Urist isn't the name he was given by his mother when he was born — he never knew that name or the names of his family and clan.  Urist was named by a couple of guys making a gently racist joke.

The story he was told, is that he was found on the battlefield by a couple of mercenaries after a nasty engagement that had lasted weeks.  Although there were any number of dwarven corpses on the churned field that might have been his parents, there was nothing to tie him to any of them.  The mercenary company "adopted" him and, joking that all dwarves had the same name, dubbed him Urist.

This mercenary company, The War Orphans, was old and celebrated as mercenary companies go; sought by many nations not only for their prowess on the field, but also their name, as it suggested which side would be winning the war, thereby influencing alliances.  It was said The War Oprhans had nothing to lose, and fought accordingly.  As such, the company traveled most of the known world and was composed of people from almost all known races and cultures (not many of whom were orphans, despite the company's name).

Urist had "aunts" among the camp followers, and "uncles" among the mercenaries.  He was taught many words and customs from a wide assortment of peoples and cultures, but the only thing that stuck (besides Dwarvish, which he speaks with a strong un-Dwarven accent) was his training at arms.  He didn't excel in his martial training because he loved it, he excelled at it because combat was all he'd ever known.

At the tender age of eight he got his first chain shirt so he could run food, messages, and supplies between their camp and the fighting.  Later that year, he also got his first kill, but he can't remember exactly what it was he killed or the details surrounding it.  He only remembers one of the mercenaries giving him a hard time about being slow with lunch before seeing all the blood and then saying, "Well, guess it's time to teach you something about using that sticker."  His training began shortly thereafter and continued as time allowed for the next few years.

At 14, he became a proper member of the company, fighting with them for the next 29 years. Along the way, he lost most of the "uncles" and "aunts" he'd grown up with, but picked up his suit of Veteran's Scale Armor in a story that he would find much funnier if he hadn't nearly died for it.^1

His last engagement with The War Orphans was a bad bit of business.  The patron who'd hired them had been on the opposite side of an engagement with the Orphans decades earlier.  The Orphan's leadership was wary of taking a contract with this lord, but after long negotiations and much feasting, the contract was signed.

Urist had a bad feeling about the fight.  He didn't understand the nature of the conflict as well as he'd like.  He also wasn't as comfortable with the Orphans' newer leadership as he'd been in the old days.  They were more top-down, whereas the Orphans had always operated more or less on consensus — even camp followers were heard out when they had something to say back then.  Hell, Aunt Maji once singlehandedly kept them from taking what looked like a cupcake of a contract for a lord that turned out to be a genocidal madman.  That wouldn't happen now.

Many of the mercenaries were of a different caliber than they had been as well.  Urist suspected that many, if not most, of them had been brigands and worse; running to the Orphans just a step ahead of the king's men.  More and more often locals would come to them complaining of missing livestock, ransacked homes, banditry, ravaged daughters.  This never used to be a problem with The War Orphans.  Wasn't Urist raised to present himself as if he were representing all of them?  Didn't they pride themselves on being professional soldiers, not some group of cowardly opportunists?^2  They had always been careful to pay a fair price for everything they needed, and if a few daughters would turn up pregnant along the way, well, none ever said it was by force.

Still, these newer recruits fought well enough, and they were all in this together, right?

But Urist knew he'd been right to be concerned as soon as the fighting broke out.  When would he learn to _listen_ to that little voice when it piped up?  The Orphans' patron wasn't holding a position that made sense for fighting the opposing force, and indeed, they didn't.  When the fighting started, both sides of the fight fell on The War Orphans, and although both forces took heavy losses against the 'Orphans, it was plain who would walk away from the conflict and who would not.^3  Urist's platoon was ordered to hold the rear while the rest of the company fought a way out of the melee.  And hold the rear they did, long enough for the 'Orphans to force a hole in the encircling troops.  Once the hole presented itself, 'Orphans immediately fell back in a near rout.  Urist was so busy fighting for his life he didn't notice the rest of his squad abandon him to either make good their escape, or more often, get cut down in their tracks.  "Where'd all these assholes come from?" he remembered thinking to himself just before a horse in a cavalry unit riding down the escaping 'Orphans knocked him unconscious.

He heard them talking about armor distantly.  Armor?  Shouldn't they be talking about horses?  How much time had passed?  Maybe he could ask them, if he could remember how to move.  "That armor looks like crap I'll grant you, but it's better than what you're wearing, and a damn sight better than mine."  "Well, we can come back for it, if it's still here — we've got too much to carry as it is."  "'If it's still here,' as if he's going to go anywhere but a buzzard's belly." *chuckling* "You're right, let's go."  What seemed like forever later, Urist was able to open his eyes and look around.  The field was carpeted in dead soldiers of either side as well as The War Orphans.  Pitching aside the helmet with a perfect horseshoe dent in it, he looked about himself, but couldn't find his axe or shield.  His armor was full of cold mud, his head was killing him, his neck was stiff as a board, but he was alive.  Forty-odd years after he was found on a battlefield, he'd been reborn on another battlefield.

Urist had plenty of time to reflect on all the doubts he'd had about the engagement, and more importantly, about The War Orphans themselves, in the time it took him to get clear of the lands held by the 'Orphans betrayers.  He determined he'd only himself to blame for not being more critical of the soldiers who were supposed to have his back.  The War Orphans of old were no more, and from now on, Urist would have to be more careful in his selection of companions.  Working as a laborer, guard, and pest control specialist, he earned enough to replace his shield and axe with a little bit of coin to spare, but that wouldn't last forever.  "You know," he thought to himself, "those adventurers seem to have it pretty good.  A cave or two to fight your way through, and piles of coin at the end.  A couple months of that, and you're set for life.  I remember that one job where they said the guy we were working for had started out with nothing but a dagger and a leather hauberk seven weeks earlier and now he was sitting on the throne of his own keep.  Little group like adventurers have, it's easier to see if you're gonna get screwed, for sure.  But anyways, they're not gonna screw ya cuz they're a bucha amateurs.  They need some steel or they're not gonna make it to the pile of coin, let alone the keep.  Yeah, maybe I'll check into the adventurer thing.  Sounds easy."

 ^1 A war or two ago, his squad was moving to a position to the South to reinforce the client's position there when Urist had to stop to take a dump.  He'd been holding it for the better part of a day at that point, because of all the fighting, but when they were jogging through that quiet glade, nature put it's foot down.  It probably hadn't helped that Urist had broken his fast on the last of a boar they'd roasted four days earlier ("A little tangy, what's the problem?").

Needing to get to the fight asap, he told the rest of the squad he'd catch up in a minute, unbuckling his greaves as they trotted on.  The egestion was fierce and terrible — and lengthy.  He remembers thinking it had to be horrible if he himself couldn't stand the smell.  As soon as the sounds of his comrades faded, a battered squad of mixed humanoids slunk out of the brush heading away from the fighting.

Urist cursed his luck.  Here he was, squatting half-naked in the middle of a pasture cramping out what could only be a baatezu fishmonger.  He was heartened to see the humanoids bickering amongst themselves moving away from the fighting — in a moment, they'd be gone without having noticed him at all.  Then the wind shifted.

Suddenly assaulted with the stench of Urist's offering, the squad turned and spotted him, charging immediately.  Muttering a heartfelt prayer to Avandra, Urist barely had time to grab up his axe and shield before he had to battle for his life naked from the waist down.  Finally, when the last (the bugbear leading them) slumped to the ground, Urist found that his greaves had been stomped into his latrine in the fighting.  Preferring blood to filth, he took the bugbear's own serviceable (and quietly magical) armor and loped brokenly to catch up with his squad.

 ^2 Urist could remember the time one of the local farmers came running toward the camp crying that her son had fallen down the well and wasn't responding, please please gods could someone help?  Urist remembered that Tomn "The Giant," as the halfling 'Orphan was known, grabbed Urist and made a beeline to the well.  Tomn hopped in the bucket, and told Urist to lower him down.

Urist was dumbfounded — knew how scared Tomn was of water.  The 'Orphans used to joke that his stench made up for his size, as he'd only bathe where there were small enough pools for him to handle, and those were very small and far between.  Urist could see the terror in Tomn's eyes when he told Urist to lower him down; he could feel the old rope trembling as he spooled it out.  When the bucket got to the bottom, Tomn, nearly hysterical, called for Urist to pull the bucket up quickly, but it was lighter, not heavier.

When Urist got the bucket out of the well, only the boy was inside, and his color wasn't good.  Knowing a little about fluid in the lungs, Urist went to work on the boy, eventually rousing him.  The boy's parents were radiant with relief and gratitude, but in the well, Tomn was begging for Urist to lower the bucket.  As Urist played out the rope, the sounds of water thrashing that had been constant became softer.  Tomn's shouts became gargles.  Still, when the bucket hit bottom, he felt Tomn grab onto it.

Hauling it up now with the help of the farmer and a couple of 'Orphans that had arrived, the rope snapped only a yard or two from the mouth of the well.  There was a great racket as Tomn and the bucket fell all the way back down the well, and then silence.  One of the 'Orphans ran back to camp, while Urist threw a knot on the frayed end of the rope and lowered himself down the well.  A few yards down, however, the well became too narrow for Urist, and the people at the top had to pull him out.  "Poppa" Capp, one of the gnome sappers had been brought from camp, and he was tied to fresh rope they'd brought, and the now huge crowd of 'Orphans lowered him into the well.

When Capp was hauled up, it was with a broken Tomn The Giant in his arms.  Tomn's head had cracked against the wall as he'd fallen, probably about where Urist got caught.  Whether the blow killed him, or whether he drowned, they never knew, but they did know he'd not hesitated to do something he was terrified of to save a child he'd never known.  Urist still remembers Tomn's sacrifice as the most profound act of bravery he's ever seen or heard of.

 ^3 From what he could gather in the time after the rout, Urist believes that the lord who'd hired them had nursed his grudge for years hoping to take revenge for The War Orphans' part in his defeat.  The declining standards of the Orphans' members, coupled with the arrogance of the 'Orphans leadership turned opinion against the 'Orphans amongst lords and commoners alike.  From this, the lord was able to forge an alliance with his neighbor to remove this dangerous mass of criminals from their lands in a manufactured conflict.