He was born out of an affair, and her father always resented and mistreated him for it out of spite. He thought if he could become a skilled/powerful enough to make money for his family, he might earn back his father's good graces. He is often desperate to get what he wants, even without bad intentions, this makes him irresponisble. His patron is future self whose turned to wickedness to survive and is trying to invoke the same in your current self but your current self refuses to go by those immoral acts. As soon as he turned 18 and trained to protect his family, he gained a vison-like dream of her patron, begging him to shake a poor sinners hand to help him with the ability he needs to properly earn money and protection for his loved ones. He believed the being, made the pact and did as it wished—left his home to follow the higher beings wishes until realizing the being was suspiciously cynical, he used to listen to silence it but is now continuing on her adventure to right his wrongs and do the very opposite of those devious acts, however ofc will have to sacrifice an occasional beast or being if he really wants to up her power. not that he’d tell anyone that though. “Regretting the things your Patron forces you to do, and the only way to free yourself is to kill the entity behind it all.” in my case, fighting the urge to listen to its evil requests and remain within my morals as to not become what my patron (future self) has become. He wasn't born to a wealthy family and being a Tiefling he couldn't find much proper work, so he decided being a defender might help him work his way up into being trusted by others and perhaps even paid for embarking on dangerous adventures. with this newfound pact he sees that embarking on these adventures will be easier than she thought--as long as he's fine with losing his sanity and hold on his morality along the way.