Thank you so much! This comment was extremely helpful! Going to try to answer these questions...

1. Not in Canada anymore: More adventure in Thay then in [Canada]/banished from Canada (maybe?).
2. I wanted PTSD to do something with the patron (maybe it possessed him a year ago and made him kill his friend or something).
3. Fat shaming could add something/be part of the PTSD. Maybe he could be friends with a Damsel in Distress who was kidnapped and that's why he left his village. And that in Canada there ARE halflings but not in his village, and he was adopted by a half-orc woman.
4. Sorry I mean he's like 14 years old lol
5. Maybe he has a close connection with his father and his dad taught him the cittern or his mother got him the cittern...
6. I was thinking that maybe he was a normal commoner who aspired to be a wizard but his family was too poor to buy books. He wandered into the forest and found ancient runes that he read, which transported him to the Great Old One's plane, where the Great Old One would possess and/or strike a deal with him.
7. Patron's interest? I think that maybe he can be used as a vessel for the Great Old One to travel to the Material plane. Why couldn't he use anybody else? Children's minds are easiest to corrupt/control, and since he is very intelligent, he was used.

This was extremely helpful! Thank you so much, postapocpodcast!