Rig

Home Plane: Sloane
Birthplace: Cinderskein Caravan, The Burned

Rig grew up on the windswept plains of the Burned, though she didn’t go by that name. She was born Sazha, a capricious girl with a smile too big for her face and curiosity that never slept. Born into a world of tradition, myth, and wind-bound ritual, she learned firsthand how to navigate the vast ocean of tall grass by reading the winds and hearing the songs it sang. The caravan called itself the Cinderskein Caravan, and they were both feared and respected amongst other travelers for their strange customs and uncanny travel across dangerous terrain. They read the winds like scripture, whispered to the grasses to hide their tracks, and spoke in hushed tones about the Old Wind, a primal force that watched over their kind.

She was happy with her family, roaming the Burned and trading with other caravans. She would participate in storytelling with the caravan’s lore keeper, Nirva. All was right in the world until a peculiar evening changed everything. She heard a strange song on the wind, one that she hadn’t heard before. It’s not entirely known what happened that evening, and Rig can only recall a few things about it. She remembers her mother’s voice, urgent and distant. The grass was singing like it was on fire, a shadow that had the appearance of a rider, and then silence. She awoke in the early hours of the morning to a red dawn surrounded by the charred and half-sunken remains of the caravan, alone and scarred. 

For weeks, she traveled alone and on the brink of dehydration and starvation, always saved by knowledge of the winds. Eventually, she was picked up by another caravan called the Embersworn Line. A large group of pragmatic traders who were known for salvaging lost goods and picking clean abandoned waystations. These people were deeply superstitious, and when they came upon Sazha scarred and alone, they saw it as an omen. Whether it was good or bad remained to be seen, but they took her in all the same. It was months before she spoke to anyone, and only a few words at a time when she did. They kept her at arm’s length, calling her ash-marked or ghost girl. 

As the years went by, she integrated only partially into the caravan. Her lone “friends” were a small group of kids her age, led by a Verdan called Malady. Malady was a manipulator and could be her best friend or worst enemy at the drop of a hat. Her fate took a turn for the worse on an unsanctioned excursion to a homesteaders’ abode nestled in the foothills of the Wandering Range. Things did not go as planned, as they rarely did with Malady in the lead, and the group wound up killing the inhabitants of the homestead. When word reached the leader of the caravan a day or so later, all of the blame had been shunted upon her. She was exiled, forced into the hills of the Range, alone again. 

Fortunately, she was not too far from the Dwarven city of Narnwhor. It was there that her talents of seeing and hearing things others missed were noticed by an organization known as the Collectors. She was given a job as an information gatherer, or what they called The Eyes. She traveled across the realm, stealing secrets and exposing them. It wasn’t too long after that she was noticed for her skills as an infiltrator by a multiplanar assassin’s guild called The S8. Following the wanderlust that pushed her forward all her life, she took the chance to see other places beyond Sloane, leaving behind not only her home but her name as well. Sazha was no more; Rigor Trolok, or Rig, was born. 

It’s at this point that she meets Shanks, only half a year into her work with the S8. Their relationship was passionate but turbulent. After nearly two decades, Rig had found someone who cared for her, and she was naturally scared of being abandoned. Unfortunately, this fear led to several poor decisions that ultimately resulted in the disbanding of the S8 and her being left alone again. This is where things get foggy. Not long after the events of the S8 disbanding, Rig makes a deal with a time traveler, and not me. There is a gap in time, in which she works for the Constable and eventually makes her way into the Tavern to sew discord among the group and kill Shanks, achieving the former but not the latter.