"Story"	

"`One - the Wanderer'
 	real name: Timothy Cooper

  Young Tim was struck by wanderlust at a very early age.  The future
  held few challanges for Tim, being the second-youngest of 7 children
  on a successful farmstead (small village, really) in the warm
  southern plains.  interests varied from `useless waste of time' to
  `dangerous' and `unnatural' pursuits.  A kindly mother was able to
  help provide some materials for learning - books and `wandering
  sages', but ultimately was unable to overcome the influence of a
  wrathful, untrusting father. Taking some bread, some books, and a
  new name, Timothy set out to follow in the footsteps of Kane, a
  wandering monk who had stayed at the farmstead a year earlier.  Kane
  had befriended Tim, showing him the use of the three-piece-rod
  (calling it `the broken staff'), and also the value of all life.  As
  `One', he would travel the world, spreading help and learning where
  it was accepted, and gaining help and learning whereever he was
  accepted.  In game terms, Tim left home at 14 years old, wandering
  the world and learning whatever he could find on his own or what
  others would teach him.  He started with the weapon abilities and
  the desire to preserve life (learned from Kane).  He picked up the
  thief abilities working for a travelling circus for a while as an
  errand boy/cat burglar.  Tim left this group after he became
  disillusioned with the `rogue' life - no longer believing in the
  correctness of `stealing from the rich and giving to the poor' - or
  rather, no longer believing that the circus-master was really doing
  that.  Taking to his own, with the new name, `One' , he sets off to
  re-find the path to enlightenment, wandering along the coast (he's
  16 now).  It is here that he encounters Sallazaer, the Water
  Elementalist Mage, gathering spell components for some secret
  rite. One helps Sallazaer gather the spell components (water foam
  cresting waves of deep green, perfectly translucent grains of sand,
  a left-handed shell from a dead mollusc, along with less exotic
  things). Sallazaer, impressed both with One's willingness to help
  without offer of repayment, and with One's stories about his
  travels, teaches One some of the basic aspects of elemental water,
  and leaves him with a book and a location to find for further study.
  `respect for life', by the way, means, roughly, `moral code against
  killing'.  One is a pacifist."