Savaric Ashlan was born to a hunter father and a midwife. His father was not kind or sweet, instead, he was angry that he had gotten the woman pregnant and had been pressured to marry her. As a result of this, Savaric of Malgrave was often the victim of his father's tempers. This made the young boy very fearful of the world, prone to violent nightmares and night terrors. His father had a cure for that as well. When his mother would take trips out of town to attend to a pregnancy and birth, Savaric's father would take him hunting.
Most of the time this meant that Savric would serve as the bait for his father. His father would douse him in the smell of the rut from a deer - or a favorable scent to draw out a boar, or send him scrambling down a hole to flush out a rabbit. He was nothing more than a dog to the hunter, someone to be despised, and when he failed, punished severely.
This was the status norm until Savaric was thirteen years old. His father had gotten into a drunken rage and beaten his mother, who was pregnant again. After the beating, his father dragged Savaric out into the woods for a hunt. They were gone for nearly three weeks. When the city guard was finally sent out to find the hunter and his son, they found the badly beaten and decaying body of the father, and his son, bruised, battered and bloodied. He told them that the boogeyman had attacked. And he was no longer afraid of the boogeyman.
Something inside Savaric had snapped. He was no longer timid and afraid. He had become strong and resolute - but worse, he had become withdrawn from the world. He had lost touch with some small piece of humanity, that bit of him that wanted to interact with others. Instead, something darker had been birthed. The intense teenager took to the art of the hunt much like his father did, but eventually, he went to seek out something that would focus his abilities. He went forth to become a ranger.
Having sought out an advanced Ranger to assist him with his training, Savaric at the age of 16 began his training to follow in the older man's footsteps. First, the Ranger tested his physical stamina, mental toughness and resolve. The ranger expected Savaric to follow him with a full pack of supplies from Rhaedan to the highest point of the Rothim River pass. Once there, he had to cross the bridge - as much as it was not a bridge and just a collection of rickety planks, with the pack full. Once that was done, there was very little time for rest as they crawled down the hill of the pass and Savaric had to swim against the current of the river to pass back over. The young man nearly drowned but was able to make his way across, though it was several miles downstream from where the ranger was and he had to make his way back to him, using on his techniques for tracking.
This would be their way of life for the next several months. Living off the land, tracking prey, and assisting when the request was made from the Royal House for an archer to handle a job that the Knights could not. They roamed the land, the ranger teaching Savaric where to find the best fruits and nuts to live off of the land, what to avoid. There was training with the bow - shooting squirrels through the eye or having to miss a meal that night, sword and bludgeoning training, and night time navigation.
After completing the first part of his training, the trainer then took Savaric up into the mountains north of Rhaedan, near the border with the Blasted Fens. Here, the trainer put Savaric through the next phase of his training - his stamina and commitment stressed to the limit and still having the resolve to push forward. Placed in the middle of nowhere, with only the other to rely on, Savaric was pushed to his physical and mental limits. They spent nearly a year in the mountains. During this time, he lost two of his fingers on his left hand, and three toes to frostbite on his right foot.
The rugged terrain, severe weather, hunger, fatigue, and mental pressure was much on Savaric, but he learned to push through, to sharpen his skills and abilities. He learned to build his own bow during these months, to snare and track his quarry. He worked on war games with his instructor, learning the art of stealth and camouflage. He also learned knots, belays, anchor points, all manners of ways to survive in the wilds of the mountains, including climbing and abseiling. When the year was up, the Ranger left him one night tied into his sleeping bag and a note - to meet him in the Southern bog-lands. Savaric spent the next few hours to get out of his trap and then started to track his instructor.
During his travels south, Savaric made a misstep on a ledge and fell and broke his arm. He had to stop his pursuit of his master to seek medical attention and found it in the town of Sipdon. A young healer by the name of Talia Neuberg tended to his wounds. At first she found his gruff exterior to be problematic, but as her father was the local huntmaster, she knew how to deal with that with a few pointed words and well placed punches. For the first time Savaric had found a woman that was not intimidated by him nor requested coin to share time with her. During the next several weeks while he healed, the two began a courtship. It was not always the smoothest of relationships, as they argued and then made up and never could really decide at times which way they were going, but eventually something more solid formed. Eventually he had to take back to his training, but he promised that when it was completed, he would return to her.
Arriving in the briny bogs of the southlands near the sea, he finally met back up with his instructor and began the final phase of his training. Survival in the worst of conditions. The summer months were brutal on Savaric. He was battered and bruised as now his instructor had turned on him and the two relentlessly hunted each other throughout the bogs and marsh. The objective was simple - if Savaric could capture the Ranger and hold him captive for forty-eight hours, he would win the challenge and finally be considered one of the brethren.
Finally near the end of September, Savaric finally was able to get the drop on his instructor. Capturing him in a pit trap was no easy task, but the hard part was holding him there. The wizened instructor did everything in his power to escape as he had so many times before, but in the end, he was finally able to keep his master captured. He had become one of them. He had graduated. Releasing the Rangar, the two of them celebrated, and Savaric received his marking, a scarring - a branding - over his heart in the shape of a compass rose.
As he promised to Talia, he returned to Sipdon. The two of them resumed their relationship. However, now with his new role as a Ranger, he was responsible for maintaining and protecting the lands around the town - hunting down criminals, recovering the lost, and as Talia's skill as a healer grew, she would send him to fetch rare items for her practice. It was this mutual relationship - healer to ranger that developed to something far more. After a few years of courtship, the two of them finally decided to seal their relationship with marriage.
Savaric and Talia have now neared their first anniversary of their marriage. Their relationship still has it's bumps and rocky moments, the two of them very stubborn and headstrong, but very much in love with the other. He takes on missions to assist around the city and kingdom as needed, and travels on escort missions with his wife as she needs him to.
Recently, with the two of them becoming more renowned, they have found their services more required, which means that Savaric is now starting to travel further outside of his territory to assist where needed with other rangers from other territories.