Background: Orphaned as a child by his parents, both half-orcs and both Waterdeep shipping hands lost in separate accidents at sea, Ohla [named in honor of a female friend of the family that helped both parents] was given over to the care of the Master Mariner's Guild, who quickly entrusted him to the care of the local clergy of Selune, who sent him to live in their orphanage. Initially, Ohla performed capably at the institute, serving with distinction as an alterboy during daily observational services and proving an adept student in the "shop"-type classes offered at the school... that is, until he fell in with the school's gang of troublemakers, a contingent led by a tiefling named Tyron M'Leki.

Youthful hijinks such as filching sacramental wine and conducting unorthodox science experiments paled before their most outrageous stunt, a hoax which continues to be played out to this day.

After misappropriating a magic wand capable of casting polymorph spells, M'Leki enlisted Ohla and several other students in a complex confidence scheme that attempted to wrest control of the entire intra-city varsity gambling concerns, as well as minor concerns like "fixing" academic problems.

M'Leki [disguised as a female drow] convinced Ohla they could make other students and associates believe that Ohla, in the form of a beholder, was a brutal criminal mastermind. Naturally, this idea has certain appeal to someone like Ohla.

The entire scheme came tumbling down around their shoulders when Ohla, drunk not only with power but also a vat of gnomish cough remedy, sat through a spirited argument between M'Leki and a half-elf named Sebastian V'lchori, who M'Leki polymorphed to look like one of their professors, a wizened human.

Dizzied by their constant back and forth - and driven to distraction by the cavorting of the two feline familiars (Sniggles and Mr. Doo) that M'Leki had polymorphed into the shape of intellect devourers - Ohla got so thunderously sick that his vomiting flooded most of an entire city block, drawing the attention of not only school authorities but the magician who had crafted the wand, a tall, bearded human whose name Ohla was too drunk to remember.

Impressed by the overall thrust of their scheme, this mage managed to cover up the incident and eventually offered most of M'Leki's core group the option of continuing the deception on a larger scale.

Unfortunately, such a scheme would not be allowed to continue with someone as volatile as Ohla involved in a central role and he graciously decided to withdraw for the sake of his fellows, parting on good terms.

Another classmate, Jaleen Tulwynd -daughter of the Wheelwright's guildmaster- managed to secure Ohla an apprenticeship with that guild, which Ohla pursued with interest and apptitude. Unfortunately, his unwillingness to heed client demands or reign in his artistic license resulted in the ending of that opportunity and Ohla left Waterdeep at the ripe age of 13, heading for the more untamed lands that lay to the north, in the savage frontier.

after a few months of travel and odd-jobs fixing or otherwise improving wagons, he'd begun to develop enough of a reputation that a small group of ice giants corned him in a dive bar, insisting that he engineer a special sled for the sled dog team of their mistress, who had smashed her last one in a fit of pique.

shrugging his shoulder, ohla agreed to take the job and wound up being smitten with gerti orelsdottr [FRpage 170], who was equally impressed with his handiwork. their relationship was short-lived, however, since gerti was -in ohla's words- "just fucking batshit crazy."

hitching a ride out of town with some traders from zhentarim trying to establish some new markets outside llorkh. ohla's affinity for gambling, carousing and his willingness to throw his weight around on their behalf in the regular barroom scuffles these ruffians seemed to attract soon made him one of the most popular guys in town, which made him a natural to be introduced to the new zhent prince who appeared one day, the one everyone seemed exceptionally solicitous to. the prince and ohla hit it off pretty well and things were going fine, as far as ohla was concerned - getting in fights every other night was really helping him stay in shape and relieve his tension.

so he isn't too sure, even to this day, why he didn't just tell m'leki to go get stuffed when he woke ohla up one morning. the idea that he was a little bothered by the cruel way the zhents treated the serving wenches or casually beat up barmen for offering them a bill isn't really something he's spent a lot of time thinking about, but m'leki's revelation that the zhents, particulary the newly arrived prince, were involved in slavery was the deciding factor. plus, it didn't hurt that all m'leki wanted ohla to do was convince this young prince to get a tattoo of lathander somewhere on his body - aside from the fact no self respecting tough-guy would have anything to do with someone as sissy as lathander, it didn't seem too serious. so he started spending more time going out wilding with prince fzoul and the boys, gradually drawing out their revelations that the prince was actually a duplicate of some high zhent muckity-muck. there was a bunch of idle chat about how the bigwig had sent his son or clone or whatever off while a bunch of political intrigue was going on in the moonshaes, but ohla didn't pay too much attention to all the details. he just worked his way in good with the group, so that when he suggested everyone's drunk ass go out and get a tattoo, everyone thought that was just swell. he neglected to mention that his old buddy m'leki was the local tattoo artist and, of course, he made sure everyone was blind stinking drunk when they showed up to get their tat's...

a few days later, the prince was called back to zhentil keep in the dead of night, leaving a lot of pissed off zhent thugs in his place. correctly reading the writing on the wall, ohla got busy leaving town without any of those zhents following him [of course, some had to be physically discouraged from their pursuit...] and he also didn't want to let m'leki's trail get too cold.

once he'd finally tracked the tiefling down and was just in the process of beating the story out of him when m'leki's black-goateed magic-user boss showed up and told ohla to chill out and listen to his explanation of why they'd played him like a fiddle.

turns out, the prince was a clone copy of fzoul chembryl, the high priest of the zhentarium. chembryl was trying to figure out the cloning method used by the wizard manshoon, winding up with a teenaged copy of himself instead of a full fledged adult version. blackstaff told ohla that he didn't want chembryl making clones of himself, but also didn't want to do anything overt against the clone, on the off chance it would just convince chembryl he's onto a good idea - no, blackstaff wanted to piss chembryl off so much he'd write the whole experiment off as a terrible idea not worth any future effort or embarrasment.

which ohla succeeded at perfectly. the prince wound up being disolved by some totally evil demon lord, whether it was bane or xvim or an actual beholder, blackstaff's spies hadn't found out for sure. but it was job well done all the way around, congratulations are in order and so on. and, hey, take heart in the fact that tattoo of selune m'leki branded on your ass was charmed to prevent fzoul or bane or anyone else from figuring out your involvement in this little plot. thanks again and, hey, see you later!

pissed but collected enough to realize getting in a bare-nuckle dust up with an arch-mage probably wasn't too smart, ohla spat on the floor and stalked out the door ...on a wayward way that would find him lost in the deserts of wherever the hell it is these guys are.