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Here's the character sketch I'm coming up with for my AD&D Character. His background is intentionally byzantine. Let me know what you think.

Buchek--Human (or possibly half orc) Barbarian (possibly Barbarian/Ranger, if you'd allow it).

Bouchek was born a noble of the Cushat, one of the larger of the many nomadic horse peoples of the grasslands. Although ethnically a single people, the grassland nomads divide themselves into hundreds of clans, and have existed for centuries in a perpetually shifting state of war with one another, with alliances between clans being made and broken all too frequently. The clans typically look down on settled people, historically seeing them as weak, dirt grubbing peasents to be raided with impunity. With the rise of more powerful states on the edges of their territory, however, some clans have been hired by the settled people, either to attack other states, or to protect them from other nomad clans.

Bouchek's mother, Sortani, a member of the Tshvek clan, had been given to his father, Chauth, leader of the Cushat, to cement an alliance between the Cushat and the Tshvek. Disturbed by what they saw as a dangerous concentration of power, the closest landed state hired several of the smaller, unaffiliated tribes, the Kelpek, Antarat, and Reptshvek, to make war on the Cushat-Tshvek. In one of their initial raids, Sortani was captured, and forced briefly into concubiniage to the leader the Kelpek. Although recaptured after only a few weeks, and reinstated to her position of first wife to Chauth, when she gave birth to Bouchek nine months after her capture, there was some doubt as to Bouchek's true parentage, which cast his eventual succession to leader of the Cushat in doubt.

After the war between the Cushat-Tshvek and the Kelpek alliance had ended, Chauth brought the Cushat-Tshvek into alliance with one of the landed peoples at war with the state that had originally hired the Kelpek alliance to fight the Cushat-Tshvek. Buchek's uncle, Tossuc, claiming that Chauth was polluting the Cushat by associating with landed people, led a group of disaffected Cushat in rebellion against Chauth. Chauth was killed, and Sortani fled into the grasslands with only the possessions she could carry, Bouchek, and his younger siblings.

Bouchek, adept even in his extreme youth at woodcraft, archery, the use of lassos, and the other skills of his clan, took upon himself the responsibility of feeding, sheltering, and protecting his small clan. After catching and killing two scouts that his uncle sent after them, gaining their mounts and equipment for himself and his family, Bouchek and his mother were able to provide fairly well for his siblings. Successfully evading his uncle's other scouts, Bouchek and his mother led the family across the grasslands. For six years they managed to survive on the edges of the Haunted Lands, the less hospitable regions of the grasslands where even the clans rarely ventured for fear of the ghosts said to wander the region. Here Bouchek continued to hone his survival skills, becoming more adept with ropes, archery, bowmaking, tracking, hunting and the like, occasionally leading his siblings in raids on clans that made their way too deep into this border territory Bouchek had come to think of as his own.

One night, Sortani had a vivid dream about a place, a game filled woodland across the plains, near a large lake. Believing this to be a vision given to her by the Tshvek gods, she announced that the family had been instructed to find this place, and that she and Bouchek would lead the family there. They set out, her guiding them in the direction of this land, both Bouchek and she protecting and providing for the rest of the family. As they headed deeper into the Haunted Lands, a firece storm blew up, the sky turning a dangerous, twilight green, the clouds churning in slow circles overhead. Torrential rains, powerful winds, and lightning strikes soon began to pound the ground around the family, and Bouchek sought vainly for a place for the family to camp.

The last thing he remembered was a blinding flare of light. When Bouchek came to consciousness, his face and the palms of his hands were badly burned, although his senses seemed to be intact. Dimly aware of something heavy in his mouth, he spat, ejecting a coin from beneath his tongue. Looking down at his armor, he saw that funerary patterns have been incised in is breast, and the stinging in his unburned cheek told him that it had been tatooed with the same design. To his left had been arrayed his weapons, and to his right had been placed several skins of water, and several packets of food, torn and scattered by various animals. At his feet his mare lay, several days dead from the smell of her.

He staggered to his feet, his head ringing, vertigo threatening to force him back down to the ground, and looked around himself. He was alone. Flies buzzed about the black blood clotting his mare's throat, marking where her throat had been slit. With a groan, Bouchek allowed himself to collapse back onto the ground. They'd thought he was dead. His only guess was that he'd been struck by lightning, and had appeared dead. They'd dressed and equipped him for the afterlife, provided his ghost with a steed by sacrificing his mare, and left his body to rot on this ghost haunted plain. There was no sign of them now, and the intensity of the horse's corruption implied that they'd left long enough ago that it would be nearly impossible to track them.

Still, he had to try.

He staggered up, gathered the possessions they'd left him, stowed them in the saddle bags he unbuckled from his mare, and began casting about for any sign of their spoor. An hour later, shaking with hunger, fatigue and frustration, Bouchek stopped. It was as though they'd vanished. There was no sign of them at all, no indication at all of the direction they'd headed. Still, he knew their destination; Sortani wouldn't give up on leading them to the land she'd seen in her dreams. To find them, he would have to find that land.

First, though, it would be necessary to heal. He was in no condition to begin such a journey now.

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Okay, I'd better get back to work, so I'll just shorten this by saying that Bouchek takes care of himself, tending his wounds, subsisting first on the remains of the food his family left him, then, when stronger, on animals he succeeds in trapping. When he is healthy enough he sets out, eventually finding his way into settled lands, always seeking information about this wooded area by a lake somewhere in the grasslands. He spends the next 4 years or so seeking information, always honing his skills, and finally finding his way into your story.

He's a relatively short, wiry man, stronger than you might think from looking at him. He's skilled in unarmed combat, archery, the use of a lasso, horseback riding, trapping, tracking, and the like. He carries and is able to use a short sword (possibly a scimitar) reasonably well, and possibly throwing daggers as well.

What do you think? Would this character fit into your campaign? I'd be willing to tweak the backstory however you'd like. What class do you think he'd be? It seems to me like he'd be something between a barbarian and a ranger, but I'm open to suggestion.

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