Kingsly Shepherd
Kingsly Shepherd, brother of Rex Cane, was a lifelong confidence man, trickster, and criminal. He was born in the Golanthian village of Southweir in the summer of 468. His brother, Rex, was a full decade older than him. In the late 400s, they were known to work together on a number of schemes, including extorting a number of border towns with a motley crew they had put together. In the early 500s, they broadened their reach and began to purchase real estate within a few of the smaller cities in the region, effectively creating an organized criminal ring of sorts, which provided goods and services as a front for its more illicit dealings. When his brother, Rex, was killed on one of these other enterprises, Kingsly's grief led him find the remains. When he found them, he found himself speaking to what he believed to be his brother's spirit reaching out to him from the corpse. This voice, driven by a massive lust and malice, pushed Kingsly to seek revenge at all costs, and to find and kill his murderer. It granted Kingsly many powers for that purpose and became a sort of oracle to him. Kingsly left the small criminal empire he and his brother had founded in hands of one of his most trusted apprentices and started a new, smaller organization whose sole aim was to avenge the death of Rex Cane. This new organization he named the king and the crook in a tongue and cheek reference to their own criminal names. Eventually, Kingsly had bound around himself a small group of very loyal subjects who were part and parcel to the cult like nature of the King and the Crook at its heart, while the organization itself grew to the point that it had a number of agents who were completely oblivious to the true nature of the group.
At long last, a lead came up that was more than just a "sighting" of his brother's armor, or someone using his brother's name: An old hag, in the eastern mountains, had met his brother's killer, knew his name, knew where he had been going, and had been offended by the killer and his companions, thus having reason to "sell" this information. Kingsly and his closest companions traveled to the Hag and bartered with her for her knowledge. Kingsly then went to Renelestre and enacted a plan he hoped would draw out his nemesis.