Backstory

“Memories and Musings in a Foreign Land”

-Taelyx Tathreos

To understand where one’s going, one must understand where they’ve been. To understand where I’ve been… well that’s quite the story indeed. I’m not from this world, and I couldn’t really tell you how far from home I am as distances through the astral plane don’t behave as expected. I come from the planet Bathenus. My people are known as the Indensians, and they control the entire planet. When I left, going off world was just barely beyond the theoretical but just like I can’t tell you how far away it is by any unit of distance, I also can’t tell you how long ago it was that I left. Between then and now I drifted for what was simultaneously an eternity and no time at all.

The Idensian Empire cares about one thing: control. Everything and everyone has a proper place and station that they must conform to or suffer the consequences. Our entire lives were planned by others; often before we were even conceived much less born. Where we would train, who would teach us, who to socialize with, what we would do, where we would live, who we would… breed with. Despite not having any control over our individual development, individuality was still recognized as desirable and praised. A good Indensian is fully expected to bring their own share of glory and honor to their clan, despite not getting to choose for themselves what they actually do. I was never a good Indensian though.

My father is Rhaenyx Tathreos, a very high ranking general in the empire. He is the model citizen, the glory of the empire comes before all, including and maybe especially his family. I have two older brothers that I’ve never met, they were born to my father’s first breeding partner who I also never knew. My mother Elaenya died in childbirth delivering my little sister, Naellawhen I was 14 years old. Like a good soldier, my father didn’t even grieve for his partner and didn’t bat an eye when a new one was selected for him less than a week after mom died, even before her funeral. Not long after that I was shipped off to begin specialized training but I made it home to see my sister as often as I could. I tried to behave for her sake, but the entire society just felt wrong to me. It wasn’t something I could shake or ignore; it was buried deep in the bones. Nothing too drastic happened though until my sister turned 12, and I found out who the Empire had decided she would be bred with.

Daevon Maliar, the highest ranking general in the empire was a brute, there’s no other word for it. His reputation was that he was fierce in all his pursuits, in the battlefield and in the bedroom. While Indensian culture in general valued men higher than woman, Daevon viewed them as nothing more than playthings, and I knew from first hand sources that he had arranged for his first three breeding partners to be disappeared when he tired of them. Rumor says it was that they had “aged out of his interest.” And now he had his eyes on my innocent baby sister.

Everything that felt wrong coalesced in that moment, and I knew I couldn’t simply do nothing. I went to one of the brothels he was known to frequent and waited for him. I didn’t really have a plan, I guess I was hoping I could persuade him to pick someone else, I certainly wasn’t looking for a fight. A fight with the drunken buffoon is exactly what happened though. I tried to talk to him, he drew his weapon, I fought back, he ended up dead.

In the biggest scandal to ever rock the empire in recent memory, my father signed my arrest warrant personally. Amusingly, killing the highest ranking general in the empire wasn’t the crime I was arrested for. I did something far more serious, I tried to “interfere in the proper and decided course of action as decreed by the empire.” It was sedition, and as a son of a high ranking general and member of a prestigious and well decorated family, that was far more shocking than a murder, even of someone so famous.

Indensians don’t believe in immediately giving up on criminals however, so I wasn’t merely to be confined or swiftly executed. I would be extensively tortured in an attempt to bring me back in line. It didn’t work. Every lash of the whip, every hot iron merely hardened my resolve that the empire was broken and needed to be torn down. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one to feel that way, and my killing of Daevon Maliar had garnered attention. A group of freedom fighters broke me out of prison and I dedicated myself to their cause. It was quickly apparent that the movement wouldn’t survive only based on Bathenus though, and as the most high profile individual it was decided that I should try and make it off world and secure help to come liberate the oppressed. We organized a team to break in to a research base, seized control of a prototype ship, and sent me off in a blaze of glory. I didn’t get to say goodbye to my sister. I haven’t laid eyes on her since before I was arrested.

The ship we had stolen and launched successfully got me away from the planet, but that was about it. It wasn’t long before the ship was dead, and I was drifting in a vast silver void. I encountered many fantastical sites and beings while there, but my mind was constantly on the mission I had set out on and the fact that I must surely be failing them. I don’t know how long I drifted but I eventually came across a great shadow. The entity directed me towards a nearby world and gave me knowledge about its history and inhabitants. She told me that on this world “Mortal life has the potential for greatness,” and that I could find what I needed there. In the blink of an eye, I was falling through fire and crash landed on the ground in front of a rudimentary wooden outpost. I was still in somewhat of a daze when the people nearby approached me, and my instincts and training kicked in to propel me forward. Before I really knew what was happening, I had enlisted in the Raven’s Nest mercenary company and was heading out on a mission.