Shaven’s backstory

Shaven was born to parents of a noble family. His parents were responsible for managing relations between different nations. They had much say in the government’s organization regarding diplomacy and their voices were always well received. They directly involved themselves in some of the more unsavory foreign affairs partaken by the state, including underhanded deals between rich countries, the extraction of resources and slave labor from nations of different races, as well as the establishment of the colonies themselves. Shaven, being the children of such parents, often got word of such activity, and though his parents were overjoyed at times from military and imperialist success abroad, there was always something that tugged at Shaven, something that may not have been right..
Shaven met his wife, Avis, when Shaven was 22. She was a ferocious woman with long flowing brunette hair, a heart of gold, and a sword that could kill a man in 126 different ways. Shaven found her outside a tavern in the inward outskirts of the major eastern port city. She was barely clinging to life, bloodied and bruised, so Shaven helped patch her up and took her in for a time, in secret. He found out she was a freedom fighter, fighting against the tyranny of the empire. She had been fighting with some empire soldiers on the port, trying to free a group of slaves being brought into the country. She just barely managed to get away but in the chaos, most of the slaves managed to escape from the soldiers. During the three months that they spent together, she told Shaven about the terrible conditions faced by people because of the empire, both within the empire and outside of it. Shaven was enthralled by her tales and began to become very skeptical of the empire. Eventually, he and Avis married in secret. He accompanied her on missions in secret sometimes, disguising himself using is charlatan skills as to never be discovered. One day, to Shaven’s regret, a group of empire soldiers managed to capture Avis during a mission. Shaven isn’t quite sure what happened, but through his connections, he heard from a guard captain that she had been violently killed and her body was thrown into the sea. The captain mocked her and her rebellion, forever leaving an imprint on Shaven’s mind. He went to the funeral, and out of grief accidentally let it be exposed that they were married. His parents banished him from his family and denounced him. He was allowed to stay in the empire only because his full connection to Avis and her work had not been discovered, but it was a topic of much debate. In the end, Shaven left to travel the world in order to deal with the grief he felt. Around him, through his travels with nothing but his clothes from the empire, he saw much suffering and plight that he’d never truly understood before from his place in the empire. Eventually, he made it to the colonies, and inspired by the loss he felt, as well as the treatment of the natives by the soldiers there, his revolutionary ideas were cemented in his mind, and he swore he would see the day that the empire would fall.