Rqihvahman was born in Vhalar of arc 695 to a seemingly human couple though only the mother was present. Whatever the father was doing at the time, the mother never said. The child born looked human and for many arcs would believe it was. The mother named it Revan and raised it like any other little boy in the Dust Quarter of Rharne. They lived in a small house with three rooms- his mothers, the bathroom, and a larger living space where Revan slept on a couch for the majority of his life. He was born into a poor family but his mother always insisted that they would get through any difficulties they faced by sticking together. For the early arcs of his life he was convinced that it was him and his mother against the world. From the moment he could walk and talk, he was putting words to work to try and make money to get a better life. Talking people into helping at a young age wasn't easy but stealing was. He wasn't good at it at first but no one thought much of a child who 'forgot' that they had picked something up. His mother was good with people and often convinced them of his innocence when he was caught... but he was never caught for the same mistake twice.
Revan made friends in the Dust Quarter with a human girl named Willow, a human boy named Duncan, and a biqaj boy named Jacques who had similar aspirations to him. As a young boy, thinking himself entirely human, the scope of Revan's aspirations were rather low. He heard stories of magic and thought it enticing but never pursued it because he never thought he'd have the resources to. His mother was supportive and his friends were supportive, but that was because they all had the same dream to escape. Everyone else thought they were born in the dust and would die in the dust. As young children Revan, Willow, Jacques, and Duncan became a profitable little party of thieves. They learned early on that four was the perfect number for most hit and run jobs and at the time all they were really doing was hit and run jobs. Revan ran a small con on the side using three cups and a disappearing ball but it didn't pull in nearly as much as the little crimes with the little group they were calling the 'Sticky Fingers.'
The mother seemed to fall ill around the beginning of Revan's tenth arc and she began walking with a cane. She stopped leaving their little shack of a house and seemed to talk less while she knew Revan was awake. She spoke to herself a lot while she thought he was asleep. She seemed to become paranoid and he thought it part of the illness until one trial she disappeared completely. The mother left behind her cane (which he discovered a blade inside of) and a note to explain the truth to Revan. 'Explain' is a generous word. She told him that she had done something bad and had to abandon the form of his mother until a time when the people who were looking for her thought she was dead. She wrote about being Yludih and how they were connected to a special place. She gave him the means to explore his connection and learn to take new forms but it would be arcs before he wore a face other than Revan. She told him she was sorry and that he needed to remember to look out for himself first. She assured him that everything she had said about family was not a lie, just true from a different perspective.
It was a difficult discovery for Revan, but every night he was able to explore Uleuda and learn a little more from the Yludih who passed through there like him. His crystalline form was frightening the first time but he adapted quickly and came to love the anonymity. During the trial, he worked with the Sticky Fingers (Willow, Duncan, and Jacques) to expand their operation. At the time the Dust Quarter was still lawless and rarely patrolled by the Lightning Knights. It was easier to commit crimes in mass enough to make a living. They began looking for bigger targets and better opportunities to make nels and Revan began to consider how his new revelations could benefit their work. If he could collect enough faces, or just the right faces, they could steal all sorts of things. Take the face of a shop assistant, have Willow or Jacques (who was far more attractive than Duncan) seduce the real assistant to keep them away, and then rob the shop while 'working' there. He never got the opportunity to try it out. The other Yludih in Uleuda and his mother's note to him warned him to be careful for Revan was.
The first face Revan stole was taken from a friend, Jacques. Revan couldn't help but look at the man and feel envy. Every trial they worked together, every trial the Fingers met, drank and celebrated, he looked at Jacques and envied that he was not as beautiful as the man before him. It was strange because he did not envy beautiful women... most of the time. He was jealous of Jacques and the way Willow's eyes seemed to linger on him. Not just Willow's eye, of course, but the eyes of most women. So one trial, after a lot of fixation on Jacques' face, Revan went into a dark room and tried to put the lessons from Uleuda to work. He emerged the perfect copy of his biqaj friend and after the thrill of a successful steal wore off, he shifted back to his original face.
Revan spent his arcs saving the nels he made from petty cons and the Sticky Fingers until he could afford a house in the Earth Quarter and even then he did not move. He sat on the nels for a while to make sure no one was watching him too closely and in the meantime Jacques grew discontent. He'd begun to get a little egotistical about the jobs, believing himself the pin holding the team together and thinking he was better at what they did than the others. Jacques moved to the Earth Quarter and the Sticky Fingers found themselves down a member. It was hard to recruit while Revan was so slow to trust and a new faction in Rharne had begun making 'improvements' in the Dust Quarter. Willow suggested they lay low and try to find honest work but Duncan suggested they follow Jacques to the Earth Quarter. Duncan's reasoning was that if they were going to deal with the same number of guards in either place, they might as well dedicate all their effort to better targets. Revan had a hard time arguing against him and for a few ten-trial it seemed that they might all make the shift.
Then Jacques was murdered and word trickled down to the Sticky Fingers. There were many rumors around his death but to this trial none of the Fingers know exactly what happened. Duncan believes Jacques ran afoul of the Shadow Quarter. Willow thinks Jacques was killed by Lightning Knights in a robbery gone wrong and they covered it up. Revan would have believed either was possible but all that mattered was the impact. When Jacques died, they Sticky Fingers were shaken. They'd been at risk of imprisonment before but this was the first death and they didn't know how they felt about it. The group slowly drifted apart, each meeting they'd promise to figure out the next job whenever they saw each other again and then they'd go long stretches without looking for each other- even going so far as to avoid places they thought they others might go to.
It hardened Revan and further reminded him of his mother's written advice. Everyone would turn on or leave him when it served them best and he needed to remember that. She'd gone, now the Fingers were gone. They were criminals, they always had been. The only difference was that prior to that moment, Revan had done it under the delusion that he did not have a choice. The Fingers divided and Revan moved to the Earth Quarter to get a fresh start. He bought a house bigger than any one he'd ever lived in and has lived there ever since, working slowly towards the next big job. He began developing characters and looking for the perfect faces to play the roles- the only one he had prepared was Jacques' face. Jacques would become Morton, someone as arrogant as his looks should permit him to be.
Some time after the Sticky Fingers fell apart, Willow returned to Revan and expressed and interest in continuing with the operation. Together they've formed what they call the Blackhands, a 'family' of criminals looking to make their way in Rharne and Idalos. Willow does not know that Revan uses Jacques' face as Morton.
![[Approved by Pig Boy]](.//images/icons/cs_ok.png "[Approved by Pig Boy]"){kind=icon}
