Daxter was born an ordinary giant rat in the island nation of Lantan, a land renowned throughout Faerûn for its artificers, inventors, and wondrous mechanical creations. Like many rats, he lived among workshops and warehouses, surviving on scraps while quietly observing the brilliant minds around him. One of those minds belonged to Jak, a gifted Tabaxi artificer. Jak believed that invention existed for one purpose above all others: to preserve life. To him, technology was never meant to replace living beings, but to overcome the limitations imposed by fragile flesh, injury, disease, and eventually death itself. He could never accept that the greatest minds the world had ever known were destined to disappear simply because their bodies failed them. During one of his experiments, Jak successfully cast the Awaken spell upon a giant rat. That rat was Daxter. Originally, Daxter was intended to become nothing more than an assistant. His small size allowed him to crawl through machinery, retrieve dropped components, inspect delicate mechanisms, and reach places no humanoid ever could. But what began as a practical experiment soon became an unlikely friendship. Unlike many who would have dismissed an awakened animal as little more than a curiosity, Jak treated Daxter as an equal. He taught him engineering, magical theory, craftsmanship, and the philosophy behind invention itself. Over the years, Daxter became far more than an assistant—he became Jak's apprentice, closest friend, and eventually the only person who truly understood his work. As the years passed, Jak's research became increasingly ambitious. He began designing artificial organs capable of replacing failing ones. Mechanical lungs that never tired. Reinforced joints that would never weaken. Arcane circulatory systems capable of sustaining life long after the body itself had begun to fail. His goal was never immortality through undeath, nor replacing flesh with machinery for the sake of perfection. He simply refused to believe that death should be the inevitable end of every brilliant mind. Eventually, Jak began testing these inventions upon himself. Each success encouraged the next. Beneath his clothing, more and more of his body became a masterpiece of engineering hidden beneath living skin. Unfortunately, such work could never remain secret forever. hp: ac: modifier: level: