Norris Lowborn's page

About Norris Lowborn

"You know, sometimes people just make me laugh.
I was arrested today, captured by a passing patrol – Abadar damn my luck. I mean, I pray for him for six hours, showing my complete devotion, and than he allows the guardsman see me picking that window lock not half an hour later.
Anyway- the captain in the city militia's prison seemed cruelly happy to see me shackled, and smiled smugly beneath his thick mustache. He leaned to me and said, 'We've got you, you scum. No longer shall you trouble any law abiding citizen in my town'.
Well, that was funny. I couldn't help but burst out laughing. Abadar damn my sense of humor - The captain seemed to switch his mood from satisfied to angry in a mere second. Humorless persons, as it seems, are attracted to jobs like prison managers. Only the Gods and the wise know why.
'I will not tolerate such a rood demonstration of disrespect, prisoner', he said, and ordered his man to throw me down The Pit. When they merrily obliged, chuckling with obvious maliciousness all the while, I found out that "The Pit" was a large hole in the ground and, as I later found out, it was about 20 feet deep and filled with water and floating weeds. Lucky me, it seemed that someone else was in the pit. When I fell in, hitting the squashy ground hard and slowly choking, unable to lift my face out of the mud, he so graciously pulled me out of the water that my arm hurt for hours, not mentioning the white squeeze marks. The man behind the arm was not visible- nothing quite was down there. My mood was not a talkative one- you try being thrown into a muddy pit, if you want to know why- so I never thanked him.
A long time we sat there in the dark, and as men get lonely and desperate, they talk.
So the man told me his name, which I will not record here out of respect for him. He told me that he was down in that gods forsaken mud hole for what seemed to be months. And I told him I was there because I laughed.
'I do not understand' he told me then. 'What was so unbearably amusing about the captains' wards that you brought this doom upon yourself? I see them as nothing but an expression of victory.'
And I told him.
They say the thievery is immoral. That a life of crime is a continuous act of evil against the honest people. Well, it isn't. You see, trade may only be healthy if there are also downfalls once in a while. If no one was ever robbed, than the entire delicate system will collapse. There must be change, things must move.
When someone is a better merchant than his neighbor, he will prosper while his fellow decent man will suffer and loose everything (everything that has to do about money, 'nyway. You are those to decide how much it is). Between traders, it's a constant battle of wits. And whoever wins take it all. The entire thing is considered fair, even when the looser bites the dust.
The presence of thieves is important. They, err, I mean we, are a special kind of tradesmen. With us, too, a merchant have to wage a battle of wits. We keep him sharp. We keep him aware. We make sure that only the best merchants could thrive, the kind of merchants that can both sense the market and protect themselves. I like to think of them as warriors, for their struggle is endless.
We play by a certain code of rules, too. Violence is not considered fair by me, only stealth. When we win, we take it all. When they win, we loose for a time. We might loose our life. Our freedom. Our limbs, sometimes. But that's fair. They won. They are safe for a while.
I worship Abadar -and I think that I answer his bidding. There are no hard feelings against the guards that caught me, either. They do their part, I do mine. I laughed so hard when the captain talked as he did because he is doing right for all the wrong reasons-and he's proud about it.
I like my life. I like the feeling when you know that your cunning was greater than that of your target's, when you've proven yourself.

Well, long story made short, the man and I found our way to freedom. As I always do, I left a note to the man I've outwitted- the prison manager. I guess that he was surprised when he found that I thanked him for what he did to me, and that maybe, another day, our paths shall cross again and he might win…"

-Chapter 1, "about my life", from the chronicles of Pathfinder Norris Lowborn.

Out of narrative:
Lowborn joined the Pathfinder Society after becoming the number one hunted man in his native Qadiran city. He figured that, reaching the age of 48, he might want a little change of pace. See the world, have wonderful adventures- but above all else, to keep spreading his ideology in the world. He takes careful pains to loot and pickpocket at every opportunity, and shows astounding respect to traders and thieves alike. One of his main goals is to further increase his faith and devotion to Abadar, and he aligns himself with priests and clerics when possible, doing sincere and visible efforts to learn the ways of the different gods so that he may apply them to Abadar.