Early Life: A Debt Paid in Blood

Neni Jamjar was the younger son of Conrad Jamjar, a halfling farmer whose debts ran deeper than his fields. Years earlier, Conrad had crossed the Hornwood family, a powerful halfling criminal syndicate. His reparation? An arranged marriage: Neni’s older brother Wala would wed Allison Hornwood, the mafia patriarch’s daughter.

Wala accepted his fate with grace. Neni and Allison had always been close—so close that many suspected something more. But Neni never allowed feelings to cloud his sense of duty. He respected Wala too deeply and feared dishonoring the family further.

Then came the night everything shattered.

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The Death of Wala

It began like any other evening on the Jamjar farm—until the screaming started. Raiders, desperate and brutal, had come under moonlight. They overwhelmed the farmhands quickly and set the barn ablaze. Conrad barked orders to his sons: Wala would fight beside him; Neni, the younger, was to stay hidden and guard their little sister, Rosa, no matter what.

Terrified and shaking, Neni led Rosa into the house. He found a short sword hidden in their father’s study and clutched it like a lifeline. Doors were bolted. Curtains drawn. The flickering torchlight outside cast monsters on the walls.

Upstairs, shouting and the clash of steel. Then—footsteps. A door creaking open.

Neni crouched low in the corner of the room where Rosa trembled behind him. The handle turned. The door began to open.

Without thinking, driven by panic and the primal instinct to protect, Neni thrust the sword forward with all his strength.

The blade struck true… and the figure collapsed.

It was Wala.

His eyes widened in disbelief, blood already soaking his tunic. He reached for Neni’s shoulder—but said nothing. Just a look: confusion, hurt… and betrayal. Then he was gone.

By the time the rest of the family found them, the raiders had fled and the damage was done. Neni stood frozen in place, sword in hand, brother at his feet.

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The Disappearance into the Mystic Sanitarium

Neni confessed everything.

His crime may have been accidental, but justice—especially under the Hornwoods—does not forgive blood spilled. Allison Hornwood’s father, furious over the death of his future son-in-law, called in a quiet favor. There would be no trial. No official punishment.

Just disappearance.

Neni was dragged away in the middle of the night, forcibly committed to the Mystic Sanitarium—a mysterious and terrifying facility where the magically broken are left to rot, guarded only by soulless golems and eerie homunculi. Admittance is considered permanent. Few even try to escape. None succeed.

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The Mystic Sanitarium: Training in the Shadows

Inside the Sanitarium, time lost meaning. The facility’s upper levels were wide and echoing, its lower halls whispered of madness and ruin. Many of the inmates were dangerous spellcasters driven mad by forces beyond imagining. Golems observed silently, unmoved by cruelty or cries for help. Homunculi wandered like insects.

There, Neni met Bimbart—a hollow-eyed halfling monk who had committed himself to the Sanitarium years ago, hoping to die quietly before the madness overtook him. He bore a strange tattoo on the right side of his head: arcane, glowing faintly, and dangerous.

Though Bimbart tried to keep to himself, he noticed Neni's efforts to defend weaker inmates from abuse. Neni, even in despair, couldn't turn off his sense of justice. The two began talking. Then, they began training.

They fashioned quarterstaffs from broom handles, hiding them from the golems. In secret, in silence, they practiced daily—balancing mind and body, focusing fear into clarity. Bimbart taught him the ways of Cillnath, his half-elf master who had passed the monk’s tattoo on to him long ago.

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The Break-In and the Sacrifice

But peace would not last.

One night, alarms sounded.

Doors slammed. Arcane wards pulsed red. The walls of the Sanitarium seemed to shake. Someone was breaking in—not to free a prisoner, but to steal something.

They were after Bimbart.

Krassiass, the son of the Hornwood mafia patriarch, had always been obsessed with forbidden power. When he heard rumors of a tattoo that gave monks extraordinary power, he put two and two together. Now he was inside the Sanitarium, leading a raiding party through golem patrols and arcane wards.

Bimbart saw what was coming. He knew what Krassiass wanted. He turned to Neni—wide-eyed, terrified, confused—and acted swiftly. With grim urgency, he passed the tattoo to Neni, laying a glowing hand upon his head and channeling the mark into him.

> “This power… it’ll make you stronger than I ever was. But it’s not clean. It’s been corrupted—somehow. It will make you great, but it will make you mad if you’re not careful. You can’t let someone like Krassiass have it. Never. Not him.”

Then he shoved Neni through a broken window, and the young halfling tumbled two stories into the bushes below—scraped, dazed, but alive.

Neni looked up just in time to see Krassiass strike Bimbart down.

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Now: The Fugitive Monk

Neni has been on the run ever since.

Krassiass saw him escape. He knows Neni bears the tattoo now, and he wants it with everything he has. But Neni has no intention of handing it over—nor letting it fall into the hands of someone so cruel and cunning.

The tattoo grants Neni abilities that far surpass what most monks can achieve. He can move with near-supernatural speed, harness ki with precision, and sense the world with a focus honed in hardship.

But at night, he dreams of fire and blood. He hears whispers that aren't there. His emotions twist unpredictably, and sometimes… he loses time.