[sblock=Revised Background]The first Randlay to join the Mendevian Crusades was not, at the time, a Randlay at all. Jack's grandmother, Jezelle Kerrvan of Galt, was engaged but not wed to Calros Randlay, a some-time merchant and minor state official. Jezelle was a fearsome and indomitable woman, possessed with strength and skill in combat as well as the sense of conscience and duty required to volunteer for a war one would likely not come back from in a far off land. But survive she did, helping to hold the line against the demon armies as the ward stones were being constructed. After the Second Crusade came to an end she returned home to Galt to find that Calros had never lost faith with her in those long intervening years. So they settled down (relatively speaking, for one just as Jezelle) and began a family.
By the time the Third Crusade had begun the Randlay elders had left Galt with their family, sensing the coming political storm, and found a new home in Eastern Mendev on the shores of the Lake of Mists and Veils. Calros contacts from office had afforded him the foresight to see what was headed their way in Galt, but by this time Jezelle had not been a crusader for a good many years and thus was not in the know of how they had left a land on the brink of figurative witch hunts for a land with actual witch hunts. Those were some rough years for the Randlay family, as Jezelle and her older daughter both at times came under scrutiny, but they endured.
Jack Randlay was born during the period between the Third and Fourth Crusades to Jarot Randlay and his wife Olevia. Jarot was the third son of Jezelle and Calros, their fourth child overall, and had grown up having to fight a little bit harder to be heard. When the Fourth Crusade was called, Jarot was the first of his many siblings to enlist. Jack was twelve at the time, plenty old enough to understand the necessity of his father leaving. But he was still very unhappy to see his father go.
Jarot Randlay was a brave warrior, taking after his mother in this regard perhaps more than any of his other siblings. In two years of fighting he distinguished himself several times on the battlefield, earning a solid reputation. But his bravery would end up costing him his life, though not without good cause. A particularly deadly vrock by the name of Vorimeraak had been carving a bloody swath through the ranks of the crusaders for years, and as such became a priority target for defeat in battle. When notice went out that a squad was being assembled to deal with her, Jarot volunteered. Setting back out to the front, they soon found an opportunity to confront the vrock during a particularly brutal battle. Jack's father led his men into combat, but Vorimeraak summoned reinforcements and the tide of battle quickly turned against the crusader hit squad. His comrades falling into disarray under the demons onslaught, Jarot made the heroic decision to engage the vrock in single combat, fighting ferociously to pin her down while his comrades regrouped and fought a retreating action. The decision would cost him his life, as he would succumb to Vorimeraak's scythe like claws, but the wounds he inflicted were nearly as grievous and the vrock was forced to retreat herself rather than pursue the other crusaders.
No matter how heroic the sacrifice however, losing a father can be a crushing blow to a boy. For years afterward Jack was plagued by nightmares of Vorimeraak, and while these caused him fear in no small amount, his hatred of the vrock only grew with each passing night. And unfortunately, without his father's income, Jack was not able to begin training for the day when he might have his revenge. His aunts and uncles, several of whom survived the Crusade, made sure that he was looked after. But now seemingly destined for an ordinary trade, it would be a long time before he could afford to outfit himself for war.
But them something happened; the second most defining thing in Jack Randlay's life. Now fifteen, Jack was in the midst of one of his nightmares. He was on a rocky bluff looking over a terrible battle between ragged crusaders and a demon army. The crusaders were clearly overmatched, being cut down at an alarming rate. Here and there a crusader would momentarily appear to have his fathers face, or a demon would suddenly look like what he imagined his nemesis Vorimeraak appeared as. Suddenly though on a ridge a short distance away a figure appeared, dressed in bulky armour that looked at least as heavy as any knight's and carrying what appeared to be a huge crossbow - without the bow. The figure waved his arm forward and just then a whole phalanx of like soldiers crested the hill. The first silently yelled, "Fall back!" to the beleaguered crusaders below, who seemed to hear him even without sound. The crusaders began to retreat towards the ridge, and that it was when it happened: the mysterious soldiers raised their weapons and opened fire on the advancing horde. It may have been just a dream, but Jack could swear he had never seen arrow fire quite like this. The bulky soldiers fired projectile after projectile without pausing to reload. Demons were falling fast, and then the original force of crusaders rallied and reformed ranks at the base of the ridge. The demons advanced and their own artillery began focusing on the strange soldiers, some of whom fell under the return fire. But as demons clashed with crusaders below, the other men, like something out of a tale from Numeria, continued to rain fire down upon their foes. A fast moving force of the demons flanked the ridge and charged up to tear apart the soldiers, but the purpose of their heavy armour came clearly into play as the drew knives and engaged in melee.
The dream ended abruptly as Jack was woken for breakfast, but the impression left upon him would last a lifetime. Jack Randlay would become like those warriors with their counter-intuitively matched armaments, he would master a new style of fighting. Before that night he had never expressed an interest in working with a hammer and anvil, but as the reality of the incredible cost of outfitting himself such sunk in he realized he would have to be able to forge his specialized gear himself. In his fevered imagination he could already see himself holding a completed repeating crossbow in his hands, and immediately he dropped what he had been learned to newly apprentice to a smith.
Owing to the skills he had come to late and the vast sums of money his plan would require, the end of the Fourth Crusade came and went before Jack was ready to enlist. But Crusade or not Crusade Jack Randlay was not to be stopped. He was in Kenabres the night before his enlistment in the army. The night everything went deep South. For a man eager to see real combat to test out his theories, opportunity was had come to knock. Hard.[/sblock]
