the young cavalier with a single gold piece. What Domenico did not know is that Martin had cheated in the fateful match, but even if Domenico did not realize this, he still decided to declare Martin Kardos as his mortal enemy for somehow turning Lady Luck against him.
From then on, Domenico was consumed with restoring himself in the eyes of his goddess, and while he had borrowed money a few times to rise back to prosperity from a loan shark named Piero, he could never quite get there. And his parents, having seen that he lost the magnificent Rexus to a family rival, expected that Domenico would need to pick himself up on his own. How would he become a gentleman who could represent their family if he could not even do that? Without the assistance of his family, the absence of his sister and Piero's refusal to help him out unless he pays some of his debts back, he decided that it might be worth pursuing another avenue to riches, by offering his sword to any who might need it.
