Tlalli was born thirty-one years ago in the Mwangi jungle, in a lizardfolk tribe that made it's home near the Kurka Swamp, which is cut by the Vanji river. As her clutch mother told her later, she got her name, "Earth" in Lizardfolk, because her egg was half-buried in the ground when she went out of her egg.



She grew, played, and fought with her own clutch mates as a child - due to low temperatures during the incubation, the whole clutch was female. As young Tlalli hit puberty (at the rough age of ten), she started to forage for the tribe, as all tribe members should do such. And then she started to hunt, still barely out of puberty. As she started proving her worth to her tribe, it appeared she had a knack for fighting together with others - one that made her proud, and desiring a position of leadership even, but she lacked the presence to lead well. However, it was clear to the elders she had a mind for *tactics*, so once she was an adult, she was eventually moved to leading a small hunting party.



She hunted not only for sustenance, but also her tribes's intelligent foes, such as attempts from the Aspis Consortium to encroach on their lands (or raids on Nightfall or Whitebridge Station, their main outposts in this savage land) or Ekujae war parties when war actually broke out, which was seen as exceptional, considering both the elves and the lizardfolk usually understood that peace was the better option for both of them.



Two years after her adulthood, she wanted a better position in her tribe. For this, Tlalli came into conflict with the tribe's leaders, and the male elder - lizardfolk society being inherently patriarchal. They eventually convinced her (along with some posturing, shows of power, and subtle threats) that she held an esteemed position - hunting leader - and that she would help the tribe better by keeping her position. They did also remind her that her presence was not enough to lead. Faced with this evidence, the young upstart eventually accepted her position.During the following years, her small hunting party became a team of five, where three were some of her clutchmates, and two were younger males from another clutch.



At the same time, she started looking for mates. Lizardfolk courtship was mostly females trying to impress males (mostly due to females being more numerous), with the occasionnal role reversal, and so she did try her best to impress one, with tales of prowess at hunting and war against their enemies. And she did. Though it was only temporary, and only to have children - romantic love was unknown to her kind.



And so she had five children, during the years that she was in her tribe. One died in it's infancy by a particularly cold night - that night she understood the feelings of hopelessness and despair. The four others... she saw three grow out of infancy successfully, two males and one female, and one was stolen by predators and never seen again.



It was the tribe's custom, as with most lizardfolk tribe, to raise children communally, under the clutch mother's influence. So when the clutch mother took more and more responsability over her children, she... felt resentment. Why could she not raise her own children by her own ? So again, she fought off the influence of the clutch mother, the very same that raised her when she was a hatchling. Likely, maternal instincts and pride clashing - but tradition was against her. The clutch mother eventually won, and took her children away from her exclusive care, and Tlalli's inner turmoil (and distrust of her triber's authority figures) grew bigger.



She was once ordered to go down the river to attack an outpost of the Aspis Consortium. However, they were too well defended. She was split from her party, and panicking, she was dealt a powerful blow. Fell into the water, and left here as food for the crocodiles - how ironic that such a revered creature in her culture would end up eating her, she thought just before she struck the water's surface and unconsciousness took her.



And that's exactly what happened. She woke up in a crocodile's jaws, being pulled to certain death. She played dead first in an effort to appear harmless, then surprised the crocodile with sudden ferocity. She did end up gouging one of the croc's eyes with a claw. Though his prey was wounded too, the crocodile fled, leaving her alive but wounded. However, the adrenaline rush soon faded, and the croc's bite wounds took their toll - she fainted again.



She woke up bound, but with her injuries summarily healed, on a strange mechanical craft (what she learned later would be a "paddle boat", powered by magic and simple engineering) going down the Vanji River, along with some warmbloods. Well, this was better than not waking up at all, she thought. Her first instinct was to struggle - but she was still weak and the ropes were strong. And the boot of a captor also stopped her.



She learned some fragments of the human language her captors spoke, and eventually realized she was to be sold as a servant to her old foes, the Aspis Consortium. She bid her time to prepare her escape, and attempted to deceive her captors into trusting her. And she was good at it. Slowly, they started to think she was harmless - although they still kept her bound.



Her salvation came almost one week after her capture, when an Ekujae war party ambushed the paddle boat. Her captors distracted, she simply hopped in the water, and while her feet were bound, those humans were underestimating the lizardfolk's feet ability to swim. She kept in the water for some time, safe from detection, as the boat moved forward. Then surfaced next to the edge of the river - she was safe. But still bound. So she crawled on the shore, found a  sufficiently hard rocky outcrop and banged on her fetters for some time. Dangerous, maybe - but better to be able to move than be bound, and she had to accept the risk of being discovered. Luckily, she wasn't, and after some hard labor, she was now free

.

And those jungles were her home. While she had no tools or weapons or safe shelter, she had her claws and feet, wood, leaves and stones to craft some simple tools and weapons, and years of experience in surviving the jungle. She hunted and thrived, this time alone, and then decided to go back home, but-



This was not to be. She hated the communal raising. She was already known as a troublemaker in her tribe. Wanted to care for her own eggs, wanted to nurture her own children. Had them taken away from her. She realized she would get in trouble with the clutch mother again - or someone else and wouldn't win. She couldn't go back to her tribe. While it indeed tore her apart to leave her children, she knew the tribe would take good care of them. And well, leaving willingly would be better than fighting every time for her children's care - a fight she couldn't wind and the eventual exile or ostracism would be worse than not leaving. Leave, maybe find another tribe, or found one.



Besides, those warmbloods she met were... so strange. So alien. Very selfish, always thinking of the self before the group. But yet all she knew was lizardfolk society - she was curious about their race, even though she dreamt of their throats gripped in her teeth and her freedom. Their individualism  was almost infectious, one of the influences that made her leave, too.



So she travelled down the Vanji, and eventually settled into the town of Bloodcove, where she had her first real glimpse of warmblood society. The racism tinged with fear.. The very different culture, and the feeling of alienness.  Her first line of work was as a guard, her second as a hunter of beasts and a fisherwoman, and her third as a bounty hunter. Not unlike what she did in her tribe - she then knew she was a hunter, even in a completely different tribe, and she took pride in her work. Only occasionally questioned the morality of her work - mostly when it was family tearing itself apart, or targeting children, her very lizardfolk sense of morals showing up in those sorts of situations. Why are you trying to kill a clutch mate ? Why are you harming your tribe's children ? Those she could not stomach.



And then three years after, one of the Aspis Consortium's own, one of the rare that survived the Ekujae attack years before, recognized her as an escaped slave. She realized this and took a quick decision. There was no fighting the Consortium in Bloodport. She was alone against many. Flee ! Live ! Leave everything ! her instincts told her.



She disguised herself, went to the dock as quickly as possible, and then asked trusted contacts here - how can I leave ? where can I be safe from a pursuer ?

Turns out there was a ship headed to Sandpoint. They told her it was far away from there, and a haven for people fleeing from powerful enemies. She used a good part of her hard-earned money - such a strange concept for a Lizardfolk at first, but she adapted during her years in Bloodcove - to buy passage to Sandpoint, and also anonymity.



And there she is, on the docks of Sandpoint. Such a strange town. So very different from the pirate and crime-ridden Bloodport. But during the voyage, she listened to warmblood gossip, and it said said, they had "adventurers", a strange concept at first, but well... it didn't seem that different from her hunts. And if she could prove that she could become a hunter as good as some of the ancestor spirits she worshipped - maybe it was worth it. Yes... it was. She would come to Sandpoint, and prove to her ancestors that she was a hunter.



(Bringing her at level 3 with GM XP, backstory experience has been adjusted for that.)