Tek’relith’wer’kel’ranth

Tek was born aboard the gnomish merchant/illicit cargo hauler Gravel Wave. The Gravel Wave specialized in the fact that the various powers across Menallia often require certain goods that they would rather obtain in a discrete fashion. The Gravel Wave in particular specialized in obtaining and delivering magical weaponry to assorted customers of every make and alignment (the exception being groups with open hostilities to gnomes). Obtaining was the specialty of the Gravel Wave, in particular obtaining from organizations that would rather not sell. This would break down into either sending a group of thieves to quietly obtain the item in question up to outright piracy when the risk of disclosure was negligible. Tek showed a gift for agility and possessed reasonable good intelligence so at a young age was teamed up with a mentor named Kil’Ovren’Wel’Cref’Jiv to teach him the ropes of obtaining goods without being detected. Playing into this decision was Tek’s lower than average charisma making him not the most natural of leaders and unlikely to be skilled at manipulating his way past custom officials. Under his mentor Kil, Tek learned how to get in and out of defended villas, mansions, and other hardened locations across Menallia’s coastal cities. These succeeded with reasonable success, only once requiring the Gravel Wind to sail early to avoid dealing with a large number of pissed off thieves after a botched attempt to obtain a gem or something from a guildmaster ended with the thieves’ guild along with half the warehouse district burning down. As Tek describes it this was the largely the fault of the wizards who were less then discriminate with their fireballs, however the remaining thieves view it otherwise. Combined with guild receiving virtually all the blame for the incident (the gnomes were viewed with suspicion but given the number of witnesses seeing guild wizards, providing more evidence why standardized uniforms for organizations of questionable legality is a bad idea, publicly torching the area combined with the guild being the easier target for a crackdown) did not help gnomish reputation. It also led to Tek being confined to the ship for the screw-up and did not endear him to the ship elders. While moored at a port close to Imperium territory the Gravel Wave’s elders received an offer. The request was a simple run to smuggle several magical spears to a Lady Treminend in Imperium territory, the eldest daughter of Lord Treminend. After dealing with three attacks by human pirates paid off by the remnants of the thieves’ guild, a run into Imperium territory would at the very least put an end to what was becoming a weekly annoyance. The elders also felt this would give Tek a chance to prove he could get the job done without leaving half a city in flames. By all accounts it was a basic delivery. Arrive at the meeting point in the Imperium city docks, obtain payment, and deliver the cargo. No need to intentionally antagonize anyone, the primary threat being potential betrayal (lesson 1 instilled into every gnomish child-don’t trust elves). Tek would oversee the transfer, Kil would provide backup with 4 others. The first sign that something was wrong was when the contact failed to show. The correct course of action would be to call the deal off and return to the ship but Tek instead made the call to wait. It became obvious this was a bad idea when the lightning bolts started to fly in. Lord Treminend personally arrived to prevent his daughter from buying the weapons. Tek took a blast and went down. Bleeding out he was saved by Kil dragging him from the building and patching him up while the rest of the gnomes were shredded by Treminend’s guards. Kil told Tek to get back to the ship and report what had happened. Tek made it back but Kil did not. The Gravel Wave broke anchor and set sail a few hours later before Lord Treminend could attack the ship directly. Faced with endangering the ship and now getting 5 crew mates killed, Tek was brought before the ship elders and was found guilty. At the next port Tek was exiled from the ship.