PC Tabaxi Ranger Hunter Conclave D&D 5E

Footsteps Along His Father’s Path

Bio

I’m Not a Kitten

Footsteps, as with many Tabaxi, was born to a small nomadic clutch of cat folk who took residences in the southern regions of the content. The temperate weather systems, bountiful hunting, and easy land to farm was ideal for the community. They dealt in simple barter with neighboring communities, mostly trading in pelts and meats harvested from local hunts.

Footsteps mother fell ill and died when he was very young. His father was one of the tribe’s premier scouts and hunters, and was frequently away from camp, on the outskirts, hunting for the game that would feed the people or sell at market. Because of this, his father - Moon Rising Against The Trees - was rarely at the camp. When he was there, Footsteps would follow him everywhere, staying tight and asking for stories of the forests and jungles beyond their borders. Hence his name.

Before too long, Moon Rising began to take Footsteps with him on the hunts. These hunts weren’t particularly dangerous, usually restricted to game animals like elk or deer or the sort. As such, they presented good opportunities for Footsteps to learn the trade of huntsmanship, with relative low risk. He didn’t do well at first, struggling to find a balance between his natural curiosity and the requirement for a hunter to be quiet and still. Nonetheless, through sheer trial and error and experience, young Footsteps soon learned to track animals through the wilderness without drawing their attention. As he entered his teenage years, he even learned to fire a bow, and began to actively participate in the hunt with his father.

They were an impressive pair, often bringing in numerous pelts or prized game that would keep the village fed and stocked. When the tribe of nomads would move, Footsteps and Moon Rising were often the two that scouted ahead to find new locales and new landing.

Father and Son, Hunting In the Woods

In his late teens, Footsteps and Moon Rising went on one such expedition to find a new part of the forest to hunt. During their travels, they were assaulted by a forest troll. The creature caught ahold of Moon Rising and dealt him a grievous wound. Footsteps attacked with his bow, and Moon Rising slashed away with his blade, but the Troll seemed unphased. Footsteps, safe in his hunting perch, let fly with each arrow he had. Yet none fell the beast, and within moments, Moon Rising was dead.

Footsteps spent many nights trapped in the hunting perch above, while the troll milled about below him. It became a game of patience. The troll wanted Footsteps to climb down. And Footsteps was unwilling to do so until the Troll left.

A group of humans came, and felled the Troll on the sixth day. They did so easily, using fire to burn the troll and eventually to kill it. Footsteps came down, relieved. The humans fed him, cleaned him up, and took them to their nearby camp. Footsteps told them about his tribe, about the death of his father, and promised to report the good deeds of the band of humans for a reward.

The leader of the band, a woman named Ren, was adamant that her group were also nomads, and that the Tabaxi and Humans would do well to trade and learn from one another. She explained about their practices of hunting trolls, and how they were wounded by flame or fire. It seemed, Ren and her people knew a lot about felling monsters of the wild, and she shared some rudimentary knowledge with Footsteps over the camp fire.

Betrayal

The next morning, Footsteps led Ren and her people back to his tribe.

Ren quickly showed her true colours. Her men fell in on the camp, looting supplies and killing those that stood against them. Footsteps, having led them here, turned quickly on them to defend his people. But Ren herself attacked him, driving a dagger deep into his chest and kicking him down a nearby hill to die. Footsteps, too wounded to climb back up the hill, screamed and roared until his voice was horse and he’d lost too much blood. He blacked out.

In the morning, he awoke to chaos. The camp was burned. There were bodies, but many of them were missing. Ren’s people had taken his tribe as captives.

Footsteps spent weeks unsuccessfully trying to track Ren and her tribe. While he had become a talented tracker, he wasn’t adept at keeping their speed. His emotions soured him, and he wasn’t able to focus. Whenever he got close, he’d learn he was just a day or three behind. The wounds he suffered when she betrayed him kept him off his game, and he wasn’t able to truly track them with any success.

Before long, he stumbled on a poisonous forest demon. It writhed and lashed out at him. He remembered stories of these creatures from Ren’s campfire, and used the information she provided to fell the beast.

Here he was in the forest, tracking Ren, and yet using the information she’d provided to keep himself alive. Footsteps realized that the world was full of creatures he knew nothing about. And furthermore, he realized he would not be able to catch up with seasoned nomads and hermits like Ren’s tribe.

Resignation and Dark Times

Footsteps fell in to the nearest city. There, he began thieving, hoping to quickly generate money to buy information or to recruit mercenaries or hunters to pick up Ren’s trail. He wasn’t adept in cities, and was quickly caught. The city guard locked him in the stockade on many nights, usually for petty thievery or banditry. While Footsteps never committed any violent crimes, his petty crimes meant he spent the better part of a month in and out of a local cell.

Before long, though, his prey came to ground. Ren and her people arrived in Waterdeep, presumably to sell something. Footsteps caught wind of this, and with malice and fury, promised to slit Ren’s throat and learn what she’d done with his tribe.

As he lurked in the shadows, ready to strike, he learned something terrible. Ren had sold off his tribe to slave ships and local criminals. They’d been separated into dozens of different places, each of them sold for a different need or purpose. If Footsteps were to kill Ren now, he’d never learn where they all were. They’d be lost to lives of servitude and shackles.

School of Hard Knocks

Investigation wasn’t Footsteps forte. Weeks became months, which in turn became years. At every chance, when Footsteps caught wind of Ren’s crimes or potentially the location of his tribemates, he was unable to capitalize on the information. Again and again he was stymied, either by his own incompetence, his exuberance, or even by sheer fate. Ren continued to slip through his grasp for years. His focus was too much on Ren, and as such, his own life suffered. He lived for years on the streets in the poor district of town, hanging with gangs and with other rabblerousers.

Time and again, he slipped out of Waterdeep to the surrounding wilderness, to hone his skills and keep himself sharp. But all the while, he sought Ren, looking to kill her and find where his tribesman had been sold to.