Hello my name is Nyash, the most miserable, misbegotten son of a
orcen mother that ever walked the face of the earth.
Now when most people say misbegotten, it is a figure of speech. But for me, this is the literal truth. I was the unfortunate result of rape. My poor sweet orc of a mother found herself behind the lines of a battle with the humans, and was raped by a human male, who apparently lost control of himself at her loveliness. The humiliation! (For my poor mother) Obviously no real male orc would be interested in taking her for his own after such shameful weakness, in spite of her great beauty. Especially when I was always around to remind them of her shame.
To her credit, she never did try to kill me, but she did have to resort to becoming a common prostitute to support us. This made me, the butt of many jokes from all the other young orcs, and I had to learn how to defend myself from a pretty young age, even more so than a normal orc would have to.
Life there was pretty miserable, and I don't want to talk about it anymore. So one night, while my mother was "entertaining" a client, I went and stole his double axe, and took off. Having to hide almost every day from the bullies, it was not too hard to elude this orc, who was pretty much in an alcoholic stupor. It was the typical teenage runaway story, but I never went back. (The guy probably would have killed me if I ever would have think about it, I'm not stupid)
I wandered in the woods for a month or so, eating the usual grubs, insects, and occasional stupid rabbit, until I ran across a glade with an old man in it. I know how it sounds, but it really happened!
So anyway, this old man was surprised to see me, since he had the glade warded, and no one was supposed to find it. I did, and so he naturally assumed I was a sorcerer. It turns out that I wasn't a sorcerer, he just wasn't a terribly competent wizard. But I didn't find this out right away, I spent about 5 years with him, studying (mainly from his books) and learning how to work magic spells, along with how to mend socks, cook, clean, etc.
My last day with my mentor (who shall hereafter be referred to as "dickhead") occurred on the day of my greatest triumph. I had finally learned how to cast the "Mage Armor" spell, and dickhead gets all bent out of shape. It turns out that he didn't even realize he had the spell in his spellbooks, and was put out that I could do a spell he couldn't. After convincing him (with only a light blow, I don't think that killed him) that he should leave me alone, I grabbed a bunch of his stuff that looked useful, (or that I didn't recognize) and took off for Corsica.
Now, once I got to Corsica...