Clanless. Dishonorable. Traitors. When these words are oft thrown in the face of your family, it's no wonder you choose to lead a more simple life away from people. Jorin was born to such dishonor by virtue of his Father, a man who defended a 'bandit' against one of his own people and was branded a traitor for the death that followed. In truth it was a drunkard that was harassing a merchant in a tavern within their homeland and it came to drawing blades in their drunken fervor, and it was Jorin's father who stepped in and cut down the man when he attempted to murder the merchant. As stories do, this one was twisted by the family of the drunkard to seem as though Jorin's father had been the aggressor and killed him in cold blod. And so Jorin paid for his Father's Sin.
He was raised within Norland by both parents, Olen and Molja, and two siblings, Mila and Verin, in weather beaten but functional home. Leaky roof, cracks that the wind blew in during winter, and too few blankets. But at least they had the warmth of the fire and shelter, and for them it was enough. Jorin's younger years were spent in isolation from other children, though it was not a matter of choice. The early attempts for Jorin to play with other children were met with ridicule and abuse, from words to sticks and stones that were thrown at him. The Traitors Son, Black Blooded. It only took a few incidents of this nature to cause the child to become a recluse, preferring to take his Father's knife and whittle bits of wood he found and roam through the streets pretending to be some great hunter.. Which usually means catching rats that the family would eat.
Tragedy would strike the family first when Verin and Jorin, around the age of eight, were exploring a small tunnel just outside the gates of the city when the unstable earth collapsed and buried them both in rock and dirt. A nearby traveller heard the children scream and went to help, and by the time they'd dug Jorin out.. Verin had already suffocated to death. Thus born was his fear of caverns, that the next time he entered one it would be his life it claimed.
They were not a wealthy family, often resorting to begging when his father's hunting trips bore no meat for their table and their crops would not grow. A thing Jorin came to resent. Being offered food was one thing, to beg for it was despicable. When he questioned why the Allfather would allow them to suffer so, his family would give half hearted excuses and attempt to maintain their religious vigor. And as Jorin came into his teenage years, he had come to resent the Allfather as well. All things around him he came to despise and he began to wonder what the rest of the world was like. How were the people different, surely the must be more kind than those he had come to know in his homeland. Though his opinion of his people was far from fair, given the bias of his youth, Jorin decided he would depart from home and seek other other peoples and nations in which he might learn more of the world. Of their ways. And, with luck, bring them back to his people some day to truly pass judgement upon them for himself. Partially out of spite, and another out of a sense of justice. If his people were truly so terrible, as he believed, then they must be brought into line and made better than they were before. He paid for his Father's sins, and they would be given a chance to become better from their own.
