Character Profile: Ren Varadon

Spoilers for Ren’s backstory, but no spoilers for the major points of his character arc. If you want to go into his character arc completely blind, I suggest skipping this post.

This is an edited and re-vamped version of his character profile originally posted to Wayfarer’s World Anvil page. I’ve taken down the original post to make edits on it, so for now this is a Patreon exclusive.

Ren is native to the Undercity, Velantis’ hidden underbelly. The Undercity is located in a series of chasms that scar the western region of the peninsula. Kept separate from the rest of the city, the Undercity has long since developed its own culture, dialect and way of life.

Growing up in Velantis’ underbelly, Ren was one among many orphaned children who roamed the Undercity. By age ten he was the leader of the Black Foxes, a trio of street urchins who picked pockets and stole from nearby merchants. Ren’s magical abilities, which allow him to teleport short distances, made it very easy for him to slip in and out of target’s homes without being noticed.

The rest of the group was composed of his two best friends, Raven, a dwarven girl with a talent for manipulating emotions, and Ves, an abandoned Aeda. Together, the Black Foxes made a tidy profit that kept them fed, watered and sheltered.

Like many children of the Undercity, the Black Foxes were watched over by a mysterious human man known only as Uncle. Though Ren, Raven and Ves were self-sufficient, in many ways Uncle was responsible for keeping the children safe: protecting them when their angry marks turned on them and occasionally acting as an unintentional parental figure. However, it was not out of kindness or sentimentality that led to Uncle’s goodwill—he was an operative of the Erebian League and was studying the children’s potential.

When Ren was fifteen, Uncle approached the Black Foxes with an offer: join the Swiftmark chapter of the Erebian League and leave behind a life of poverty, or rot away in the Undercity forever.

Ren and Ves accepted. Raven did not.

Whisked away from the Undercity, Ren emerged onto the streets of Velantis and into true daylight for the first time in his life. He would spend the next six years apprenticed to Uncle, honing his skills as a thief and an assassin. He worked his way up the hierarchy, quickly rising through the ranks of the Swiftmarks. By the time he was made a fully-fledged member of the League, his services were sold to Velantian upper crust. The work was isolating, lonely and dangerous. The only solace he found was in Ves. As they had joined the League at the same time and had been through the same training and initiation, Ren and Ves felt a connection they hadn’t shared as children. They became lovers, though their relationship was strained by their work.

While Ves had cut the Undercity out entirely from their life, Ren would occasionally return to visit Raven, checking in on her from a distance. However, with the League watching, their relationship could never be the same as it was when they were children and Raven grew tired of how detached and one-sided their friendship had become.

For years Ren’s talents were used to place false information, spread lies and assassinate rivals. Uncle distanced himself from Ren as the years carried on, eventually shutting him out completely. When he confided his concerns in Ves, they dismissed them. Their loyalty was to the League and the Swiftmarks, first and foremost.

Pushed to the brink by Uncle’s rejection and his strained relationship with Ves, tired of being use by the League and the aristocracy, and utterly disgusted by the bloodshed he had caused on other people’s orders, Ren experienced a mental and emotional crisis where he questioned his entire life’s purpose.

The only path forward he could reconcile with was to remove himself from the organization completely. But the League doesn’t let its operatives go lightly.

After purposefully accepting and ruining a high stakes job, Ren was arrested by the city guard. Though it was within his abilities to escape, he allowed himself to be taken to the high-security prison off the Velantian coast.