Caim the Blacksmith

Caim was born to a peasant woman and the village Blacksmith, his future was pretty much set. Taking after his father from a young age Caim soon found himself learning the art of smithing and helping out about the forge, through that work Caim soon met a wide range of people as they came to purchase metal goods from his father but none were so interesting as the ancient man known as Herodotus.

Herodotus worked as an alchemist and historian; he claimed to have come from a far away land that no longer existed and his house was crammed to the rafters with books and bottles and herbs and things. Though often the subject of nasty rumours and fear from many of the townsfolk Caim found something in the cynical old man that greatly amused him and the two rapidly became friends. Soon Herodotus was tutoring Caim in ancient languages, imparting tidbits of his extensive knowledge and even letting Caim wander about and learn from the extensive collection of tomes and scrolls he had amassed over the years. Caim responded by hungrily devouring this knowledge and hunting for more, the young boy soon began to launch 'expeditions' as he called them into the maze of shelves that occupied so much of Herodotus' house and it was on one of these so called expeditions that Caim discovered the Tome of Binding.

Written ages ago by an outcast group of heretics who had discovered that there is a place beyond even the gods, the Tome of Binding described how to contact these Vestiges and how they would grant power in exchange for binding to the summoner's soul for 24 hours. Given the reality that Caim soon discovered it is a good question to wonder how exactly Herodotus had overlooked the book; he had enough knowledge to decipher its contents and he would have known not to leave such dangerous texts simply lying around where any young boy could find them, a question to which the answer may never be known. Either way Caim took the book and returned home to study its fascinating contents further.

Astonished at the world the Tome described, Caim resolved to test its theories late one night and tried to summon forth a Vestige. The fact that the process worked was almost as terrifying as the apparition before him but with time and practice Caim soon discovered the many benefits he could reap from the deals with these strange echoes of legends.
Years later when Caim was in his teens, the Witch Hunters came for Herodotus. They dragged the old man out into the street and burned his home to the ground while sentancing him to be burned at the stake. Caim attempted to intervene during the execution but found his legs unable to move and his mouth unable to shout as the voice of the old wizard suddenly swept through his mind. They will only kill you too. I am old and tired of living young Caim, it is time I go to my rest.
The crowd cheered as Herodotus burned, all except for Caim who simply wept in silence. Herodotus himself made not a single sound as the flames consumed him, thus further damning him in the eyes of many.

And that probably would have been the end of it had Caim not also had a chance to peek inside Herodotus' head for the brief moment that he had made contact. There Caim had learned that the hunters truely sought the Tome he had hidden and had burned the house and Herodotus in anger after he proved unable to produce it. Caim knew that when someone eventually found out about the Tome that the villagers would be no less glad to see him burn for dark magic than they were to watch a crippled old man.

So Caim did the only thing he could do; gathering all he could and taking his father's old Greatsword from his militia days, Caim fled his home with the Tome in hand and decided to travel as far away as he could go.

For how long Caim worked as a travelling smith he could not say; the days soon blurred into weeks which blurred into months which blurred into years. No longer the gangly youth he had been when he had first met Herodotus nor the awkward teen that had watched the old man burn, Caim was now a full grown (if young) man with a heavy build and powerful muscles shaped by his work at the forge. As he travelled he had learned that while smithing could cover the day to day costs no-one was willing to trust a strange young man with any expensive work and Caim soon found himself struggling to have enough money to supply himself with raw materials for work.
So Caim added a layer to his disguise; finding an appropriate sigil within the Tome Caim forged himself a small amulet of iron and began to style himself as a priest or acolyte. Using this simple trinket Caim pretended to be a wandering priest of Oghma in his craftsman aspect and suddenly found that men were much more willing to pay for more complex and expensive work.

But smithing alone was not enough for Caim; though he enjoyed the forge Caim felt that he wanted more. He wanted to see the world and become rich and perhaps most importantly of all he wanted to be safe from the Witch Hunters who had killed his friend.
To that end Caim began to search for points of conflict and areas that were troubled. There he could always find customers willing to pay the best prices as well as men and women who would be willing to pay sometimes exorbitant amounts of money to bash a goblin or two on the head or hunt down a wolf that had been terrorizing some sheep. Caim soon discovered that it was the dirtier jobs that involved angry goblins or angrier orcs that paid best and with his father's blade and a little help from the Vestiges Caim slowly began to do less and less smithing and more and more 'adventuring' (including but most definitely not limited to outright theft.)

In the last few months Caim has been travelling to Eliador for he has heard many rumours surrounding the place and it sounds like there should be ample opportunities for profit there, so long as he is careful of course.