Mesper Sorgowin started life as a farmer's son. He grew up working the fields in a small community on the coast. They had a number of faithful families, but the Sorgowins were generations of Sarenrae followers. Mesper followed suit. He wasn't the smartest of the family, or the most devout; he was good with his hands and that's how he applied himself to his work. His life was in fixing up the farm and growing the fields of food. Simple, but he liked it that way.
Things started to turn dark one Autumn with reports of howls and people going missing in nearby farmsteads. Rumors of farmers kidnapping whole families in the dead of night. Distrust and fear grew. Some farmsteads turned inwards, but others fled to nearby towns and cities. The Sorgowins stayed, saying "Probably some o' the kids down the street causin' a ruckus." The Sorgowins found out one night that these weren't rumors when it was their turn. A half dozen ghouls raided the house one night, dressed in the rags of the clothes of farm-work. Mesper, his sister Lora, and his parents Lorne and Minnie fought them off with brooms and shovels, managing to defend the house but not without a cost. Bites and scratches had spread the Ghoul Fever. They each slowly succumbed to the disease through the night, Mesper losing consciousness with the rising sun.
He woke in a cot, being nursed back to health in a Cathedral one town over. The clerics there told him he was one of the few survivors, rescued from the field by heroes risking their lives to clear the fields of the undead menace. There was no other sign of the rest of his family. He became a ward of that cathedral, studying under the clerics of Sarenrae and swearing an oath to the sun, to defend against the Unknown and to heal and protect those in need. He traveled the world, looking for small communities that needed protection and aiding in the growth of a dozen villages. Word of First Landing across the portal sounded like just the challenge he needed, and just the place to start a new life. And who knows, maybe it's just the place to learn to grow roots again--in the soil and the soul.