Malkav was born on the island of Ambervale, to a noble woman of house Archaos, a lesser cousin of the main branch. When he was born he and his mother traveled from the island to the mainland to find the boy's father. This was almost the last that was heard from Malkav.
Malkav was raised as a lesser noble for the first few years of his life, till the wealth his mother had brought with her ran dry and calling for more was less reliable. Because of this Malkav began to spend more time on the streets as his mother struggled to find work. Very little could a noble woman do, she was trained for nothing. Malkav however was picking up useful skills on the streets interacting with passing adventurers and guild member in the town.
Malkav grew up with his mother marrying a local noblemen after two years of working with the family to keep them afloat. Malkav hated his new Stepfather and spent more time with the guilds and the adventurers learning new tricks each time. He would practice in secret to master his skills in lock picking. And pick pocketing was easy with maids and servant for him to lift things off.
His stepfather insisted he become 'learned' and forced him to spend more time with his tutor and the library of books he had. Malkav used this to his advantage and began to study history, religion and much more. Everything he could get his hands on. His desire to learn more was all encompassing and as he grew older he never really developed social skills. Instead he learned how to act, to play the part he needed to play to get what he wanted.
On his 21st birthday he traveled to the big city and met with a group of other half-orcs. He did this to learn more about the street culture and during this time he was given his tribal tattoo to keep up appearances in the gang and learn the cultural history of such a thing.
By the time he turned 28 he had become extremely skilled, given the name Maven by his tutor to show his expertise in many different fields he finished his studies. Instead of working to find a noble woman to marry he instead went off adventuring like his idols of old. During this time he learned he was quite good at using his skills to find people, to uncover treasures, and to prove himself.
Now he has been called back to Ambervale, an employment letter reached him when he returned to visit his mother. A letter about the abduction of the princess, a distant cousin of his, and the offer of payment for her return. His mother told him to take this as a way to secure ties with the family and a new form of wealth and title on his own. The idea of title, land, and wealth were enough. But also secretly he had a fondness for his mother and her stories of her family and homeland. Now he was off to see if all the stories were true, and of course.
