Arik, who claims not to remember what name he was born with, grew up in
Cupertino CA as a member of the small, mostly uninfluential Szdano family.
They had a few ties to the Phuri Dae, which was very helpful when Arik was
born. His blood was the purest the family had seen in generations, and he
was quickly apprenticed to the Phuri Dae, to train him in history and in the
use of his powers.

He and his adoptive brother, Joe Williams [a genius with vehicles and repair],
joined up with a handful of other young Rom in a kumpania to tour the
country and seek their fortune. Bad fortune seemed to follow them, culminating
in a town called Whitebone WI [coincidentally, the hometown of DuPont VP
Lawrence DuPont]. A group of vigilantes led by a deputy sheriff crucified
Arik against a scarecrow, binding him by the wrists, ankles and throat with
barbed wire.

The kumpania ruptured at this point, most of them going back home. Joe,
unwilling to return 'like a whipped dog', went to visit his sister in
Washington. Arik, afraid to the point of fury, stayed near WhiteBone and
plotted means of revenge for a full month. At this point, he received word
from Joe that something was wrong.

Arik arrived in St. Claire, his VW van limping into town, and set up busking
and petty larceny to make enough money to get by while he tried to find Joe.
Both projects worked well, and Joe was discovered working in a local garage.
His sister [neither knew she was garou] had gone missing just before he
arrived in town, and he was convinced that foul play was involved. Ro staked
out a coffee shop/bookstore that Rholeen had been known to frequent, and it
was here that he met another garou, named Jess.

He never found Rholeen, but he felt he'd made a fair trade with Jess. Fair
enough that he risked pissing off his entire family by allowing her to take
place in a ritual to make her an 'honourary Rom' and then marry her.
Fair enough that he decided not to run away when she told him about the
Garou, and shifted in front of him to show him that she was one of them.

Sooner or later, for whatever reasons gipsies have for wandering, the both
of them trundled out of St. Claire in the battered VW and in all theory
lived happily ever after.

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