Editing Character:Salamander (section)

==History==

Salamander grew up in a deeply pious Greyfalls family, but exhibited the undesirable trait of stubborn curiousity about matters that her parents considered to be the sole remit of their Exalted betters. The notion that their second daughter desired to be one of the heretical Scavenger Lords of the Scavenger Lands horrified them, but no measure of punishment was enough to dissuade Salamander from studying every scrap of lore that she could lay her hands on. Her adolesence was an unspoken war between their efforts to disrupt her informal studies and her own continued sabotage of efforts to arrange marriages. At the age of fourteen, they finally accepted that they would suffer less shame from simply disowning her and she was thrown out on the streets where bribed soldiers from the 23rd Imperial Legion ran her out of the city as a vagrant.

Life on the roads of the Scavenger Lands is not kind to the young and penniless. It is even more damaging to education. The drives to survive were far more tempting than those to expand her mind, so only formidable discipline allowed Salamander to continue to learn from every shamen, priest and scholar whose ear she could bend, to read everything she could beg, borrow or steal. It was the latter than nearly killed her. Working as a servant for a scavenger lord called Seska she filched a half-ruined text on the Shogunate-era sage Eyem, assuming that her employer would not concern himself with the whereabouts of damaged goods. She was wrong and the outcaste tomb raider decided to make an example of the thief, summoning a demon to track her down and retreive the text.

Within minutes, Salamander was dragged kicking and screaming in front of him, still clinging to the book, spitting defiance. Seska, amused, gave her a choice. Surrender the book and he'd just give her to his guards as entertainment. Refuse, and the demon could have her. Salamander picked the demon.

And Luna chose Salamander.

Since then, Salamander has crossed much of the scavenger lands, collecting and on occasions sharing various lore. Her initiation into the Silver Pact took place under the auspices of Raksi, Queen of Fangs, who proved a domineering mistress... and one whose displeasure Salamander does not wish to court. They remain on cordial, if distant terms. Having explored as far south as Rathess and as far north as Crystal, Salamander has to admit that the skills with a whip that Raksi taught her are practical, if somewhat troubling.