Skip Gallowson backstory
Born on a storm tossed night, under the hangman’s tree, his fathers body swaying above as his mother falls into labour, Skip started off his life in darkness. A darkness that would follow him, shape him, and do its best to break him.
His fathers name all but forgotten, Skip would be known by the omen of his fathers doom at his birth, eventually learning to accept it, and indeed take it as a name to shield himself from the pain.
The Gnome was a solitary figure during his youth, none of the village folk wishing their children to play with him, his very presence deemed a bad tiding, he learned to exist by himself, stalking the nearby woods and forests, hunting to feed himself and his mother.
Returning to his home in the dead of night, a brace of pheasants from a successful hunting slung over his shoulder, the coppery tang of spilled blood, the stink of fear sweat and the ripe stench of death assailed his nostrils. Creeping into the village, he found the entire population, gathered in the village square, fallen, their entrails spread about, blood seeping between every inert body. At the head of the crowd, a body he knew, tied to a stake and blindfolded, sagged against its bonds, eviscerated, it’s life blood pooling at her feet, his mother was dead.
Pushing down the fear he felt, Skip took his first step into blending with the shadows, drew his short bow, waiting, for the beast to reveal itself. When dawn broke, and no beast with it, Skip cut down his mother’s body and buried her. With nothing but a spit and a curse for the remains of the rest of the village, he gathered his meagre belongings, looting the villagers homes and, grimly, their bodies and left, attempting to track the beast that destroyed his kin.
Skip would find himself in the lowest parts of the towns and cities he would visit, learning the arts of theft in order to feed himself, selling small stolen trinkets and occasionally jewels to the local fences.
Even building on his underworld knowledge and contacts, Skip would never find much information about his mothers, and the villages, deaths. He did sometimes hear about other, mysterious mass murders, and investigated them from afar, the thirst for knowledge tempered by the knowledge that city watches and country sheriffs had no love for the burgeoning thief.
