Thimba backstory

Thimba Kawake was born in a city, unlike many of his tribe.  His father and mother were part of a small expedition sent to one of the trading posts.  His mother, a strong woman, was already pregnant when they left for the city, and when the time came to leave was finally too pregnant to make the journey back.  Several tribesmen elected to wait in the city for the birth, and it was uneventful.  Unfortunately, before the tribe could leave, the city was struck with a terrible disease that left its few living victims crippled.  Thimba was one of those surviving victims.  The tribe took the boy back to their cavern homes where the local shaman did his best to heal the child.  Realizing that damage had been done and the usual preventatives would not function, the shaman adopted Thimba, knowing that it would take a lifetime for him to recover.  Using the ancient knowledge of not one but two societies, the shaman was able to design a regimen of training excercises that, over time, restored the lad's strength.  Still, it wasn't until he was 16 that he could leave the cavern home and enter into the jungle proper.

Thimba turned out to be one of those who could commune with the spirits of the forest, something perhaps the old shaman had predicted.  When the old man passed, Thimba became the branch tribe's new shaman.  Using the wisdom and teachings passed down to him by the old shaman and supplemented with his own vast studies (what else would he do when he was resting in the cave?) he guided them wisely...until the sickness came again.  This time Thimba was untouched, but his entire branch tribe was exterminated.  Knowing the danger of the contagion, Thimba burned their home and left, rejoining the main tribal society at 25, a full year later, to ensure the disease was wiped from his flesh.

In the main tribe, the council was worried.  Seeing Thimba returned, they hoped he would be their answer-he already spoke well the language of the ancients, of the settlers, of the rest of the world.  Why not have him travel, to seek answers elsewhere?  And so it was that Thimba, at the age of 32 and after 3 years studying latin in the major cities of Nanwe, was sent to seek medicinal knowledge at the heart of the Holy Empire.

It has been a year since then.  Thimba has discovered some things, but not the outright cure he had hoped for.  When one of his contacts calls in a favour for a guide to Nanwe, Thimba agrees: Partial success now may be better than a cure when everyone is dead, after all.