3. The past life of Jocasta Nighshade

The past life of Jocasta Nighshade


  • Player name: Karnivorrr
    Character name: Jocasta Nighshade

    Jocasta Nightshade is a thin, redheaded Hin newly arrived in the village of Jiyyd. She is in her early adulthood, and judging by her looks, a Lightfoot halfling.

    Jocasta grew up in a traveling circus in the care of an elderly woman, a scatterbrained fortune teller. It was the circus manager who brought the tiny child in after one of his many recruitment drives. How exactly he came to possess the Hin infant he wouldn't say, and rumours around the circus ran wild. Possibly the child was rescued from a village razed by orcs, possibly she was found abandoned in the wilderness, or even sold by desperate parents. For her own part, she has come to believe she was simply stolen from her home either by the manager himself or by slavers. Certainly he never hid the fact that he wanted a very tiny performer for some of his acts, and that he considered Jocasta his private property.

    Jocasta was trained hard from early on, learning acrobatics, how to walk the tightrope and juggling. She was a gifted child, but also quite shy and never really at ease with performing. The fortune teller taught her to read and write, as well as some basic knowledge of herbs. As most of the circus folks were human, she never learned her native tongue and speaks only common.

    In her early teens Jocasta became increasingly unhappy with life at the circus. The fortune teller had passed away and she herself was no longer a child, no longer a cute and dutiful pet who would jump through hoops. She sought to leave, and also to find out more about her past. This inevitably led to a nasty confrontation with the circus manager, ending in a grimfaced young Hin leaving a burning camp behind her….

    Eventually Jocasta found her way to a large city where she attempted to make a new living for herself. Refusing to beg or perform at street corners, she quickly fell in with the local thieves guild and became a rather successful cat burglar. Life was hard, and so she became hard also. When approached by the assassins guild, she was flattered and eager to start training.

    On one of her training runs, something happened that would change her life dramatically. She stalked an influential knight to his quarters, and quietly slipped in through his window on the fourth floor. Her mission was not to kill the man, just to break in unnoticed and dose his water with enough poison to lay him out cold for a few days, thus missing a meeting of some importance. She performed her task easily enough while the knight snored loudly, but as she was leaving her eyes fell upon his purse and temptation overcame her. The jingling of the coins woke the knight and she rushed to the window while he reached for her, tipping her off balance just as she lept onto the window sill.

    She fell.....and awoke to meet a pair of kindly green eyes. It was the knight, a Tormite namned Kieron, who had rushed to her aid as she lay dying on the cobbled street. He nursed her back to health, asking nothing in return, but instead taught her much about his own beliefs. Bedridden as she was, she had no choice but to listen, and in turn told him much about her own past. Finally he wrung from her a promise that she would change her ways, would steal and murder no more. This was all the thanks he would accept, and she complied him. Much to her own surprise she has honoured her vow, and her mission now is to find her family, if they still live. The scant clues so far have led her towards the Narfell region, and here her new life begins.


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