Jon Skaylebane

Jon Skaylebane was born in 1478 DR, the first child of Arik and Gayla Skaylebane. Though born in Baldur's Gate, his destiny was tied to a patch of land he wouldn't see until he was three years old: Golden Acres. In 1481 DR, his father Arik, answering a call to reclaim the family's heritage, moved them all to the 300-acre farm near Daggerford.   Jon grew up in the shadow of two legacies. The first was the farm itself, the rich soil his great-great-grandparents Goldentag and Rina had loved. The second was the legacy of the rangers in his bloodline. He spent his childhood exploring the fields, climbing the ancient oak on the hill where Goldentag and Rina were buried, and staring into the nearby, ominous veil of the Misty Forest. He learned to track the deer that grazed their fields and the wolves that preyed on their livestock, skills that came to him with an unnerving, natural ease.   While his sisters, Katryn and Jaquiline, took to farm life, Jon was drawn to the wild. His father, Arik, recognized the same spirit that had called to his own father, Xanros, and his grandfather, Goldentag.   Daggerford, a major stop on the Trade Way, relied on skilled scouts and rangers to protect it from threats posed by the High Moor and the Misty Forest. The most respected of these protectors was Theren Elmsong, a solitary but renowned elven ranger whose skill with a longbow was legendary in the region. Theren had known of the Skaylebane name, recalling tales of the old ranger Goldentag who had once settled the nearby lands.   When Jon was thirteen, a band of goblins, emboldened by a harsh winter, staged a raid on Golden Acres while Arik and Gayla were in Liam's Hold. Jon, using a simple hunting bow and his innate tracking skills, followed their trail for miles, deeper toward the Misty Forest than he had ever gone. He was eventually found by a patrol led by Theren Elmsong, who had been tracking the same band.   Theren was astonished. The half-elf boy had tracked the goblins as well as any of his own apprentices, and with none of the training. He saw the raw, untamed potential—the perfect blend of human tenacity and elven keenness.   Seeing a reflection of the past and a hope for the future, Theren offered to train the boy. For the next two years, Jon’s life was divided. He would spend seasons helping his father on the farm, his strength growing with the harvest. But he would spend equal time in the unforgiving wilderness under Theren’s stern tutelage.   Theren honed Jon's raw talent into a deadly art. He taught him the secrets of the Misty Forest and the Lizard Marsh, how to move without a sound, and how to distinguish the snap of a goblin's twig from that of a wolf. Jon mastered the elven longbow, but Theren, a pragmatist, also trained him extensively with the paired axes and longsword favored by rangers who had to fight in the close, tangled confines of the forest.   Today, Jon Skaylebane is a young ranger in his own right. He is the sworn protector of Golden Acres, but his patrol extends far beyond his family's fences. He walks the line between the civilization of the Trade Way and the ancient dangers of the forest and the swamp, a true heir to Goldentag's legacy, and a student of Daggerford's finest ranger.