He is one of the rare few in Eriador who has seen Mordor, and he has journeyed far because of what he has seen.

His odyssey began farther south than most maps even show, in the Harradwaith.  Shahrif is one of the dark skinned Harradrim from far Harrad known as Mumakil.  The ancient wars are long over, but still among their people there are tales and whispered oaths of vengeance past down through the generations.  Playing on these deeply harbored resentments, there have come strangers to enlist their aid in a new war on Gondor.  But all they spoke of was victory and revenge, never what would happen after and who would share in the spoils.  Shahrif knew this kind of thinking, he'd seen it among his own people before, and it never came to good ends.  But the people were too easily deceived.  There did come once an old man in simple grey robes.  He claimed to be a wizard from the far north and he spoke instead of allying with Gondor, warning of the evil that was seducing them.  He warned them that when Gondor was finished, they would be enslaved as well, for the coming evil knows no master.  Alas, he was too late, and though the Harradrim tried to kill him he was able to escape.  But Shahrif had listened well and remembered his name;  Mithrandir.  Soon after, their alliance sealed with Mordor, the orcs came.  Shahrif listened to them as they began readying for war and knew Mithrandir's words were truth.  Early in the darkest hours of the morning, as clouds covered the sky and made the darkness complete, his slipped away and fled westward.

Always in hiding, avoiding the cities and villages, he made his way westward toward Gondor.  But he never made it.  On the Pellanor Fields, the White Tower far in the distance, he was overtaken by the men of Gondor and bound.  Feared as a spy, they interrogated him and threatened to kill him.  He was able to cut his bonds on a rock and escape, but he was pursued back east into the very mountains that ring Mordor.  There, the men of Gondor would pursue no further.  Traveling the western side of the mountains, he made his way northward.  Along the way he came upon Morgul Vale and the fortress of the Nazgul, Minas Morgul.  Never before or since has he known such fear.  He climbed over the mountains into Mordor, again turning north and continuing just enough on the Mordor side that he couldn't be seen from that terrible fortress.  Then he passed again westward and back out of the mountains.  He passed into Rohan and again was found unwelcome.  They drove him south yet again into the White Mountains.  He said he would pass again into Gondor, but instead he turned westward, following the mountains again, sneaking past Helm's Deep by night and finally reaching the Gap of Rohan.  There, clear of Rohan, he descended back down from the foothills and made his way across the wide plains northward.  North, where perhaps he could find men who would trust him enough not to drive him away.  North, where Mithrandir said he could be found.  He soon discovered a road, lightly travelled, that ran northward; The Greenway.  He followed it and at long last reached the gates of Bree.  Here he found a strange mix of people.  There were men of all types, here and there elves and dwarves, and the queerest folk of all...  Hobbits.  Keeping his tongue for the most part, he found the people here had little news of the doom that was upon them, and knew nothing of the Harradrim in the far south.  They had no reason to fear him.  He learned there were hints of evil beginning to touch the region.  Exhausted and malnourished, he sold his sword to Constable Sageford in the small nearby town of Combe.  It was enough to let him eat well again and build up his strength.

Now his reputation preceeds him.  He fights with an almost suicidal rage and when not fighting tends to be melancholy and haunted by visions from his past.  He fought the bandits of Combe and Breeland.  He has fought for the rangers and made his way through the Barrow Downs tracking the Nazgul.  Then the day came when he knew he had made the right decision to flee.  He'd been working for a man named Strider.  He returned to report in at the Inn of the Prancing Pony but Strider was gone.  Speaking to the Innkeep, he was directed to see another man, Gandalf.  He knocked on the door and went in and was stunned to see...  Mithrandir!  He fell to a knee and could scarcely contain his emotions.  Mithrandir set him on a farther journey to the Lone Lands, setting him onto an ongoing mission to fight the evil in the north.  Now, guided by the rangers, Shahrif is directed northward, ever closer to the gathering storm.