You might not ever have been a thief, for you had been
raised and trained from an early age to be a noble.
Until the fateful day when the caravan your master,
Gondastyr Gaerwing, and you were travelling in
was waylaid by a orc tribe, you were content that your place in
life was set. Suddenly, everything you believed in was proved
false. The treacherous noble you had put
your faith in sacrificed you in order that he might escape the
orcs. Though you managed to survive in your new role as a
captive of the orcs, you never again would trust
a noble.

You had grown up among the superstitious people in the backwater
mountains of Morrowind, and had believed that orcs
were demons or daedra, but you found the tribe to be suprisingly
civil. They needed a Dark Elf to interpret the books they
had found about the ancient orcish capital of Orsinium. As you
stayed with them and learned their language, you developed a
respect for their primitive but noble ambitions. Nevertheless,
you knew that you needed the society of other Dark Elf
people, so when the opportunity rose, you escaped.

Times were difficult all over Morrowind, but you found
that the dodging and shortblade-work skills you had
developed in the orc camp allowed you to be a fairly successful
thief. One night, while ransacking a nobleman's townhouse, you
came across correspondence between him and the former Imperial
Battlemage Jagar Tharn. You sold these to a contact you had in
town for more gold than you anticipated they would be worth.
You did not realize their full value until you received a
visit from Prince Voragiel in your room at the tavern.

He told you that Jagar Tharn had been magically impersonating
his father for the past ten years, and only recently had the
true Emperor been restored. Loyal subjects like you were rare
and the Emperor wished to thank you personally. You travelled
with Prince Voragiel to the Imperial City and
there you were presented to the Emperor. He was indeed very
grateful for your service and gave you a dagger wrought of ebony.
He also asked you for a favor.

Your father was the healer for a very small village
deep in the mountains of Morrowind. You
have few memories of your mother, a beautiful, kind
woman who taught you magic. You always will remember her
entertaining you for hours with tricks. Your favorite was
her casting a spell that made it impossible for you to speak.
The plague that took her was too strong for her or your
father to fight. It was her wish that you be trained in
the School of Restoration, and there you showed promise
exceeding your father.

As you grew, it was apparent that you had unusually strong
magical powers. Soon you were able to dispel sound from the air
yourself. You remember your father talking about an evil
Battlemage, Jagar Tharn, how it was known in his circle
that he had usurped the power of the land away from its
rightful ruler. No one dared to move against him.
He could ruin anyone economically who moved against him.
One day in your twentieth year, a courier arrived at your
house with the news that a powerful hero had killed
Jagar Tharn and restored the rightful Emperor to the throne.
Your tender-hearted father openly wept with joy at the news.

The courier also brought the news that there would be a great
celebration in Imperial City and that all the people who had
worked secretly to depose Tharn were invited. Once the
courier left, you asked your father if you could go to the
celebration. Your father turned to you and said
that it was time you made your own way in the world. He gave
you a bag of 100 gold pieces and a very unusual staff
and sent you on your way to the Imperial City and the
celebration.

After many days of travel, you approached the capital of the
realm, the Imperial City. You noticed a small band of
travelers only a short distance in front of you. As you were
about to hail them they were attacked by brigands who had
been lying in wait in the woods along the road. You rushed
to help the other travelers. As you approached one of the
brigands raised his short sword to strike you. In a natural
reflex, you tried to deflect the blow with the staff your
father gave you. As the sword struck the staff, a great bolt
of lightning erupted from it and both weapons shattered. The
brigands and the travelers all stopped and stared at you.
As the thunder subsided, the brigands ran back into the
woods. You were mobbed by the travelers who thanked you
profusely for saving them, members of the Imperial Family
who had been visiting in the country and were returning to
the Imperial City for the celebrations. They insisted that
you come with them to the palace and have an audience with
the Emperor.

The Emperor was very impressed by your bravery and knew
your family as loyal supporters of the Empire. He presented
you with an elven flail. The celebrations continued for weeks,
and the Emperor often called on you for informal talks.
When you were not in audience, you usually spent your time
talking and haggling with the merchants of the Imperial City.
One night you were called to the Emperor's presence in a
manner such that you knew the business was serious. He
met you in his study and there told you he had a favor
to ask.

When you were very young, your parents joined a group that was moving to the outskirts of the civilized area of High Rock to start a new village in the rolling hills. Your childhood was spent helping to do the mundane and grueling work required by this sort of venture. The physical hardiness inherited from your parents helped considerably in this regard, and you developed physically at an early age. You also showed some skill at axe fighting, and spent time with an elder of the village who had you practice methods of climbing varieties of [cut off, probably "surfaces"]

Your prowess grew as your warrior skills developed, supported by a ready grasp of axe fighting. Unfortunately, you eventually found that you had reached the limit of what you could learn in the rolling hills, so one day you reluctantly approached your parents. After much discussion and resistance, they grudgingly supported your request to travel to a fighting school to continue your training, cautioning you that you would have to support yourself during this time. Although saddened to separate from your parents and siblings, you were excited at the prospect of seeing some of the fabled civilization of Tamriel.

While at the fighting school, you worked after hours at various odd jobs. These included guard assignments and bouncer duty at a local inn, both of which additionally provided opportunities to polish your skills. You also became friends with an [sic] classmate named Sillte Alarkesen. When Sillte Alarkesen completed the training, you vowed to make regular visits to the Imperial City. However, your first trip to the Imperial City also included your first exposure to the distaste that some of the inhabitants and members of the court express toward someone of your physical presence and comparatively coarse manners. Your only compensation for this was the ready friendship shown by many of the Imperial Guard.

On your third visit to the Imperial City, you were looking for Sillte Alarkesen when one of the Guard told you that a small group of mercenaries, including Sillte Alarkesen, had been attacked and captured by suspected supporters of the former Imperial usurper, Jagar Tharn. Without waiting for reinforcements, you set off immediately. When you finally found the rebel encampment you hesitated because of the size of the outlaw band. You did not procrastinate for long. You used the natural cover of the woodland to your advantage and, one by one, you stalked your target and buried your hatchet in his chest. Luckily, just when even you were beginning to tire, some of the captives, led by Sahrazad Solnai, escaped their bonds and helped to finish off the remainder of the band.

Your group made its way back to the Imperial City, where you also enjoyed the congratulations of many of the Guard. And then shortly thereafter, you received a message from the Emperor himself.

You were born to a peasant family in a tiny village in
the forests of Valenwood. Your parents and older
brothers were hard workers, proud of their strength and
endurance. The only thing big about you was your appetite.
You were of an inquisitive nature. No cupboard, closet, or
drawer was safe from your prying eyes and fingers. You
left no traces, but still your father and brothers beat
you when they caught you. By the time you were eleven,
they no longer caught you. Your mother taught you
bargaining and running, but you had no other
schooling and wanted none.

Once, you climbed the wall of the local training ground
and spied on the young squires at practice. When
their equipment was left lying about you took it for your
own. In this way, you acquired a tanto and a dagger.
You also adopted a jacket shed by its owner and wore it
proudly about the village.

One day, you saw some village boys hurling stones and
insults at an old woman named Khafeliz Solbus.
Moved by an impulse you did not understand, you flung
rocks back at the boys. They laughed, but as you drew
near, they turned and ran away. You went back to
Khafeliz Solbus and offered to see her to her door.

"Come inside," Khafeliz Solbus said. "I have
something for you." Her cottage was just one room, with
cats and kittens everywhere. "Sit down," she said,
removing two cats from a stool. "I'm going to teach you
about locks and picks."

"Why?" you asked.

"The cats don't need training in locks,"
Belladyvyra Gaersmith said. "You do. Or will. No matter."

Thus your training began. Her hands could no longer
perform, but her mind was still efficacious. You and
Belladyvyra Gaersmith became friends, as well as
student and teacher.

On your sixteenth birthday, she told you that you must
leave. Your little village was too small for someone of
your talents.

"What of you?" you asked.

"I also must move on. Perhaps some day you will visit me
in the Iliac Bay? I would like that. Until then, I have
my memories and my cats."

On your way to the Imperial City, you stopped in an inn
and heard that the Emperor was to pass the next day.
Instead of sneaking into a room, you spent the night in
a tree beside the road. You wanted to see the Emperor,
later there would always be chances to
check out the pickings in the area.

The procession was very splendid indeed, but a nearby
rustle drew your attention. A black clad man was
crouching on a limb ten feet beneath you. You gasped
before you could stop yourself, and he twisted around,
bringing his bow to bear on you. With no time to draw a
weapon, you flung yourself at him, and together you
crashed down on the heads below, just as the Emperor's
carriage drew abriast.

Hands seized you roughly. You felt dizzy and a trail
of fire burned along your left arm. Poison! Then a white
robed elf muttered an incantation over you. Your arm
cooled and your head cleared. The Emperor himself thanked
you and gave you a dagger wrought of ebony.

The local folk treated you to drinks and food and
unaccustomed praise. Later you slipped away and found
that in addition to an ebony dagger,
the Emperor had handed you a note inviting you to share an
audience with him at the Imperial Palace. You set out
immediately.

Your earliest memories are of being hungry, cold and
alone. You never were able to find out who your parents
were, or how you came to be left to survive by yourself
in the city streets. You can recall only a few mental
scenes from your childhood. One of the more vivid ones
were finding a gold-filled purse on a corpse in
an alley. Much of your childhood was a daily struggle
simply to stay alive, and retain your few possessions,
and you can remember distinctly the time when
you decided nothing else mattered but gold.
As you got older, only a few people were able to
penetrate the shell that was forming around your
friendlier inclinations. The most significant of them
was Perina Theosar, who had just been accepted
to the city guards. At first, Perina Theosar
would bring you food and provide some weapons practice
and advice for you, but eventually she sponsored your
petition for acceptance to a novice warriors' school,
and provided a portion of the gold required as payment.
Then, after your training was complete, she was able to
get you a job as a guard for one of the many merchants'
caravans that criss-crossed Tamriel's roads and
provinces.

Over the next two years, you rented yourself to a
succession of these caravans, learning much of Tamriel
and its inhabitants. You also polished your
longblade skills with some actual fighting
experiences in the rougher and more unsettled portions
of the continent. You found it easy to transfer your
early self-defensive inclinations to the caravan as a
whole. Finally though, you decided to return to your
home city and seek out your friend Inge Hararsen.
You discovered, however, that she had likewise
progressed quickly, and had been invited to the Imperial
City to join a troop of the Imperial Guards. The trip
to the capital drained your funds, so you immediately
took a job there, working evenings at maintaining order
in one of the rowdier inns.

You made friends with all the regulars in the inn, but
your sympathy was won by a nervous, mute boy who kept
the bar stocked. He seemed so frightened and alone that
he reminded you of your own lonely childhood. When one
of the drunken regulars stuck the boy, you leapt to his
defense. The boy looked at you with such gratitude that
your heart almost broke. Then, a few days later, he
disappeared.

Months later, while you were helping restock the cellar,
you were called to the front door, and there was the boy
again. This time he was dressed in Imperial robes and
surrounded by escorts including Inge Hararsen.
The "mute" boy spoke in an unmistakably aristocratic
voice, "My name is Prince Trabbatus, son of the
true Emperor of Tamriel, Uriel Septim VII. When I was
in hiding, fleeing from the wrath of the usurper Jagar
Tharn, you befriended me and saved my life. Please
accept the greatest gift the Emperor can bestow, his
gratitude."

He also presented you with a summons from the Emperor
himself, who apparently had need of a champion such as
you. Perhaps your luck was finally beginning to change.