Slavingrad forges the toughest and most durable of characters.

In the strict life of military authority and endless conflict, Thane was molded into a man of strong willpower and intense tenacity. Brought up by his mother, after his father abandoned her prior to his birth, the future monster hunter had to 'man up' from an earlier than usual age. Especially as to how volatile life in Slavingrad was. With the lack of a fatherly figure since birth and the turbulent conflict ridden life in Slavingrad, Thane developed a strong desire to someday create a complete family away from his home city.

It was his early teenage years when his mother died by the claws of a monster unleashed by a sorcerer when Thane found himself in the company of street urchin gangs. As a more physically gifted boy, he often acted as a muscle rather than a pickpocket. As such from an early age, he was taught by adult criminals in Slavingrad the skills to wield a blade. One foggy and rainy morning, Thane and company picked the wrong target to shake down. A foreigner from lands afar who had just arrived was ambushed by the gang of teenagers. When the stranger unsheathed the two-handed sword from his back, unfazed at all, the teenagers dropped their weapons and ran. All except Thane.

Valor. Bravery.

But mostly - foolishness and recklessness. A signature characteristic of his that he retains to this day.

Of course, it took the capable stranger two unnatural swings of his blade to disarm Thane before offering him an escape from this life of misery.

Elbion. The Monster Hunter Academy.

Tutored by the stranger - Cyril - Thane found a purpose once more and his desire for a family was reignited. The thousands of different faces which walked each day the streets of Elbion, its wealth and the safety of its walls gave him hope once more that his desire was achievable along with the ability to avenge the death of his mother at the hands of a monster. The romantic dream he had in his mind drove him forward. The imaginary picture of him slaying the monstrous blight of the land while at home a beautiful wife and child await him was all that he wanted to recreate in reality.

And it was all so close.

In his very early twenties he fell in love and betrothed a trader's charming daughter. For he would give everything. Thane drastically decreased his contracts for monsters which were far too distant from Elbion and settled with his wife in a house in the Merchant's Quarter of Elbion. A week before his marriage Thane returned home from a contract to find out the trader - a radical gambler - sold his own daughter to pay off debts to an unscrupulous and mysterious character. In a fit of rage, he nearly murdered the man with his fists and left to track down the whereabouts of his future wife and her possessor.

So close.

As a capable hunter, and thus tracker, Thane arrived at a nondescript sentry tower abandoned eons ago in a forest which was rarely traversed to. There, to his misfortune, he discovered the worst of scenarios. The man was a dark magic practitioner who sought to create a ritual bestowing supernatural gifts to its target without paying a price as the Laws of Magic dictate. A duel of life and death ensued between the two in which Thane prevailed but for nothing. He was too slow to end the fight and save his wife's life, along with his own. In a last ditch effort to survive, the dark sorcerer had used the hunter's wife's life energy to mortally wound Thane.

Yet, so far.

With no tears left to cry and nearly dying, he succumbed to the experimental ritual himself seeking powers beyond his human confinement. It saved his life and gave him such supernatural powers with a hefty price - the extreme limit to which he could use magic and the sapping of emotions and fertility, a slight change of appearance (silver hair, cat-like eyes) and a decaying memory. The same thing he pledged an oath to kill, now he had become.

To defeat the monster, he became one.