Skave was born in the deepest reaches of the Underland, in the notorious stalker refuge known as Deep Hollow. From his earliest memories, he was immersed in the dark arts of subterfuge, stealth, and assassination that defined the stalker caste among haurek society. Unlike other haureks who relied on brute strength and frontal assault, stalkers were the elite specialists who operated alone, infiltrating enemy territory and striking from the shadows.

As a young haurek, Skave possessed all the typical superstitions of his race, but he combined them with an unusual degree of cunning and bravado that set him apart from his peers. He excelled in his training at Deep Hollow, mastering the use of throwing weapons, whips, and close-quarters combat techniques that would serve him throughout his career. However, his greatest weakness was his arrogance and his tendency to let his tongue run ahead of his good sense.

The defining moment of Skave's life came when he made a boastful claim to a fellow stalker that he could single-handedly destroy the legendary patrollers of the Simmaron Hall. The other stalker mocked him, saying he'd never survive an encounter with even one patroller, let alone defeat them all. This insult led to a vicious fight between the two haureks, during which Skave's opponent carved the distinctive zigzagging scar across his face with a knife blade. The humiliation of being defeated and then dismissed as inconsequential by his rival burned in Skave's heart like a poison.

From that day forward, Skave dedicated himself to proving his boast true. He began making unauthorized forays into the Simmaron Forest, using his stalker skills to evade the patrollers' watch and map their territory. Over the years, he became so skilled at moving through their forest undetected that he could travel to the very doorstep of the Hall itself. These dangerous expeditions were driven by twin motivations: his burning desire for revenge against the patrollers themselves, and his need to one day return to his rival and prove that his boast had not been empty.

When the witch Saress approached Lord Gral with her claims of having driven the patrollers from the forest through dark magic, Skave saw his opportunity. He volunteered for the scouting mission to verify her claims, and when they found the Hall truly deserted, he embedded his own hatchet in the door as a promise of his intention to return and tear the place down stone by stone. His assignment to serve the witch until Gral's army arrived frustrated him, but he saw it as merely a temporary delay before he could claim his ultimate prize: the complete destruction of the patrollers and everything they had built in the Simmaron.

FIRST APPEARANCE

Skave first appears in The Hall of the Wood.