The party each begins as part of a group of slaves being led on foot over the hot sands of the desert just outside of Nibenay. They have had their memories wiped by the slaves who are secretly defiler magicians - wiping slaves memories means they have less motivation to escape. Not knowing where they came from they will not know anywhere to go or anyone to help them.
At the same time travelling through the desert together where a band of The Shadow Brides of Nibenay. This secret order - unknown to call but the sorcerer king himself - was set up by him to counter the threat he perceived from his monstrous son Dhojakt. They were trained to protect the king from his most likely heir and to do other missions of a highly secretive nature. Each of the brides is endowed with a mark, that upon their death survives and latches on, crawling across the sand to attach itself to the nearest suitable host body. It usually finds the memories of the host and destroys them replacing them with the memories of the bride.
They had been sent out this time on a mission by Nibenay to investigate the rumours of Blue Halflings that had been seen in the desert. They found them inly to find themselves out matched by these creatures that had been in stasis since the Blue Age and were privy to powerful magical secrets. The halflings killed all the brides of Nibenay as many as in the party. But when their marks crawled across the desert the hosts they found where the freshly mind wiped slaves. The mark usually attaches to memories but finding none something went wrong and it wasn't able to replace the person old memories with those of the bride. This left the party with no memories but the mark on them.
They have two identities to discover - one that they were in a sense once one of The Shadow Brides of Nibenay and that they were also someone before they were a slave and had their memories wiped. The powers they get when they level up seem to them like they suddenly 'remember' certain skills and abilities. certain situations unlock the memories stored in the dark mark - creating flashbacks that fill in the back history of the world and their role in it fighting for Nibenay.