**Alaric Sparax**
Alaric spent a rough and tumble childhood all over Tian Xia, moving here and there with parents who made their living as migrant workers. Loved and perhaps even pampered, he knew nothing of community beyond his small family—including a younger sister and brother—until he was eight. The Sparaxes fell in with a traveling merchant band, and found a new, if peripatetic, home.
The merchants traveled seasonally, voyaging deep into the continent in the spring and summer to seek out natural wonders and resources. Aromatic resins, camphor, rattan cane, little-known toxins and alchemical ingredients, bezoar stones, and more. Alaric developed quite the silver tongue, able to charm potential customers into buying with little more than a impish grin. Being a Kitsune, he always attracted attention above and beyond the other merchants of the caravan, and he used that allure to great effect.
In his late teens, Alaric left his family to strike out on his own. And still he traveled, never pinned down long. For a time, he lived in a town troubled by all manner of mischief. He joined up with adventurers to tackle threats, learned secrets of ancient ruins, and developed a bespoke set of charms, hedge magic, and phenomena that gave him influence over the world.
In his early twenties, a fortune teller woman inducted him into the secrets of the Harrow deck, which became part of his repertoire. He had a torrid affair with her, traveling together for a time before separate callings led them apart.
By his late twenties, he had quite the set of skills to shop out to factions and governments. He took on odd jobs as a contractor for many, before eventually retiring at the ripe old age of thirty to a seaside shack near a sleepy town.
Or so he thought. Tale of the portal reached his ears, and the call of the road seized him. Perhaps after a time in the New World, he'll return to swap tales from the road with his old folks and his siblings. For now, adventure awaits.