Alice Padfoot

"All that glitters may not be gold, but there's always a fool around that I can sell it to."

Origins
Born on the roads between Greywatch and the Halfling Holds that lie near the Elven Woods, Ailís Madra Dubh, otherwise known in the Human tongues as Alice Padfoot, spent the majority of her early life travelling with her father Aodhán as part of a Halfling merchant band, one of the many roaming smallfolk parties that wandered the lands. These nomadic clans sometimes numbered over a hundred, however the close knit community Alice knew growing up never crested 40 halflings, and occasionally fell as low as 12 or 15 people during the harsher winters. Few families remained on the road for long, travelling for several years before bedding down in some of the towns and cities that they traded with. The only constancy in her life was the rumble of the wagon as it plodded down the road towards the next venture, and the sound of her father’s deep belly laugh as he spent every waking minute joking with literally anyone he could. Dour travellers had their spirits raised, stern military patrol officers hid their smiles, and the roads became a slightly happier place as everyone they passed were infected with Aodháns mirth for the few moments they crossed paths with the cheerful Halfling merchant.

Alice spent the first 15 years with her father before inquiring about her mother, to which her father told her “Many people filter in and out from our merry band. The folks that filled this party 10 years ago are not the same as the ones that fill it today. Your mother was one of those people whose calling didn’t involve sitting on a wagon telling jokes at passers-by. I don’t begrudge, and at least I got you from it” with a tussle of her hair, he passed her a candy piece and that was enough for her.

It was around her 20th year when she began to fully come into her own. Years spent watching her father trade and argue with other merchants gave her an eye for value and a tongue for barter, though never to the artisan level of Aodhán. But it was when she discovered where her father procured some of the more extravagant items of his wares that her true calling became clear. For years her father would conduct the majority of his business with Alice at his side, coaching and demonstrating the ways and means one lives the life as a merchant, but when they were staying in the larger cities he would sometimes declare one the evenings that he was running “night errands” and slip out. When asked he would tell her he was leaving to make connections in pubs and taverns that were no place for his little girl, and that someone needed to watch the cart anyway. Promising to take her with him one day, she relented and let him go. Every morning he’d return with some bauble or trinket that he acquired from a drunk merchant or noble the previous night for cheap, and that held great value, and off they would dart to sell the piece in the next town or city.

On the eve of her adulthood, he stood up from the hearth at the inn, picked up his satchel and said to Alice “Come on girl, we’ve got night errands to run”.