Backstory

As told by Steps himself:

I suppose religion was always in my future, seeing as how my big sister Kethri left our nest to go and be a Paladin for some god or another (honestly, I forget which god it is but I trust that she’s excelling at it, she always was the achiever of the family).

 
Me personally; I didn’t think much about the gods in my daily life. I was always too busy exploring, getting into trouble and making my mother worried. But I guess being restless and wild doesn’t pay the bills, so she introduced me to the trade caravans when I was just old enough to no longer be called a kitten. “Time to turn those restless paws into something productive” mom said, as I left her all those many moons ago. And so I went to travel the vast continent of Eusia making coin as a travelling merchant on the caravan, selling everything from kitchen wares and trinkets to idols and jewelry. A (somewhat) honest job that kept me occupied and exploring, while I daydreamed about grand adventures and saving the world.

But I guess you can’t outrun fate or faith (heh) forever. As our caravan crossed into the northern tundras to sell some wares at one of the local shaman (or druids, I can never tell them apart with their nature worship) tribes we were caught in a snow thunderstorm that sent flashes of green and blue bolts through an already fast becoming impenetrable wall of white. We were determined to get through it together, but when lightning struck the ground right next to us it became every cat for themselves. I made a run for it to try and find any kind of shelter - no idea what direction I was running in or where the rest of the caravan went, but when I finally spotted a small monastery up ahead I think I said the first prayer in my life hoping they’d let me in.

Luckily for me, it turns out that no divine intervention was needed, as I was welcomed into the northern Stormward Sanctuary by Brynja Stormmantle herself (she wasn’t a high keeper yet at the time you see) who gave me a seat by the fire to help me dry off my coat and stave off the cold. After waiting out the storm, she even helped me try to retrace my steps back to where the caravan had scattered. Sadly, all we found were what was left of our pile of wares and partially or fully covered tracks leading to nowhere.

One thing that did catch my eye was the fact that one of the soup tureens we had been carrying looked like it was - shivering? Convinced I was losing my sanity, I decided to open it, and that’s when I first met Schmoop. I have no idea how long he had been in there by the time we found him, but we took him back to the sanctuary to allow him to sample their hospitality (and nice warm fire) as well.

I ended up staying at the sanctuary for much longer than I had expected that faithful (there’s that damn word again) night. In the following months (in between continuing to look for my missing caravan companions) I was introduced to the Stormward Sanctuaries’ mission of helping lost, stranded, and otherwise storm-affected travellers. Brynja introduced me to the worship of Thor, and how knowledge of his domain can help guide, and perhaps even at some point master, these storms.

I also found that Schmoop and I have a lot in common - we both sleep in a box (bottle in the case of Schmoop, but that’s honestly just a slightly fancier box if you ask me), we share a sense of awe at the natural world, and we both love to travel.
It was hard understanding each other at first, but I slowly managed to learn him to speak common, and found out he’s a druid.

When Brynja was recalled to join her Open Hall of Thunder as their new high keeper, this was the sign for Schmoop and I to head back on the road after bottling (heh) up our wanderlust for as long as we had at that point.