Favored Jewel

History

• Biography

  When one is born on the Spine, the third of five siblings when your family can barely feed one, you grow up hard. Jewel’s mother died young, her father a cold, brutal man obsessed with his ‘duty’ of protecting the world from the dead. He made sure his children were obsessed with it as well, forcing them to grow up fast and hard as stones, only feeding them when they could satisfy his obsession with raising the strongest and most vicious children to replace him at his endless vigil against the forces of ‘evil’. Each of the children fought every day for each scrap of food they were given, becoming as cold, brutal, and feral as their father desired. Jewel remembers the day her eldest brother crushed her sister’s skull with a rock… her father said nothing, only smiled and gave the boy another biscuit.
  
  When she was thirteen, half-starved and all wild, a troupe of mercenaries passed through the village, bearing the standard of a dagger on a black sun. The leader of the troupe witnessed Jewel fighting with her brothers over a small morsel, and praised her tenacity. The mysterious leader offered her three square meals a day… if she would only swear loyalty to Omni Terminat, the mercenary troupe. Jewel leapt at the chance to leave her hardships behind, and swore on the spot to serve, if only to get away from the abuse and starvation.
  
  She trained for years before becoming a full-fledged member of the mercenary troupe, and her induction was a short, quiet celebration. Alongside the woman who saved her, Jewel fought loyally and viciously for Omni Terminat’s client, the Garlean Empire, as she promised. She earned a reputation for being unbreakable, the wall upon which waves of enemies would crash and fall, and a reputation for brutality rivalled only by that of the leader of the mercenary company. She also squirrelled away every cent she was given in wages, desperate to never be in a situation where she would be hungry again.
  
  Late one night, she sang a sweet melody to the gods, while looking up at the stars. One of her fellow mercenaries overheard, and told her that someone with a voice like hers didn’t need to bleed for a living. It was a shattering revelation… she’d never known anything else, and had no idea another life was possible. Soon after, she retired from the mercenary troupe, used the coin she’d saved to travel far from the Empire to a place she wouldn’t be recognized, and began earning her living through song. In Ul’dah, she met V’roah Tia, a miqo’te bard, and formed a small band. Today, they play whatever venue will have them, always on the lookout for the next gig.