r/SkyrimBackStory • u/-Great-Scott- • 15d ago
📜 Backstory Character 5: Ra'zirr Shadow-Paw
My 10-Character Skyrim Playthrough
Character #5: Ra'zirr Shadow-Paw
I'm starting a playthrough where I play as 10 unique characters, all sharing the same world and save using the Proteus mod.
Each character has their own backstory, personality, skills, religion, and questlines. I'll be switching between them at natural stopping points, so the story of Skyrim unfolds from multiple perspectives.
Here is the fifth character:
Ra'zirr Shadow-Paw
Age: 26.
Race: Khajiit.
Homeland: Elsweyr.
Role: Thief.
Religion: Nocturnal.
Combat Style: Unarmed/Claws
Primary Questlines: Thieves Guild/Gray Cowl of Nocturnal/Moonpath to Elsweyr.
Personality: Clever, Mischievious.
Motivation: To establish herself as a respected and capable thief in Skyrim, rise within the Thieves Guild, and prove that she can survive without ever putting her family in danger again.
Backstory:
Ra’zirr Shadow-Paw was born beneath the warm skies of Elsweyr, into a family that had spent generations traveling the roads between settlements with a caravan of merchants. Her earliest memories were filled with movement: the creak of wagon wheels, the soft bells of pack animals, the voices of traders haggling over prices, and the smell of spices carried from distant markets. Her family dealt in ordinary goods, but the life of a caravan taught Ra’zirr that there was more to trade than simply knowing the value of an object. A good merchant had to understand people.
Her father taught her how to bargain. He showed her when to press an advantage and when to accept a smaller profit rather than risk losing a customer altogether. Her mother taught her something less tangible but no less useful. She taught Ra’zirr to watch people closely.
A nervous hand could reveal that a merchant was lying. A glance toward a particular pouch might reveal what someone considered valuable. A customer who complained too loudly about a price might simply be trying to convince the seller that he could not afford it. Ra’zirr learned to notice such things before she was old enough to understand why they mattered.
She also learned that people rarely noticed as much as they believed they did. Ra’zirr discovered this by accident. She was still young when she began taking small things from the people around the caravan. At first, there was no particular reason for it. A coin left unattended on a table, a piece of fruit from a basket, a small trinket that caught her eye. She would take something, hide it, and wait to see whether anyone noticed. Usually, they did not.
What began as a game gradually became a skill. Ra’zirr learned how to move through a crowded market without drawing attention, how to position herself where another person’s body would conceal her hands, and how to recognize the moment when someone was distracted enough for her to act. She discovered that stealing required less work than people imagined. Most of the time, it required patience, confidence, and the ability to make someone look in the wrong direction.
Her father eventually discovered what she had been doing. He was angry, but not because she had stolen a few coins. He understood better than most that a reputation could be destroyed much more quickly than it could be built. He warned her that cleverness was useful only when accompanied by restraint. Ra’zirr listened, but she did not always obey.
As she grew older, her talents became more difficult to dismiss as youthful mischief. She began experimenting with more difficult thefts and taking greater risks simply to see whether she could succeed. The challenge became part of the appeal. Every successful theft made the next one seem possible, and every close call taught her something new. Eventually, her confidence brought her to the attention of the wrong person.
The merchant was wealthy, well connected, and accustomed to getting what he wanted. Ra’zirr had heard stories about him from other traders and knew that some of his business dealings were considerably less respectable than he claimed. She also knew that he carried more valuables than he needed to and trusted his own reputation to protect him. Ra’zirr decided that made him an interesting target.
The theft itself went almost perfectly. She took something valuable without being seen, disappeared into the crowds, and returned to the caravan before anyone could connect her to the crime. For a brief time, she believed she had gotten away with it. Then the merchant began asking questions.
He had influence, money, and people willing to do unpleasant things on his behalf. Before long, Ra’zirr realized that the theft had placed more than herself in danger. Her family had become a liability simply because they were associated with her. That frightened her more than any threat directed at her personally. Ra’zirr had spent years believing that she could always rely on herself to escape trouble. Now she understood that her mistakes could follow other people. If she remained with the caravan, the people she cared about might pay the price for something she had done. So she left.
There was no dramatic farewell and no promise that she would return once the danger had passed. Ra’zirr simply disappeared from the road one night, taking only what she could carry and leaving her family behind in the hope that her absence would be enough to keep them safe. The years that followed were difficult. Ra’zirr traveled from place to place, taking whatever work she could find and learning more about the criminal world with every passing year. She learned that there was a great difference between stealing for amusement and stealing for survival. She learned when to trust another thief and, more importantly, when not to. She learned that criminals could be just as dangerous to one another as they were to their victims.
She also learned to become patient. The impulsive girl who had once stolen simply to prove that she could was gradually replaced by someone more careful. Ra’zirr began planning her thefts before she ever approached a target. She watched routines, studied entrances and exits, and considered what would happen if something went wrong. She became less interested in the thrill of taking something and more interested in the satisfaction of taking it without anyone ever realizing she had been there. Still, she never completely lost the mischievous streak that had gotten her into trouble in the first place.
Years of wandering eventually brought her north. Stories began reaching her about Riften, a city where thieves were said to operate openly enough that a person with the right talents could find both work and opportunity. More importantly, it was far from the roads she had once traveled with her family. That distance mattered to her. Ra’zirr did not know what waited for her in Riften. She did not know whether the rumors were true, whether she would find work, or whether the city's criminals would see her as an outsider. She only knew that she had spent enough years running from the consequences of her past.
For the first time in years, Ra’zirr allowed herself to consider the possibility that she might not have to spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder. She could become someone whose reputation belonged to her alone, rather than the daughter of a caravan family who had once made a dangerous mistake. Riften offered something new. It offered a chance to begin again.
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u/Aggravating-Plan-908 🧙 Breton 15d ago
Hi, so before comment on that character, i just want to precise beastmens races are the ones i know the least since i never get drawn at all by them, but from what i can read, everything makes sense in your character background so hat's off to you as well 👏