Alexandru Croitoru
Alexandru Croitoru (a.k.a. Mihai Reinhold)
A con artist raised in the Halfling Ghetto of Abria, Alexandru Croitoru was forced to flee into the wilderness and take up the life of an itinerant adventurer after having been played in his own game by Lorenzo Bascio, a devious and amoral Aeriscan patrician. He now travels with a group of fellow fortune-seekers in search of adventure.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Alexandru was raised in the "Halfling Ghetto" of the capital city of the Aeriscan League, Abria. His family had been respectable craftsmen a few generations ago, but shifting attitudes towards Oameni in the city had left them still proud, but poor. He worked as a shop laborer for merchants from a young age, one of whom was a member of a loose affiliation of men and women with a shared interest in liberating wealth from the nobility and redistributing it (frequently to madames and barkeeps). She appreciated Alexandru's eye for value and uncanny ability to fast talk guards or angry customers, and took him under her wing, training him in the basics of thievery and refining his silver tongue.
He was better than adequate, but not great as a con artist and eventually set up shop on his own, preferring to overstate the quality of his wares to wealthy clients and deal relatively fairly with customers of more modest means. Aside from convincing the nobles in town that a cheap rotgut made by local halflings was actually a fine vintage from a distant land, he kept his cons small enough that even those he cheated regularly would tell others he was a fair dealer and many actually developed a genuine preference for Halfling rotgut. He referred his crueler or more snobbish customers as marks for a quiet financial humbling by said loose affiliation and Alexandru would receive a cut for his prospecting.
His former teacher approached him about an ongoing long con against a particularly racist nobleman that Alexandru had referred to them. Neither of them knew that the nobleman had been warned about the con and Alexandru’s role in it, and that he was playing them all to provide cover for the murder of a young noblewoman who was gaining popularity with the poor and outcast of the city by demanding improvements in their living conditions. The shocking violence against a well-liked noble and Alexandru's apparent guilt were used as a pretext to purge the 'ungrateful halflings' from their quarter and steal what little assets they had left.
Following this he was the most wanted man in town and hated by his family and friends who had held great hope for the noblewoman's success. Alexandru fled into the city disgraced and much more cautious for having been played at his own game. He is intent on acquiring the means and skills to right his mistakes and really ruin the noble, or--failing that--stab him in the neck from behind repeatedly in a dark alley someday.
With a surprisingly anemic urban constitution, Alexandru quickly realizes that he will not survive his travels long by himself and begins looking for a group he might ingratiate himself with. Strangling orcs in the dark is beginning to feel uncomfortably normal.
Depending on who is asking about his past, Alexandru tells the unvarnished truth in such a brash way that listeners believe it's a fabrication, or says that he is a locksmith who has been training to join a secret fraternity of tinkerers specializing in lock making, but his initiation rite requires picking each of the locks described in the Liber Clausūrārum in the wild and [blathers about fictional tumbler configurations until he is begged to stop].
Relationships
History
After experiencing her first taste of adventure by helping a band of heroes destroy an ancient evil lurking in the catacombs under the Shrine of Naeia Aeriscae, Elissa desired to see the world beyond Labrax Bay. She requested that Alexandru Croitoru take her under his wing.
Short, furry-footed, boldly making poor decisions for 57 years.
View Character ProfileAlexandru's Theme Song
- Journey to Akbyset: Once Was Lost
- Nomen Infernale XLV: Its Tail Sways Like a Cedar
- Nomen Infernale XLVIII: I Shall Fill Abythos with Djinn and Men Together
- Nomen Infernale XLXXV: They Are Routed Before Us
- The Forgotten City IV Report
- The Forgotten City VII
- The Forgotten City VIII
- The Forgotten City XIV
Growing up in the Halfling Quarter of Abria, Alexandru can speak both Oamenii and Aeriscan as native languages.
A Wine Time in Eknopolis
Xidohrosius, 114PR
With Gallienus Kerularios dead and his wretched son Liberius in the wind, and Flavio Merula weaned off of the blasted lotus wine and ready to return to Fort Merula, I had time to visit Xenicos and see how the Oameni of Eknopolis fared.
While drinking the local plum brandy with a distant kinsman I mentioned that I'd once turned the local Abrian version of it into a minor sensation with a faked provenance from near the Abraso Forest, but that the Eknopolitan one was rougher than the square of goat hide that Teleptyon constantly carried around. He was wounded but conceded that many of the farms that had supplied them had fallen to the undead and the local stuff was made from fruit grown in courtyards alleys and potted on rooftops. I nearly choked when the image of an impeccably dressed half-urk I had seen pissing on one of the scraggly trees in an alley a few nights prior popped, unbidden, to my mind.
He said that they kept imported drink from Abria and a few other settlements for festivals and other occasions. By the end of the night we had an ambitious legitimate business plan to use the stored Aeriscan brandy to fund the import of more of the stuff.
Justina was instrumental in finding dockworkers in Nestoria. The pimps and madams of Xenicos pointed us to posh and posturing young men who enjoyed slumming. We greased the hands of guards, tavern owners, dock workers and one very ornery sea lion. Some required coin, some skin. The sea lion was especially fond of goat cheeses. A letter of introduction to some of the Ratcatchers in Abria with substantial coin primed the flow.
Cases of Abrasero Fine Frontier brandy began arriving in town as undeclared ballast and glasses were placed in the hands of dabblers from Nepygos and Argymos by barmaids who would titter about the virility of the Aeriscan league and how they'd heard rumors about the effects of the drink. Many found the drink a refreshing change from the soporific wine preferred by the elite of Eknopolis, but most did not.
As the party prepared to move on to the next adventure I cashed out most of my stake at 300 gold, but left some in for Justina to manage and make inroads for her eventual gang.
I certainly hope there are no broken arms this time.
