Saren Thatcher
Saren was born into a noble
family whose name he has vowed not to use or divulge until he has restored
the honor of the family name, but we will get to that in a moment. His
family are wealthy merchants but only recently so. Saren, being nobly
born, was brought up with all the luxuries one could want. His
parents gave him the best tutors and they taught him courtly behavior.
At the age of 16 it became vogue for the nobility of the region to have
their sons and daughters train in the arts of war. Rumor had reached
the nobles of a great battle between an army of Orcs and a coalition of some
sort. It was not that the nobles thought that there was any enemy to
which their children would have to face, but yet another way to gage what
family was better than another. Whose offspring were the better
swordsmen, whose could shoot a bow better, and the like.
Saren's family put word out that they were looking for able and capable
martial teachers for their son. Many men, soldiers and mercenaries
alike, came to the families call for the prospect of living an easy lift
teaching a noble whelp how to fight. There was much debate between
Saren’s father and his advisors as to whom they should hire for the
position. Saren was present for many of the interviews, after all he
wanted to at least see who would be teaching him, even if he would have no
input in the decision. Saren left around lunchtime, having become
bored with the boasts that each man made, each one seeming more outlandish
than the last. As he left, Saren noticed several of the men, all
except one, were only a few years older than himself, and wondered which one
of them would be his teacher come the morrow.
To his surprise, it was the older soldier he had seen the previous day that
greeted him at the appointed time for his training. Now that Saren was
able to get a closer and better look at the man, he saw that he was old
indeed. He was old enough to be his grandfather. Knowing how his
parents loved to be seen as better than their peers, he wondered what his
parents could have been thinking.
It turned out that, even at his advanced age, Saren’s teacher, Avrim, was a
skilled warrior. Avrim was proficient in many weapons and Saren was a
quick study. Over the course of their training, Saren noticed a subtle
change in Avrim’s attitude. At first, Avrim was all business. He was
the teacher and that was the end of their relationship. Avrim’s tone was
clipped, almost cold, and there seemed to be a sadness about him. But over
the course of a few months that sadness seemed to disappear and the Teacher
and Student barrier between them seemed to come down a little. Then one day,
when Saren arrived for his lessons, Avrim, instead of leading him to the
area where they usually trained, instead took Saren to Saren’s Father’s
study, a place Saren was rarely, if ever, allowed to enter. Two chairs had
been moved in front of the fireplace in the study. They both sat down.
Avrim stared above the fireplace mantle to the wall where a variety of
weapons hung. Most of them Saren knew by sight. But, one, a lance type
weapon, Saren had never seen before. Wary of breaking the silence, but
his curiosity beginning to get the better of him, Saren asked Avrim what the
lance like weapon was.
“That”, Avrim replied, “is your Great-Grandfather's Ranseur.” Saren asked
Avrim how he knew it was his grandfather’s weapon. Avrim then told
Saren of his Great-grandfather and of the Paladi Anthichi. He told of
how Joram the Just was murdered by one of his own sons. And how that
son, Saren’s grandfather, in his own quest for money, singlehandedly ruined
Saren’s family name. Though no one was able to prove it, it is widely
believed that Saren’s grandfather was behind the murder and that caused many
of the merchants outside of their realm to stop dealing with them.
From that day on, Saren trained with Avrim in the ways of the Paladi
Anthichi and with his great-grandfather's weapons. When Avrim had
taught him all that he could, Saren knew it was time to leave his parents'
house. As he had done before, he informed his parents of his intent to
leave. With only a “Yes, Yes, Be gone!!” from his father and a “That’s nice
dear” from his mother, Saren bid farewell to Avrim and the few friends he
had, gathered his belongings for the road. Before he left the house,
he paid one final visit to his fathers study. Leaving a note saying
that he would return them, and knowing that his parents would not care one
way or the other in any event, Saren took his grandfathers Scimitar and
Ranseur from the wall and left his family home.
Saren no longer uses his family name, adopting the surname Thatcher upon
seeing a young boy repairing the roof of his home in one of the small towns
he passed through. Saren has wrapped a portion of his Ranseur, just
below the head of the weapon, in dark stained leather. It is widely
believed that his family name and crest are etched into the weapon
underneath those wrappings. The same is done to, and said of, the hilt
of his Scimitar.
Soon after he left home, Saren
was told of a heroic warrior saint of Hemator who was looking for
like-minded individuals to accomplish a goodly and noble task. It took
several months, but Saren tracked down this saint named Solaris and began to
travel with him.
