Young, impetuous, quick-tempered, fond of good living, contemptuous of anyone who would claim to be his better. Masterful with his strange black-bladed rapier; sloppy with almost everything else.

Currently a senior officer of the famous mercenary host The Free Jackals, the half-elf now known as Key began life far from such heights.
 
He started life as a foundling at a monastery of the Church of the Spreading Eves (serving St Roberto), taken into the care of Brother Ingolo Capiari. After Capiari's untimely ouster from the church, the boy took to the streets, where he was soon begging for a living.
 
As a beggar, he was soon swept up into the organization of The Chalk Prince, a local don who ran all the beggars in his portion of the Fingers. Here he made friends with other beggar children and grew resentful under the harsh and watchful eyes of Chalker enforcers. He eventually convinced his little group to run away from "chalk-walking" service, arguing they could make more money elsewhere.
 
Key and his gang, however, were almost immediately strong-armed into a gang in another Fingers neighborhood, The Sweet Street Strikers. Under the harsh command of the temperamental Umberto, the Strikers tended to emphasize fear and violence, often targeting non-humans. Key himself was often targeted within the Strikers for his half-elf heritage, culminating in Umberto clipping his ears. After a couple years of the friends serving as low-level pickpockets and burglars (because they were smaller and more innocent-looking), until Key grew fed up enough to lead his friends, and some disgruntled others, in rebellion against Umberto, breaking apart the Strikers. Key lost to Umberto in a duel, but was saved by his friends.
 
Free from Umberto and the Strikers, they began their own band of thieves and pickpockets, dubbing themselves the Virtues, taking ironic nicknames including: Valor, the best at hiding; Charity, the best at stealing; Temperance, the best at luring men into traps; Truth, the best at cons and tricks; Mercy, the best at killing; and Justice, the best at breaking out of the constables' cells. Key himself was given the appellation of Patience, as he was the fastest, and quickest of temper. Most of the Virtues' jobs were small-scale, pickpocketing and trickery and petty burglary. They were so adept at these crimes, however, that they nonetheless became notorious in their neighborhood, always able to stay one step ahead of both the authorities and their rivals. They all became even closer friends than before, totally dependent on each other, and backing that interdependence up with unshakable loyalty. This was the happiest time of Key's young life.
 
It was not to last.
 
After about four years, with the Wars of Ascendancy started by Telemon getting into full swing, military recruiters for various armies began showing up in significant numbers in Renelestre. Many of them specifically targeted orphans, beggars, and street thieves. One by one, the Virtues succumbed to offers to good to resist, whether monetary or just the allure of adventure and escape from the dirty. noisy streets of the Fingers. Patience/Key was never chosen. Was it his anger at being overlooked, or his anger at his friends being taken off to die in others' wars that drove him to start attacking officers? Probably both. Probably Key himself could not even tell where one anger ended and the other began. Regardless, he soon found himself a fugitive in the streets he'd long felt like he owned, running or hiding from soldiers and constables alike when he wasn't setting up ambushes on drunk officers.
 
It was sometime in this period that he met and was sheltered for the night by a homeless sorceress named Reva who was squatting in an abandon, trash-strewn warehouse. She gave him an ominous (but somewhat vague) prediction about his future. He left quickly after that.
 
After one particularly close call that left him wounded and winded, he found refuge in a richer corner of the Fingers than he usually ran in, and snuck into a cellar that had been mistakenly left open.
 
There he was discovered by Genvita Caliotta, young bored heiress of House Caliotta.

Gender

Male

Eyes

Brown

Hair

Black

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Olive

Height

5' 8''

Weight

150lbs