Marty Westwood

Raised in the city of Reneris, Marty spent his childhood spent performing on the streets for money. His family was large, and lived in squalor, but with each of them helping where they could, they could get by. With the city's location at the entrance to the Illistrian Sea, it was a melting pot of people and movement—people traveling both through the Strait of Nestal and from the Northern Illistrian Plains to the Southern Illistrian Plains and beyond. This movement along with the pure density of people allowed his busking days to constantly have changing audiences, but also lead the city into being a haven for petty criminals. Despite being locals, Marty and his family were seldom immune to their thievery.

His youth of constantly being robbed despite their efforts being simply to survive forged him into a vessel of hatred for the wicked. This hatred culminated with the death of his mother at a criminal's hands in a burglary gone wrong, leading him into the service of the Illistrian Imperial Army as a foot-soldier in the pursuit of strength. Defending his father and siblings from the same fate and enacting revenge on the wicked his only goals. His five years of service saw the start of the Korseph Rebellion and the Restoration of Illistrian Rule over the Western Vassals of Arnout, Insadmn, and Besti.

Here, during the Siege of Issade, he fell at the hands of those defending the city. His body growing weaker, his blood spilling around him, it was the end...
but not for him.

The pursuit of strength that had overtaken him and the devotion toward it had caught the eye of another, Dolustella, the Devil of the Contract, who gave him the offer of sparing him in exchange for his servitude. His life would belong to her, unending, in exchange for hunting down those who had forsaken their agreements with her previously. Agreeing to those terms, he was restored to health, just enough to survive his wounds, and pulled from the battle by a medic.

After his recovery and release back into the wider world outside of the Illistrian Imperial Army, Dolustella met with him, and gave him his first target. Then another. And another. Each in debt to the Devil; each paying with their life. Some truly wicked, taking from others and seeing themselves above others, and others simply down on their luck and unable to pay their part of their agreements. These jobs hurt Marty the most, wanting to protect those down on their luck, thinking back to his childhood. They caused his desire to find a way out of his contract, to be able to enact his justice on his own terms, to grow. He knew he couldn't run, or another like him would come after him just as he did for others. So he waited and let these feelings fester.

After a year, with many debts successfully repaid and only a single mistep on his otherwise flawless record of service to her, Dolustella tells Marty of those that have tried to flee the mainland of Thandia and her contracts. Hiding across the Isle of Xern and the Colony of Westport thinking they could outrun the deals made with her. She hands him a brochure for a job: "Ruin Exploration Expedition, Protection and Recon Groups and Individuals Desired", and instructs him to use it to reach the island. She wanted those who fled her and her contracts, her mercy and benevolence, to meet her wrath. A wrath that Marty would bring about on her behalf.