Stephanie doesn't have much of a backstory, since I use her mostly just as an avatar. She grew up in a middle class home, did a degree in literature, and became a writer.
Iza was born in a poor fishing village, but she was taken by slavers in a raid, when she was young. After spending a few years in captivity, learning to sneak her way around her captors, she escaped. She spent some time on the streets, stealing food to get by, before being adopted into a local criminal organistation.
Constantine grew up in a heavily nationalist area, leading to him joining the Navy out of patriotism. By the age of 50, he had reached a respectable position within it, but the outbreak of a civil war led to the most active campaign of his life. Constantine was charismatic, witty, and dashing prior to this, but as it became apparent the nation he supported was crumbling, his sanity declined rapidly. Coming out of the other side of the war, he, with the support of his crew, decided to go rogue, raiding the coasts for supplies and slave labour (Iza was his doing). At his current age of 72, his intelligence is barely above that of an
actual Hyena, and his body is heavily scarred from battle.
Zalifa grew up in the developing world, and expressed an interest in the arts from a young age. During high school, due to a chance meet, they were discovered and funded to produce a few
experimental songs. Due to their outsider viewpoint and unique style, their musical career took off from there, and Zalifa all but forgot their friends and family back home, sinking into celebrity decadence.
Ozzie's parents were new money - his father wasn't a smart man, but he made some lucky investments prior to the Civil War mentioned in Constantine's summary. As he engaged with the poverty-stricken world around him, Ozzie became disheartened, seeing his wealth, and the imposing strength that came with his species, as more of a detriment to his ability to genuinely relate to people and make friends. He fashioned a muzzle out of scrap metal, to make himself appear more approachable. His family thinks he's weird, and depressive.
Victoria is the youngest member of an old aristocratic lineage, that was stripped of their wealth after supporting the old government. Whilst she originally intended to work in academia, Victoria, now unable to enter higher education, turned to the increasingly powerful criminal gangs to make enough money to make ends meet. Originally kept around as a status symbol, over the next three decades, she proved herself both capable and morally flexible, to the point that when her boss died, she rallied enough support to depose his young son. Since then, she's expanded the gang's operations, to assist in an end goal of restoring her legacy.
Roxanne had a fairly standard childhood, although her boisterous, thuggish nature made her a problem child. She barely passed schooling, after which she briefly worked in her family's mechanic shop. She used the money to gamble in underground fighting tournaments, through which she earned a reputation as a ferocious, arrogant fighter. Victoria's people scouted her, and she was employed as a bodyguard and bouncer. After one particularly hardcore after-shift drinking binge, she ran into Iza on the streets - despite Iza's wariness, the two became good friends, leading to Roxanne proposing to Victoria that she adopt Iza as an heir - Victoria isn't into men, and doesn't have the time to raise a child from birth. A young, impressionable street thief with no connections was an ideal candidate to educate on the maintenence of a criminal organisation.
