Marcus Jules Renington
Marcus Jules Renington was born in the Aragorn Barony, and like most of the populace there, he lived the life of a peasent with his family. The Renington family had no crest, no prestige, not even their own house while he was growing up. His mother worked in a local tavern as a waitress, and the rest of his family - his father, two brothers, and a sister - worked in the fields of their landlord. In spite of all their hard work, they barely earned enough to scrape by from day to day, and oftentimes were reduced to stealing and scrounging for supplies to live off of.
As would be expected, his childhood wasn't exceptionally interesting or fun; as a matter of fact, it wasn't much of a childhood at all. The first 7 years of his life were decently quiet, filled with...well, for the most part, nothing. He played with a few of the other young peasent children around his Barony from time to time, and as he grew older the young boy began to help out around the house and in the fields with the light chores.
However, after that short peaceful phase, Marcus' life was forever changed as his father was brutally murdered in the fields while he worked. Although the culprit was observed by those around him beating his father to death with a club, nobody stopped to lend a hand. In Lensmoor, senseless acts of violence on random peasents in the Aragorn Barony are an everyday happening, it seems. Still, with the loss of his father, Marcus' family was short their strongest field-hand, and it was up to the children to pick up the slack. But no matter how hard he tried, there was little a young boy could actually do to help out in place of his father, and his family was unable to maintain their income. As a result, they were thrown out of their humble abode in the Barony, and relocated to the Poor Quarters in New Lensmoor, ushering in a new era of poverty and misery for Marcus.
The 'big city' held nothing of any real value for the children to do, so they found work where they could. His mother was able to keep her job at the tavern, his two older brothers split off to be apprentices to craftsmen, and his sister started spending a lot of time with a lot of different rich 'noblemen' behind closed doors. Being the youngest, Marcus usually stayed in the small shanty that his family now caleld a house in the poor quarters during the first few months of his residency. Eveuntually, he found a job wokring with the janitors of New Lensmoor, and managed to scrape a bit of income, as well as some useful trinkets found on the ground from time to time. Just as things were looking up for the Renington family, Marcus' brothers were both killed in the same day by the same person while running errands for their masters. Again, there was no motive for the brutal killings, and everyone knew who the killer was, but nobody attempted to defend his brothers, nor did anyone ever bring the killer to justice. Odd, no?
Hardly in adolesence by now, and missing his father and both of his brothers, Marcus was understandably a bit deprived. Luckily, people can't be thrown out of the poor quarters, and him, his mother and his sister brought in enough money to buy goods for the ever-shrinking family. Life was oddly good for the next few years, in an ever so poverty ridden way. Because his mother had the protection of her barstaff, and big burly men found better uses for his sister rather than killing her, the rest of his family remained intact - and with as few bills as his family had left to pay, they were able to stay financially secure. Marcus was never really bothered while doing his job in New Lensmoor, until one fateful day...
...He had become a young man of 16 by now, and although he was a wiry, unformidable sort of guy, he was about to prove that he was able to hold his own. By now, Marcus had grown as accustomed to the random acts of violence that occured in New Lensmoor as the rest of its inhabitants, and ended up working around them every day. Usually nobody bothered him as he trudged along and scooped up garbage, but one day he picked up the wrong peice of garbage. As a small child was sliced in two, its heart flew onto the pavement in front of Marcus, and with his usual uncaring sigh, he bent down and scooped it up. Appearently, the slayer of the child wanted it for himself, and decided to come right after Marcus rather than ask for it back. The battle that ensued was a bloody one, and when it was over, both Marcus and the unfortunate soul who fought him lay side by side, bloodied and seeming to be dead. As it turned out, a neighbor who had slunk out of the poor quarters was in the area, and came rushing to lend a hand when he saw the mess. The kind bum found the young Marcus as he was barely clinging to life, and promptly scooped him up and brought him to the town's healer. As he occasionally does, the healer was gracious enough to case a healing spell on Marcus free of charge, and just when it seemed like Marcus was destined to die like his family members, he was restored to some small degree of life. It took Marcus months to heal completly from his almost fatal injuries, although his foe was presumed dead and his corpse was stripped and sacraficed to the gods with haste by some random traveller...
When he was finally healed, and now a boy of 17, Marcus' family decided that the life of the big city was just too dangerous, and packed up to leave into the wilderness. They left into the Birch Forest, and as luck would have it, ran across a pack of Orcs. Nobody even stood a chance as they split into three directions and ran from the brutes - and nobody but Marcus was fortunate enough to survive the encounter. So, the life of Marcus stooped to a new low as he entered the gates of what was becoming his prison. However, now that he had nobody to look to for help, and nowhere to go for shelter, Marcus was forced to begin looking out for himself. He of course quit the janitoral services of New Lensmoor, and actually paid a visit to Chancey, where he stayed a while and picked up the basic skills and tools he would use for the next phase of his life. And so, the saga begins, DUN DUN DUN!
