“I owe my allegiance to the stars only. And my soul is already compelled to reach them, beyond the ephemeral darkness which you call death…” – Remjaz, to any woman he’s trying to impress…
Remjaz (born Remzathaj) is a very peculiar Githzerai. So much so that practically nobody in the Natural World has ever understood that he’s actually a Githzerai.
He hails from the Elemental Chaos as many of his race, and since he was very young, he always had a love for danger and risk. He was born in an outcast and small Githzerai clan always struggling to survive a state of borderline slavery in the hostile City of Brass, and has learned since he was very young that subterfuge trickery and stealth were the only ways to actually survive, in a world dominated by stronger and more powerful beings.
He never had a very good relationship with his “family”, considering them responsible for the state of misery he had been condemned to live in during his childhood. Admiring the luxury of the Efreets and the other powerful people that managed to make a true living in the City of Brass, he always listened very much to all the talks in the arcane bazaars, thus getting to know many stories of far away places, places that he understood were much easier to live in, places were a true sky could be seen up above, and where no churning clouds of fire and lightning rendered observation and even travel towards it impossible. And when he did sneak through a portal towards the Natural World, he did instantly fall in love with the sky, the night sky specifically, and the limitless beauty of the stars in it.
He travelled back and forth by using little known planar passages, and lived as a smuggler until his prestige and experience led him to join an Assassin guild back in the City of Brass, where he could put at use his incredible natural agility and transform it into a killing weapon. He couldn’t stay away from trouble though, especially under the strict and ruthless discipline imposed by the assassin guild. He escaped a sure death by his fellow assassins, going through the hidden passages he knew like the corridors of his own house, down in the chaotic and deadly Undercity, and eventually reached the kingdom of Amaas in the Natural World. Helped by the disguise techniques learned in the guild and aided by his very pale and beautiful skin that had always made him an oddity among Githzerai, he assumed the identity of many different individuals to better understand the history and motives of the nation, and finally came to a conclusion: the fastest way to luxury, wealth, and the risky but pleasurable life he sought, was joining the Shadow Serpent Guild and participating in the secret plot to overthrow the government of the near city of Larnika. He abandoned the previous identities and started impersonating a noble human, Remjaz Dadtzellvulf. He lived a double life, splitting his time between the guild and a very secretive esoteric circle of astral scholars, who studies the mysteries and arcane matters tied to the stars. He took that passion and hobby of his quite far, actually becoming an Initiate in the arts of star-binding and willingly “selling” a portion of his souls to entities that he only poorly understood. This gave him a lot of unexpected power, due to the synergies between these new powers he barely controlled and his mastery of the art of assassination; but the consequences of this power, not even the masters of his circle knew them.
Probably a victim of the complexity reached by the multiple and nested personalities and characters he had to fake during his adventurous life, Remjaz is now a being with serious problems of lack of identity, and by living his life to the fullest as he originally wanted, he instead managed to endanger his own soul and his life in ways he fails or doesn’t want to acknowledge. His “allegiance to the stars” as he calls it is the only kind of escapism that keeps him sane in the tangled web of lies and bluffs he lives in, and it’s at the same time an unbreakable bond that has made him slave, more than even his past life of misery had ever managed to.
His experience through multiple planes and very different environments, both wild and civilized, has made of him a very prized and estimated member of the Shadow Serpent Guild, something that eventually gifted him with a new and strong sense of dignity. And just as his warlock initiation, this self-confidence and elitism has both saved him and condemned him, pushing him even farther away from his true identity but at the same time keeping him enthusiast and driven.
