Real backstory: Palladas grew up in Sventeim, in a lower-middle-class family. He was born a tiefling of no fault of either of his parents; the blood entered the family somewhere within the far past, and he bore the misfortune of reaping its misfortune. He was also  blessed, in a way; he had remarkably few tiefling traits, allowing him to blend in well enough with his family should he don a robe and take care to file his horns down daily. His infernal heritage lent to him a propensity for the finer arts; as he was more comfortable with Infernal as his language, when he wrote he tended to write in Infernal and only later translate it to Common. Resulting from this, however, his writings hit home for very few people. This both bothered him and suited him well; he enjoyed this because he hated it when people would force themselves around him, but bothered because he wanted his work to be world-renowned, and to allow his family relief from the suffering that comes with financial instability and several children. Through his work he met Nossis, a carefree hermit sort who also wrote. Over the years the two of them grew to be close friends; while they both had many secrets of their own, they had finally found someone who understood that isolation wasn't an attack on the other's character but rather a personal preference. At times they would write together; they had a way of being able to satirize near anything, and this they did. They wrote about the abuse of magic, they tore into the government, they attacked military action, and tentative peace between warring lands. While they knew this could have consequences, they both believed themselves too small to warrant any repercussions. Through this writing they began to build up a small following; Palladas grew more comfortable with himself and stopped filing his horns, instead embracing his infernal heritage. After atime, however; one of the organizations criticized by the duo took exception to their actions. After Nossis had gone several weeks without contacting Palladas, Palladas grew worried and went to investigate, only to find a cold body with a knife in its back. Palladas, not the type to slip into a fit of rage, gathered his belongings and gold, pawned off what he could, purchased a spell tome, and decided he had to jump town. But in order to do so without being followed, he knew that he had to do something drastic; at the dock, where he very rarely travelled, he got into a fight with some shiphand and "was mercilessly thrown" into the depths below. He snuck into some embarking vessel, and fled. As a stowaway, many ideas crossed his mind, but one thing was certain: he had to figure out who or what group killed Nossis, and completely and utterly destroy them from the ground up.