Just a loose idea that you can monkey with, modify or completely ignore, as you please.

You worked for the army, like your father and mother before you. They didn't have actual army jobs, but travelled with a band that worked for who paid them, but now you had a real job, one that seemed like it was going to last a long time. You were assigned to 'pacify' some Halfling runts that were getting uppity, and the little bastards were sneaky and annoying, always shooting and hiding, but it was easy enough to burn their farms.

And then that horse kicked you in the head. But that's not important. What was I saying?

Oh yeah, there was this wizard. The army you worked for, the Calastian army, had a lot of these wizards that came and went. This new wizard came to you one night and said some stuff and seemed really really nice. You knew he was a boss anyway, but when he asked if you could do him a favor and hold his horse while he got something he'd left inside, you knew you would have done it anyway. He seemed like the sort of man who would be good to work for, if the army thing didn't last, so being nice to him seemed like a good idea.

Then the barracks burned down, and that was too bad, but he insisted that he had to get clear to call in reinforcements and make sure information about the attack got back to Calastia. A good idea, which is probably why he was this big important war-wizard guy.

You walked along with him, carrying some of his stuff, with another human that worked for him, and some runt they convinced to lead their mules. In the morning, he camped on the edge of the forest, making some sort of magic hut to sleep in. Magic is freaky. At least you got to sleep outside, along with the runt.

Later you woke up and the sun was high and the magic hut was gone, and so were the mules and the wizard and his horse and boy. The Halfling was being eaten by some sort of snake, or vine, or something, and that was what woke you up, because he was making all of this noise, since it started with his feet. You chopped it up, and it seemed to be a vine after all, covered with all sorts of bloody thorns, but it made the runt sick, because he started bleeding out of the mouth and twisting around on the ground, and then died.

Sucks to be him.

You guessed that the wizard must have had to leave in a hurry and didn't have time to wake you up, since you knew you were hard to wake up sometimes, but usually only when you'd been drinking... Anyway, he'd been going in the direction of the setting sun, skirting the forest, so you headed that way, figuring to catch up.

There was another Halfling also headed that way, a girl one, but you were trying to conentrate on the wizard, and so you don't remember her that well. She talked a lot, about freedom and Tanil and other junk. Sounded like one of the priests, doing a pre-battle sermon. Blah, blah, blah. Still, priests know a magic that makes hangovers go away, which must be why they always have wine in churches. Maybe being a priest is a good idea...

You arrived at the city of Hollofost, and it was full of strangeness. They must have just had some big war or something, because there was ash from fires everywhere and dead bodies all over the place, some of them still moving around. Undead. In a city. Huh. Humans are weird.

Still, this had to be were the wizard was going, so you have been staying around the city, looking for a sergeant, so that you can hook up with a new unit, or for the wizard, who must be around here somewhere. He doesn't seem so nice any longer, and you think he might have actually just left you there intentionally. You've heard that magic can do that, and you definitely don't like the sound of that.

It was only the second night in the city when you got in some fight in a bar, nothing you haven't done a hundred times before, but the dead guards really put up quite a fight and when you woke up you were in a prison cell in some underground place that was cold and damp and cramped and really smelled odd, like burning stuff, not like any other jail you've woken up in. A trial of sorts was convened, and all sorts of stuff you didn't really understand, since the sergeants usually handle it when soldiers get in trouble, but the short story is that they fined you more money than you had for all the stuff you broke. They even fined you for the guard that you broke, even 'though it was already dead.

Which is dumb, 'cause you know there were other people in that fight, but they fined you for everything, and they didn't like being called 'dumb' either. Mom said that people this cranky all the time have trouble taking a shit, and that's why they don't ever smile.

So now you are in the town guard, or kind of helping, something about 'public service' and 'working off your debt to the city' or something, but since they seem to think that *giving you a job* is some sort of punishment, you aren't going to ask about it, just show up and do what you're told.

When you aren't being told to stand around and look 'menacing,' which seems to be how you always look, since you don't seem to have to do anything special or make faces or anything, you roam around town looking in windows and wandering into buildings looking for the wizard.

Then they told you to stop that. Now you have to stay on the streets and hope you see him there.  Everyone else doesn't go out at noon, so it is a good time to wander the streets, since it is too hot for them, and you have noticed that people who don't live here tend to hang out next to the big pool of water with the bird statue in the afternoon, so that is a good place to go on the days off. You think you might have seen the wizards boy there the other day, although it was dark when you met him and you weren't really looking at him much, 'cause the wizard seemed really important at the time. If you see him again, you should go talk to him and see if he's the same one. He's got the darker skin of the people from where you come from, the people here are all pale, so he must be the one!

Or one of the other 300,000 people who look like that...