Enterprising young halfling rogue

Falco’s story that comes out one evening around the campfire. Possibly after someone asks how a halfling can seem so ill at ease out under the stars at night. Falco’s father, Farro Proudfoot, and his mother, Lavender Riverbend, were from a small halfling village. Farro was determined to make a good life for his young bride. He was the youngest son of a family of farmers (mostly food crops and tobacco) with more aptitude for business than farming. He and Lavender packed up and set out for the nearest city where he opened a shop selling his brother’s tobacco and items like pipes, pottery and carvings from his village. Life in the city was rough but Business was good and they soon started a family with the arrival of little Falco. It wasn’t long before his success came to the attention of a local...entrepreneur who wanted to be business partners. Farro refused and reported the man to the local authorities. Soon after that, tragedy befell the young family when a fire destroyed their shop and apartment above it. Lavender managed to grab the baby and escape the flames but Farro died trying to save his shop and home. Alone, penniless and homeless with her baby in a city cloaked in winter, Lavender had nowhere to turn. A local tavern owner and acquaintance became aware of her plight and offered her room and board at the inn if she helped serve drinks in evening. The offer became a life of indentured servitude where as hard as she worked, Lavender could not pay the debt she owed him. Becoming more desperate- overwhelmed by debt, the threat of being turned out to the streets, and her child’s welfare, she agreed to work for his other business- a brothel across the street. And so Falco grew up in the company of women. They doted on the child as a house pet or mascot. He brought joy and laughter to their lives during the day and was largely left on his own in the evenings. As he grew he’d run errands for the ladies and discovered he had a talent for hiding and acquiring items. Talents that became quite useful but also talents that would lead him to make shady acquaintances. As he honed his skills he would sometimes take jobs from a local businessman named Iago who ran a group of boys in the business of acquiring lost items. Falco returned to the brothel one morning to learn his mother died that night. The healer said she died from a condition called Uberstuffin, her body just couldn’t take any more. Desperate to make more money so he could avoid the poverty that plagued his mother, he began withholding money from Iago. This was the one unforgivable crime in Iago’s business and when he discovered the thievery Iago put out the word to find Falco so he could make an example of him. With nothing left for him in this city, Falco fled until he found his way to another city where he could make his fortune.
 
He carries Falco’s Staff.