Avendar

Ranger

Founded on the ancient survival skills of primitive Avendar, rangers represent the refinement and culimination of that knowledge into a devastating predator. The newly-Sundered alatharya are among the earliest known proto-rangers, as they were forced to survive in the wild in their hubris. As other races emerged from the primeval forests, so too did the ranger's creed grow. The wild kankoran contributed their fierce, leaping strikes; the srryn, their ferocious and sudden attacks; the ethron, their careful passage through the woods; and finally the humans, with the early development of archery. As the guild has grown, these many styles have fused into a single, pan-racial entity.

Rangers are learned in many simple, effective weapons such as the mace and spear. They focus primarily on using two weapons when fighting in melee combat, as well as the element of surprise. However, a ranger is first a hunter, making his most dangerous tools his bow and arrow. Unparalleled in their use of archery, the ranger can make use of barbs, simple poisons, great distances, and accurate marksmanship to hinder their prey wherever they run. They are trained to follow tracks for great distances, shelter themselves from the elements, and detect motion even from afar. This allows a ranger's natural guile to shield him when it is he who is hunted. In the wild, a ranger can as easily vanish as he can strike.

All alignments and ethoi are open to rangers, allowing them to ply their formidable skill to whatever ends they desire. Many rangers favor deities of nature, as they often hold the natural world as a virtue all its own, but such is no more typical than foregoing religion altogether. In the end, a ranger will most often rely on himself before all others-- ally and god alike.