Born the second child to a lifelong Bree Guard, and growing up with tales of adventure and responsibility, it is perhaps no surprise that Kempe was always driven to follow in his father’s footsteps. Having little family left on his father’s side, most of it having been lost over a decade before his birth after their village was raided and put to the torch; and actively ignored by his mother’s relations, Kempe grew close to his parents and older sibling. His parents tried to teach him not only to value what was his, but also to appreciate the wealth to be found in generosity and kindness to those of lesser fortune. Needless to say, that was a tough lesson for a young boy to learn, let alone understand, and would be something he would struggle with throughout his youth.

Growing up, adoring his father as he did, it came as an additional blow when the news of his death was delivered to the family. Having gone to deal with a small group of bandits that were harassing the good folk of Bree-land, Kempe’s father had instead been captured, butchered and made an example of to those who would fight for law and order. Although the details would be kept from him for a time, the loss of his father was devastating for the boy. 

After getting in trouble one day for attacking a boy who insulted his father, Kempe learned more of the truth. One of the guardsmen had, for whatever reason, been working with the bandit group and had purposefully arranged for Kempe’s father to go against them. Unknown at the time was that the leader of this group of bandits was the child of a man that had been investigated, ‘falsely’ accused and evicted from Bree years earlier. The bandit leader had grown up hating Kempe’s father and seeking some form of vengeance upon him, laying the entirety of his family's misfortune at the Guardsman’s feet. The betrayal of Kempe’s father was discovered, but too late to save his life or offer any comfort to his widow or friends beyond seeing the oathbreaker sway in the wind as a grim decoration upon the Hanging Tree.

Needless to say, this information left Kempe a little emotional and off balance. Whereas before he had given his sword training the usual kind of attention you would expect from a boy, now he threw himself into it. Each strike and thrust was imagined to bury his sword into the men who had betrayed his father, with each pump of his arm and ragged breath drawn from his lungs, Kempe piled his rage and hatred upon his opponent, determined to become the righteous avenger his father’s loss cried out for.

Suffice to say, he was most put-out when his mother and sister decided that he was being an idiot and, as he was more likely to get himself killed than anything else, in need of feminine direction.

So that was how Kempe ended up traipsing around Bree on a daily basis, doing whatever odd tasks that were needed that a boy could handle. That this also earned a bit of coin or food that he could take home for his family was surely an unintended bonus. Sure, things had been difficult without the income his father had bought home, but it's not like his mother and sister would have conspired to keep him busy, focused on things other than his own pain and also help his family in the process, right?

As with all things, life went on. Eventually the rage and hatred within Kempe’s heart had worn itself out, burning itself out like a fire starved too long of air. For many years he would refuse to admit that such may have been the womenfolk’s plan all along, choosing instead to claim it as a sign of his own growth. The time spent amongst the residents of Bree had fostered within him a deep sense of love for his fellow Bree-landers and reignited his youthful passions towards the Guard.

While Kempe was joining the Guard and learning the basics, his older sister had grown womanly enough to start attracting suitors. While he could acknowledge she was pretty enough, the young man still couldn’t understand why there were so many suitors, nor why he was forbidden from putting them through their paces to properly assess their suitability to court. In another weird coincidence, several members of his mother’s family had also gotten back in contact having apparently ‘forgiven her for running off with her guardsman’. Why they felt the need to bring several ‘men of means’ to make his sister’s acquaintance was quite beyond him, but, by the time he was a fully accepted and trained Guard of Bree, Kempe was called upon to give his sister away to be handfasted to her chosen suitor. He spent the event ensuring his sister’s happiness, and was therefore less than diligent in noticing the pleased expressions of greedy self-interest found upon most of his relative’s faces as they considered the large house the newly married couple would inhabit.

Being an honest and devoted member of the Guard, Kempe mostly ignored the politics that sprung up amidst any group. Which was why he didn’t realise the ultimate purpose his relatives had in coming up with the most inane reasons to show him off, or introduce him to available womenfolk. All he knew was that, of many a night he had planned with his friends to enjoy an evening of mead at the Prancing Pony, he instead found himself awkwardly thrust into entertaining some third daughter of this important merchant. It wasn’t like he could complain about it to anyone either. His mother had decided he needed a wife to give her grandbabies. His sister was happy being married and wanted the same happiness for him. As the young women he was introduced to were not unattractive, he found no support amongst his friends either.

Fortunately, just as Kempe ran out of ideas to avoid the terror of relatives trying to marry him off, one of the older members of the Guard who patrolled the ways and paths of Bree-land was forced back to the city after an unfortunate archery-related injury left him with a severe limp. In short order, Kempe had all but apprenticed himself to the injured man’s partner and wouldn’t be seen in town for several months.

It didn’t take much longer after that for Kempe to realise that he had found his calling