Defector from the Cerberus Assembly

Family

The Umptious family are proud farming folk, with an incredible gift for merchandising, having turned their humble carrot farm on the Northern edge of Rexxentrum into a thriving and international supplier of carrots. Days on the farm are long and hard, with quotas for carrots to be harvested, packaged, and shipped, made increasingly harder over the years in the shadow of the Dwendalian Empire‘s rigid and unyielding regime. And, despite the many restrictions and requirements the Empire placed on the family’s shipping abilities to secure their borders and the taxes on the family’s land to support their Crownsguard, the farm was still vulnerable. It was five years ago when the raid happened. The Myriad targeted the Umptious family and had an entire day’s worth of carrot harvest stolen, a packing destroyed and their safe emptied. Despite this attack, the Crownsguard were unwilling to patrol the borders or do anything to assist in protecting the farm from another attack.

Scrum Diddly Umptious, the oldest of the Umptious children, is set to inherit everything that her family built, and is proud to come from such a successful and passionate group of farmers. However, after the Myriad’s raid, and the Empire’s unwillingness to protect them, the Umptious family wanted to retreat inward, stopping distribution until they could find other people to be the face of the farm and even talked about taking their name off the product, something that Scrum did not support, being proud of her family’s name and accomplishments. Instead, she offered to leave and learn the skills needed to protect the farm herself, so she could eventually hire and train their own group of guards in house. She would learn from the Crownsguard themselves and try to recruit their own guards from their ranks. Her family disagreed, wanting to avoid more danger to any of their family so Scrum, confident and proud, left in the night, setting out for Bladegarden to learn and take from the Crownsguard.

Life in Bladegarden

Arriving in Bladegarden shocked Scrum, who lived most of her life in the capital and surrounding areas, mostly populated by humans, dwarves, and halflings. The large orc population left over from the Julous Dominion’s reign makes up most of Bladegarden’s citizenship and the unorganized and drab streets are a far cry from the extravagance of Rexxentrum’s large thoroughfares, leaving Scrum feeling out of place and unfamiliar, initially. However, after enlisting with the Crownsguard, Scrum impressed the leadership by being more than the farm-hare (said quickly, like farmer) they just assumed her to be. She quickly proved to be one of the fastest new recruits and adapted her self-taught fighting style to the official training quickly and effectively. However, prejudices from Rexxentrum citizens in the training class was unavoidable and Scrum had one rival in particular: Senora Klemp, a female dwarf trainee who saw belittling Scrum’s accomplishments and abilities as the best way to prove herself to the captains.

Scrum would like to say she avoided most of the attempts to rile her by Senora, but she was not completely immune to returning a few jabs or pranks when Senora was particularly consistent. Otherwise, Scrum tried to keep to herself and focused on her training and recruitment goals, sending a few other trainee’s she met back to the farm when they became disillusioned with the Crownsguard’s methods and aims. Scrum herself was not immune to this either, as she saw the effects of the Empire outside its capital city. The citizens of Bladegarden are oppressed and poor, trapped by the same taxations and mandates that left her farm open to attack and it becomes more and more apparent that King Bertrand Dwendal cares very little about the citizens themselves.

Scrum spent three months in training with the Crownsguard in Bladegarden. During that time, she became intimately familiar with the modest city and would often frequent the local pubs with the more relaxed Crownsguard initiates. One night, as she and her friends were headed to the pub, they saw a Githyanki male in a midnight blue robe, signifying him as a mid-level mage of the Cerberus Assembly. Likely accustomed to the streets of Rexxentrum, where Assembly members can walk freely and celebrated, the mage was walking the streets of Bladegarden alone, which quickly proved to be a mistake. The mage was quickly targeted by a group of muggers in the street and Scrum rushed in, more to protect the muggers than the mage. She quickly subdued the attackers, non lethally, to avoid the mage’s forthcoming spell and impressed him, mistaking her intentions to be to protect him, strengthened by the Crownsguard uniform she was wearing. The mage, Von Qin, thanked Scrum and appreciated her valor. Politely, Scrum excused herself.

Her Faith

Bladegarden also gave Scrum an introduction to Melora, the Wildmother, a deity worshipped quietly on the outskirts of Bladegarden, due to worship of her being forbidden in the Empire and frowned upon by the Rexxentrum citizens that lead the Crownsguard trainees. During her training, Scrum became more and more disillusioned with the Crownsguard and the Empire itself, and spent more time in Melora’s temple: a greenhouse sanctuary in the center of the farmlands surrounding Bladegarden. Speaking with the high priest there, Scrum became a fairly devout follower of Melora and, after three months of training, she left the Crownsguard without a word, and returned to her family’s farm, not as a member of the guard, but as a paladin of Melora, intent on bringing her faith and protection to her farm.

Serving the Assembly

The next two years were happy ones. Scrum oversaw the installation and training of their own guards on the farm, protected her family, and ramped up production and distribution again. Then, the war began brewing. With it came the return of Von Qin, who arrived on the farm with an escort and a letter from King Dwendal himself, conscripting her into service as the leader of Qin’s personal guard. With no choice, Scrum left the farm again to serve the Cerberus Assembly.

The next year was spent moving all over the Zemni Fields with Qin as he began to establish bases for the Empire’s army, the Righteous Brand, and moved more Assembly resources into strategic points to fortify the Empire against the Kryn Dynasty. As the leader of his protection, Scrum was always close to Qin, and soon endeared herself to him and was eventually invited into meetings for strategizing and protection purposes as Qin met with other Assembly mages to fortify their defenses. It was in this period that Scrum met Katerina Petrova, the leader of protection for Marcus Arralyn, an archmage in the Cerberus Assembly. Katerina was an…interesting individual, fully committed to the Empire, and saw Scrum’s skills as a bit of a threat to her position, which leads to a little bit of playful banter whenever she and Scrum encounter each other.

As Scrum travelled with Qin, she became more and more aware of their plans and realized that the Cerberus Assembly was working to start a war with the Kryn, rather than avoid it. To do this, they have secured something called The Luxon Beacon, which Marcus Arralyn is currently experimenting on. It becomes common knowledge among the guards that the Beacon is a catalyst of the Kryn’s power, which Marcus believes can be adapted into both a catalyst for arcane power, boosting and strengthening the arcane magic of the Cerberus Assembly, and a weapon of mass destruction, assuming they can unlock the energy signature. Once that happens, the plan is to unleash the WMD in Rexxentrum, blaming it on the Kryn, to start a full on war.

Defecting from the Assembly

With a war in full effect, Rexxentrum would be a primary target of the enemy armies, with the fallout even from this initial attack stretching beyond the streets of Rexxentrum and threaten her family’s farm. With this realization, Scrum decides to remove the Beacon from play, planning to steal it and run. The opportunity presents itself when the mages are called to Gwarda, where one of their own is captured by the Menagerie Coast‘s Zhelezo guard, who have no love for the Empire. They head there to represent him in a trial while attempting to keep their allyship with the Menagerie Coast, leaving their guard in the city to watch the objects and arsenal they brought with them.

Seizing the opportunity, Scrum talked her way past the guards the report to her and gained access to the room where the Beacon was held, only to find Katerina Potrova already there, with the same idea. Unable to reconcile their reasons for being there in the moment, Scrum and Katerina struck an uneasy alliance to steal the beacon together, talking their way through as much as possible, but relying on Katerina’s skills as an assassin to get them out when the negotiations inevitably failed.

Together, the two newly minted criminals absconded into the Siltbasin Pass, headed to meet a fence in Tussoa that Katerina has already set up a meeting with.