¶ Background
Long before she became the cantankerous tavernkeeper of The Crooked Kin, Siska Marrow was known across the haunted countryside of Ustalav as The Hollow Huntress—a ranger of grim reputation who stalked the Shudderwood and shadowed the trails of werewolves, ghouls, and worse.
Trained by a dying order of monster hunters after losing her family to a nightghast attack near Carrion Hill, Siska’s youth was spent in brutal efficiency. She hunted horrors by moonlight and mapped the whispering barrows of Amaans. She wore the pelt of a dire wolf slain with her bare hands and spoke to ravens like kin. Her arrows flew truer than most men's faith.
Eventually, though, something changed. A mission to slay a possessed druid in the Furrows ended in tragedy—her companions dead, the corruption of her quarry lingering in her soul. Disillusioned, she laid down her bow and returned to civilization, settling in Ravengro where her reputation faded into local legend.
Then came the egg. Half-frozen in the marshes west of town. The others saw a curse—Siska saw a second chance. She named the hatchling Clutch, not just for how she found him, but for how tightly he clung to life.
Siska raised him with the same stubborn resolve she used to face the night. Though age has slowed her limbs and her tavern apron hides the scars of a hundred battles, she has never stopped watching the shadows. Her longbow still hangs above the hearth, and on stormy nights, some say they hear her whispering old hunting prayers to the dark.