Jericho Dhark grew up with his mother, Catherynn, in Carolustadt. He took his mother’s maiden name since he never knew his father, although his mother insisted that his father was a prestigious, if mysterious, nobleman. She enjoyed telling Jericho about his father’s elegant clothing and refined mannerisms despite the fact that she never knew his name. All he has of his father is a gold ring that had originally been given to his mother. They lived in a small home that they could afford only due to the kind and understanding landlord who allowed them to work off the rent that they could not pay. While Catherynn worked long, hard days as a maidservant to a middle-class family, Jericho was worked to the bone by an indifferent bureaucrat whose sole concern was profit. Both of them came home exhausted, ate carefully rationed meals, and collapsed into an uneasy slumber, dreading the coming day and yet determined to survive it. That was their life.
Jericho had always hated seeing his mother so tired and had striven to improve their lives. He had learned to read and perform arithmetic by studying late into the night, long after his mother had succumbed to sleep. He attained a silver tongue and gained a deep understanding of politics by studying his superiors, many of whom were shrewd bureaucrats. He was so certain that he could make things better. Then, everything changed. The landlord woke him and his mother late in the night and evicted them from his property, brimming with an unexplained hatred. Wandering the streets at night was dangerous, and Jericho cautiously led his frightened mother through the alleyways he knew so well. He intended to lead his mother to an abandoned and supposedly vacant warehouse that he had learned of through his job, but they never made it. They were attacked. It happened so quickly. A group of bandits stepped out of an adjacent alleyway and grabbed hold of his mother. She screamed, telling him to run before the bandits slit her throat, clearly angered by her outburst. And run he did.
He had never looked back. He now spends most of his days meandering through Carolustadt or lounging in the Le’Harmless Cantina, lost in thought, a melancholic expression constantly present on his countenance. This is where his story begins.
