Backstory
He was born in the back alleys and crowded tenements of the city, where survival depended on quick hands, quiet feet, and knowing when to disappear. His mother was a human woman who worked the streets to survive. She never spoke of his father, and he never pressed her for answers. In truth, it hardly mattered. In the parts of the city where he grew up, fathers were rumours and mothers were survivors.
From the moment he was old enough to run errands and squeeze through broken fences or crawlspaces, he learned how to make himself useful. Small jobs came first — delivering messages, retrieving dropped coin purses, and slipping through windows to open doors for older thieves. What set him apart was not just his quick fingers. It was his eyes and ears. He noticed who entered which building, who met in dark alleys, and who carried coin instead of secrets.
Eventually his talents caught the attention of the Black Shackle, the city’s thieves’ guild, whose operations centred around a rough inn near the outer walls called The Wall’s Edge. To most people it was just another tavern for dockworkers, caravan guards, and mercenaries. Behind the smoke and cheap ale, it was the nerve centre of smuggling routes, burglaries, and protection rackets.
Hidden beneath the inn, however, was something far more dangerous: the Veiled Clasp, a secretive organisation of spies, informants, and manipulators of shadows. While the Black Shackle dealt in crime and coin, the Veiled Clasp dealt in information — and information was power. What Azarth thought were small street jobs had actually been tests. When they finally revealed themselves, they offered him a deeper craft: surveillance, disguise, false identities, dead drops, and the art of turning truth into a weapon.
Not everything in his life was shadows. As a teenager he fell in love, and for a short time life felt almost normal. That illusion ended the night he stormed away after an argument. A man named Derzo Blint attacked her, and she was raped and murdered before Azarth could return. The guilt hardened into a permanent lesson: emotion is weakness, and mistakes have consequences.
Soon after, the Veiled Clasp gave him his first true solo mission: Derzo Blint. Azarth studied him, tracked him, and killed him alone. During his surveillance he also learned that Derzo’s brother Marcone beat his wife in drunken rages. So Azarth planted evidence that led the city guard to accuse Marcone of the murder as well. Two monsters removed with a single blade, and the Veiled Clasp considered the mission a complete success.
Years of training and loss forged him into a patient, calculated man who understands that secrets are often more dangerous than weapons. Yet beneath the discipline, he still carries the memory of the girl he failed to protect — and the certainty that weakness can cost lives.