From the time he was born, Yiska was raised as the Romani everyone knows his kind for - stealing, conning, and associating themselves with low people in order to survive. When he refused to go along with an arranged marriage or, as specified, assault a man in armed robbery instead, he was beaten and exiled from his family. These were a band of gypsies he had been raised in but did not bear relation to, and because he had no proof of their dealings, other gypsies regarded him as a disgraced cousin of their kind. Uncle Shaw, the leader and victimizer of Yiska, spread rumors to keep it this way.

Now, Yiska relies on petty theft and odd jobs to keep him going, doing whatever he can so not to turn into the vagabond that his "family" had set him up to be. While he is a charming and personable young man, his past experience has left him a rather scarred perspective of people and life in general. He tends to lose his temper more than he would like, and while he's quite a gentleman on the outside, he is weak in his old ways and cannot stop himself from weaseling in and out of tight situations. Unfortunately, his rough lifestyle has led to strange fixations - paranoia in the unknown takes up the majority of this, and the rest is a desperation to keep what occasional friend or lover he can manage on good days.