Background

Each of the player characters was adopted, at some point in their childhood, by Orda Illustre Aht-Ra, an organized crime syndicate in Kasmir.

1. Soriana is a gnomekin, orphaned at a young age and under mysterious circumstances. Despite her gnomekin heritage, she is mafia through and through. In addition to planning heists and other operations for Orda, she is a skilled Crystalomancer.
2. Elysia's parents were exiled Tanasian merchants. After capture by slavers and subsequent escape into Kasmir, she earned a living as a petty thug. She came to the attention of Orda, who made her a bodyguard. Does she know what happened to her parents?
3. Vrelos Kallibaritt is the son of a travelling Sindarin merchant. His father died (presumably) under mysterious circumstances in Kasmir, so he was forced to live on the streets. He was taken under the wing of a criminal, who taught him to be a cat burglar, and later inducted him into Orda, who put him to work spying on the Old Houses.

A few years ago, the everpresent tension between Orda and the Kasmiran Old Houses erupted into a full blown mob war. What led up to this? The victory for the Old Houses was swift and decisive. Nearly every member of Orda was slain, including Elysia's lover, whom she was employed to guard. The PCs escaped to a safehouse on the edge of Kasmir, but were unable to contact any other survivors.

To escape, they would not only need to leave Kasmir, but they would need new identities, as the influence of Kasmir's Old Houses extends well beyond Kasmir's borders. They began heading west toward Cymril. Fortune smiled on them when they happened upon The Crystal Eye, a group of travelling private investigators with a similar make-up as the party. They followed them along the road for some time, debating whether they should stoop low enough to kill these innocents. But the investigators were ambushed and slain by bandits. The group took this opportunity to steal the identities of the investigators, then set up shop as private investigators in Cymril.