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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Anax" data-source="post: 2622239" data-attributes="member: 19868">Okay--that's likely how I'd reconcile things, too, but it's always good to check.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Wow.  I didn't look at everybody's post in detail, so I didn't spot that our backgrounds were so similar in many ways.  Hmm.  I need to run, but my first pass thought about this is that it might be more interesting to keep things somewhat more independent.  Oswin's background suggests that the organization he's a part of is more involved in the occult side of things--and is more of an elite Church force than the general run-of-the-mill guard.  I alluded before to some possible tension between the ordinary guard who are at work every day in the streets of Flamekeep, and know what kind of compromises people need to make to survive, and the more elite guards who (when they do end up in the slums for some reason, perhaps coming after an arcane offender of some sort) are more likely to enforce the word of the law.What if Oswin did have a similar background as far as what got him started, but in Thaliost instead of Flamekeep, and ending up in a martial church order rather than the guard.  That implies (to me) that he's got a much firmer grounding in special situations (you mentioned cults of the Dragon Below, possessing fiends, and spies in your original post), whereas Hariel's experiences (at least, before Lord Alistair) have been related almost exclusively to mundane matters.Based on that, I can see Hariel and Oswin striking sparks when they first meet.  Because they have similar backgrounds, but significantly different careers, they kept almost, but not *quite* understanding each other for a while.  Eventually, however, they saw enough of the other's baileywick to gain some serious respect.  Oswin certainly has a way with matters religious and arcane that Hariel's training had not prepared her for.  Hariel, on the other hand, has a greater degree of insight into the criminal mind uninfluenced by those matters.And I'll stop there.  What do you think?  If you want to go with a more connected background, Shaggy, I can certainly work with other possibilities.  (Heck--could even do the childhood friendship, then went different ways for training, and when they met again similar sparks to what I'm supposing above, before any work for Lord Sinclair.)And: don't let me bulldoze you into anything.  I tend to just spew when I get thoughts running through my head, but I'm very open to alternatives.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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