The man who would grow up to be the famed hunter Daveth Golvan started of with humble beginnings - a shepherd in the hills of his homeland, like his father and his father before him and his father before him. For days on end he was left alone, unsheltered in the foothills of the mountains, watching over the sheep, training one of his family's prized hawks, a feisty female named Harle. He honed his skills from an early age - learning the ways of the woods and the plains and the hills so that he might survive the harsh conditions. He sported for ahres and the like to apss the day, sharpening his skills with the bow. This was both a life lesson and a rite of passage for the men of his family, and he would not dissapoint.
It would all change one night, a night of flashing teeth and terrible howls.
It was dark, the sheep were bleating in utter terror, and his hawk was agitated. The young Daveth rose from his simple sleeping mat and took his bow, stringing it with an ease born of experience. He pelted down the slope, tumbling and drawing back the string as he saw the horrible sight. Sheep bodies lay everywhere, torn and bloodied and gutted and mutilated beyond reckognition, and above the stood a fearsome sight, a feral, malicious, mocking beast, its slabbering jaws dripping with gore. It looke dup at the boy, and Daveth swore he saw it smile, before dissapearing into the night.
His rite of passage was ruined and his family would be ruined by the loss of the flock - Daveth's blood was up. Ignoring the few scattered sheep he took off after the wolf, eyes scanning the ground, searching for any sign of the fast, dangerous beast. Day upon day he tracked it, Harle in tow, following every hint of a trail, every chance of a lead. After enarly a week he had tracked the large, feral beast down, and hid, watching it, bow drawn. an hour he waited, downwind of the creature, as he waited for the perfect shot, the perfect kill... t's head moved, perhaps to yawn, perhaps to spyt the young boy, but there was no hesitation. The hour screamed across the glade, imapling the creature in the eye, killing it instantly. It slumped down without a sound.
Daveth let out his breath, feeling his heart pound until the point it threated to burst his chest. He loved this feeling, the thrill of the chasae, the anxiety of the hunt, the satisfaction of the kill. He crave dit more and more, it was like a drug. He began to support his family by going out with the woodsmen to hunt game - even in the deepest winter months he could find grouse and deer with a skill no other man on his village had known. His eyes were as keen as his family's hawks, which he raised generation after generation, always taking a single female and naming her Harle. Soon word of his skill spread, and by the time he was 20 he was hunting for the best boar and deer for the local aristocracy, but ti was still not enough. He tracked creatures up mountains, through woodland, through glade and swamp to reach his quarry, so great was his need for the hunt. He had a particular taste for hunting down man eaters and farm wreckers - he was lorded as something of a hero amongst the farmers of his homeland.
When he was 30, he though that the hunt would consume him unto destruction, and then a group contacted him - a group of individuals known as the Hawkeye Wildrunners, and he was asked to join their pack. After an explanation of who they were and what they did, daveth's heart sang with joy - there weere others like him! All he needed was to complete one rite of passage - find a creature worthy of the hunt and slay it. The leader, a charismaic elf, smiled as he asked what it would look like, and simply said
"Follow your instincts - you will find it..." |