A tall man, at just over 6-foot, Surks is named after a scar he has on either palm, they are in the shape of a circle. Tends to be dressed in ratty leathers with a hood. His hair is shaggy and uncombed. his ears are pointed. He looks every part the street rat.

• Instinctual Magic: Surks has a very high aptitude for magic, and has begun to be able to cast spells without formal training. He is still wary of this and only uses it for combat if he absolutely needs to, he has singed his eyebrows off more than once.
  
• Street Rat: Surks grew up on the streets, and has related skills. Including but not limited to stealth, pickpocketing, lockpicking, lying, rhyming slang/hobo signs and climbing (Used to escape through the city).
  
• Fist-fighting: He isn't exactly a wildly skilled fighter, but he is entirely willing and very capable of fighting dirty. If you have soft bits he will hit them, hard.
• Knife-fighting: He is skilled with a knife, basically in the same way as fist fighting

Surks is generally wary and untrusting, but once he decides he likes you he is loyal to a fault. Due to his skepticism, he doesn't tend to accept help from those he doesn't know. He has a dry wit, that he particularly directs at people who are not part of the slums/docks. He follows a code that is ubiquitous at least among his network of slum-folk. It is just called 'The Code'. He tries to help any slum children when he can without expecting return, a courtesy he doesn't extend to anyone else.

Born... somewhere to an elf and a human (He assumes) and dumped pretty much immediately Surks was in an orphanage till he was about 7 or 8. He named himself Surks at some point during his stay at the orphanage, naming himself after his scarred palms, Surks is short for circles. He kind of wishes he could change it, but it has become a part of his identity by now. He has had these circular scars on each palm for as long as he can remember. They look like someone placed a red hot 1 1/2 in ring on either hand.e knows they are somehow significant. He just doesn't know how he knows that or in what way they are important. He doesn't remember much from that time, he has had more important things to worry about since (Which has been a major theme of his life, not being able to really progress in any meaningful way because he has to prioritize survival). At age 7 or 8 Surks left the orphanage, it wasn't hard. You only have to once you sneak out they don't tend to look for you very hard.

Being 8 and on the streets is obviously not easy, but Surks did as well as could be expected. He had always been smart and he was able to make himself useful to a local group of petty thieves, being able to escape through small areas while pickpocketing, as well as looking fairly innocent is a useful trait. These thieves taught him his basic letters and numbers, reading is useful for information gathering and numbers for valuing a haul. Letters and Numbers were not the most important things they taught him however. The absolute most important thing he learned under them was The Code, if you don't follow it you die, it is that simple. Eventually Surks outgrew his usefulness for the thieves and went his own way, he wasn't really attached to any of them emotionally, but eventually did some odd jobs for them, repaying them for teaching him, in accordance with The Code.

It was like that that Surks lived, until he had eventually gotten himself a little hovel where he could scrape by until he would inevitable get killed in a mugging, or something. That is, until Surks accidentally burnt it down with magic, which he knew nothing about. Realizing he could do... things with magic, Surks was surprisingly wary for a young man of 16, he knew enough to know he knew nothing, and knowing nothing kills practitioners of magic. He only used magic that could be damaging twice since then, both times were against someone larger and better armed in a fight. He did however use other magics fairly often, mostly to either help get away when he had to flee, or as a performance piece if he was busking. Three years past of this, his lifestyle becoming better and better as he used magic to aid him in his petty crime, this is where his story starts.

This is the code that the slums live by, when people break the code they tend to die. Either directly from being attacked, or indirectly from losing their contacts and being unable to feed themselves. The code only applies to those who stay in the slums.

1. You pay your debts. Always.
   
2. You don't talk to the authorities.
3. If it doesn't affect you or yours you stay out of it.
4. You don't screw over other slum-folk, unless they have a large sum. (It is recognized that if you have anything worth a lot of money you can be a target, no matter where you live.)
5. Leave children alone, you don't attack the kids, ever.