(The images in this profile were created using HeroForge. The rights to the character of Oroku Hagane, and all images of him, all belong to me, TheHumbleWanderer, All Rights Reserved. All rights to any other media used go to their respective owners.)

Name: Oroku Hagane

Age: 25

Race: Dark Elf (Drow)

Gender: Male

Sexuality: Straight

Classes:
Assassin Rogue
Way of Shadow Monk (Multiclass)

Background: Criminal (Criminal Contact Feature)

Alignment: Lawful Neutral

Strength: 10
Dexterity: 20
Constitution: 16
Intelligence: 12
Wisdom: 16
Charisma: 15

Appearance:
Oroku is a dark elf with sable skin, silver-white hair and glowing red eyes - typical features for his kind. He is shorter than the average drow, standing at 5'1'', with a swimmer's body; lithe, lean and agile. Oroku's face is long and bony, with sharp cheekbones and a tapering chin. Like all elves, he cannot grow facial or body hair, so his skin is smooth all over, his ears long and pointed, his eyes large and almond-shaped.

Oroku wears swathes of coal black and crimson red cloth - the attire of the ninja clan he was raised within. He carries a curved shortsword upon his back and various other silent-death weapons upon his belt. His arms are covered with tattoos depicting eastern dragons painted in crimson and black, breathing scarlet flames. These tattoos mark him as a criminal in Kozakura, the Kara-Turan nation he was found and raised in.

Other marks of Kara-Turan heritage also mark Oroku's body - his hair is tied into a samurai-like knot under his hood, and his gear is marked with the secret glyphs of the ninja clans, similar to the Thieves' Cant used by criminal guilds in the rest of Faerun. He hides his pointed ears under his hood along with his white hair, and tends to keep his face hidden in most situations - not out of a desire to be edgy or mysterious, but because he has come to dislike his own appearance due to being treated as a freak all his life.

Personality:
Outwardly, Oroku is a solitary, shy and quiet man who mostly keeps to himself. Growing up as a permanent social outcast, he finds it hard to make friends with others, and is often hesitant to take any relationship he has beyond the purely professional because of this. But, far from being craven, Oroku is pragmatic and cunning, with the patience to wait for the perfect moment to strike and a strong ruthless streak that drives him to get the job done no matter the cost.

While Oroku has no qualms about killing, he is not one for wanton and indiscriminate violence, and is no sadist who brutalizes others for his own pleasure. Not in the least because it would bring dishonour to himself and his clan, for make no mistake - Oroku's loyalty to the Crimson Shadows runs deep. He was raised by them all his life, and he will dutifully help of his ninja brothers and sisters in the field, regardless of whether he likes them or not, and would charge into the Nine Hells without a second thought if the Grandmaster of the clan commanded it of him.

This sense of duty, and willingness to look past the personalities of others, allows Oroku to more easily work with others even if he hates them, and he considers it petty and childish to kill someone just because you dislike them. It is a talent he learned because, even though he never felt truly at home amongst the humans who made up the clan, he had to learn to make the best of his situation. As such, he does not begrudge those who dislike him, and while he may be envious of others receiving love and approval, he will rarely act upon it, instead keeping his opinions and feelings inside like he usually does.

However, Oroku does have another side to him. He enjoys thoughtful, meditative pastimes like poetry, or simply watching the moon and stars in the night sky, and finds comfort in dark places due to his innate drow instincts the same way a dwarf would feel naturally comfortable underground. He opposes bullies and identifies with underdogs and outcasts, having been one himself all his life. He also has a deep-seated interest in anything related to elves and the drow people, including any artefacts that find their way onto the surface, and the Underdark itself. Though he has never been there so far in his life, he desires to venture there at one point. Mostly because, more than anything, Oroku wants to find his place in the world, learn more about his own kind, and know how he, a drow, ended up in Kara-Tur, far from the rest of his people.

Likes:
Other drow, drow artefacts, the Crimson Shadows clan, the Underdark, Kozakuran culture, Evergloam, Yuka Hagane, dark places, watching the night sky, haikus, blossom trees

Dislikes:
Saigo Yarikawa, bright lights, braggards, idiots, rash actions, wild parties, bullies

Backstory:
One day, while returning from a mission in Kozakura in the eastern continent of Kara-Tur, Yuka Hagane, a female member of the Crimson Shadows ninja clan, heard the sound of a baby crying. Following the sound, Yuka climbed to a hilltop and found what seemed to be a newborn child abandoned on the summit, wrapped in a black cloth. Also, as she approached, she saw that the baby was not human - instead, it was a drow elf. Still, she couldn't bring herself to leave it there, and so she took the child with her into Evergloam - the pocket dimension where Nightblossom Temple, the Crimson Shadow's headquarters, was located.

At first, the members of the clan were disturbed by the presence of this strange child - especially Grandmaster Shingen Yarikawa, who considered the child a liability, especially if his kind came looking for him. But Yuka convinced him that the child was clearly abandoned, and invoked that the Crimson Shadows opposed wanton killing of innocents, and they would be breaking their creed by leaving the baby to die. Reluctantly, Shingen allowed the child to stay and be raised as one of their clan, though it would be Yuka's responsibility.

Yuka agreed to these terms, naming the drow child Oroku and raising him as her own son. Growing up in Evergloam, the drow child was raised to take a position within the clan, essentially being given no other choice as to where his life would go... but Oroku wouldn't have had it any other way.

Growing up as the only nonhuman in the Crimson Shadows, Oroku was regularly ostracized by those around him, seen as a freak of nature by people who had never seen nor heard of the drow before. The other child initiates often bullied him, and while the older members of the clan put a stop to this, including his adoptive mother, they still mocked him as a weakling and a mummy's boy. While Yuka undeniably and unconditionally loved him, all of his experiences made Oroku incredibly eager to earn the respect of his peers, and so he threw himself into his clan training from an early age, hoping that becoming a great ninja would win him some form of acceptance.

Children in the Crimson Shadows had to grow up fast, and Oroku had to do so even faster, for the training scheme for new recruits was not adapted for his slower growth as an elf. While his smaller size and slender build meant he couldn't equal his human peers in terms of strength, his natural elven dexterity and subtlety, along with their enhanced senses, meant that he excelled at tasks involving tracking and infiltration. However, instead of earning him respect, Oroku's talent bred envy amongst his recruits, and even after he was properly initiated into the Crimson Shadows, he received little affection from the other members of the clan.

He did receive some, though, but that was too much for some of the others members of the clan to tolerate. The worst of those who opposed and despised Oroku as a freak of nature was Saigo Yarikawa, Grandmaster Yarikawa's son. Even though the position of Grandmaster was elective, Saigo had a deep-rooted sense of arrogance and entitlement that led him to assume he would be the next Grandmaster after his father's passing. But this led him to be extremely paranoid of those he considered to be a threat to his position, and as Oroku was accepted into the clan and proved to possess abilities no other member did due to being a drow, that paranoia morphed into hatred.

Oroku and Saigo had never liked each other, and during an argument, the two of them ended up coming to blows. Saigo defeated Oroku, and taunted the drow as he lay bloodied on the floor by telling him "You can wear our clan's colours and learn our ways... but you will never be one of us."

This event brought all of Oroku's feelings of estrangement to the surface, especially when the Grandmaster refused to answer him when directly, after Saigo was chastised, Oroku asked him if he had a place in the clan. The drow became withdrawn, even isolating himself from Yuka when she tried to comfort him, as he had never felt more alien than he did in that moment. And his continued ostracism by much of the clan fed into his feelings of despondency, and he sometimes left Evergloam, albeit in disguise, to be alone and think things through. But ironically, no matter how many people Oroku was surrounded by, he always felt alone...

That was until one day, while having a drink in a local bar, Oroku heard a merchant returning from western Faerun mention encountering some creatures that had black skin, white hair and red eyes - they ambushed his trade caravan on the road back to Kara-Tur before fleeing back into the forest. Following this merchant back to his home late in the evening, then ambushing him and interrogating him about where he was attacked by these creatures, Oroku got the information he needed. Feeling utterly possessed by newfound purpose to find out what he was and where he came from, Oroku returned to Evergloam and told the Grandmaster Shingen of what he had learned, and that he was going on a quest to find these creatures.

When Shingen asked Oroku why he should allow the drow to go on this venture, especially if it might compromise the secrecy of the Crimson Shadows, Oroku swore that even if he did find his own kind, he would never betray the clan, and to prove it, he offered to accept the Glyph of Revealing - a magical tattoo often used by the Shadows on targets or contacts that would allow them to know his location and hear everything he said. Oroku also said, that if they ever felt Oroku was a danger to the clan on his journey, they could kill him easily, as he was a low-ranking member anyways.

Somewhat sympathetic to the pain Oroku was going through at not feeling like he had a place in the world, and satisfied that the Crimson Shadows could respond if the worst should happen, Shingen reluctantly allowed him to go. And so, with the Glyph tattooed into his skin and a goodbye to the closest thing he had ever known to a home and a family, Oroku set off westward in search of his kin...

Strengths and Weaknesses:
Having been raised all his life amongst a clan of ninjas, Oroku is an experienced martial artist and dangerous adversary. Swift and precise, he prowls the battlefield like a lurking spider, often striking from the shadows to eliminate his targets with lethal efficiency. Equipped with his wakizashi shortsword, recurved bow, arrows and throwing daggers, along with his punches and kicks, Oroku is also able to fight competently in hand-to-hand engagements, unleashing flurries of blows either against single foes and groups of assailants.

Oroku also possesses a great deal of utility both in and out of combat - he can create a variety of poisons from natural ingredients and apply them to his weapons to further bolster the damage of his attacks. He can also use his great dexterity and thieves' tools to pick locks and disarm traps if the need arises, and his incredible natural stealth, combined with shadow monk abilities like conjuring minor illusions, creating clouds of darkness and silencing areas around him, mean he can infiltrate and escape any environ with a very low likelihood of being noticed.

But ninjas are not invincible by any means, and Oroku is no different. Being a drow elf, he has always lacked the physical strength that humans and other races have, and so Oroku has no choice but to rely on finesse-based weapons. In the same vein, Oroku is not the most robust individual when it comes to taking damage, and his lack of armour means if he cannot dodge a strike, it is liable to kill him. This makes his reliance on stealth and agility, as well as hit-and-run tactics, more of a necessity for him than for most.

Weapons:
Wakizashi shortsword, along with a bow, darts, shuriken and kunai throwing daggers.

Theme Song:

https://youtu.be/VzMh1O-MJYE