Kyreth's Bow

“A good hunter always crafts his own bow. Not because it teaches him a vital necessity for living off the land, but because the bow should be unique to each wielder's body, soul and mind, lest we’re forced to take the arms of those before us.”
-- Kiefer Oakheart


In true Oakheart tradition, those who sought to become men among them had to undergo several rites of adulthood before they could marry, begin families, and hunt for themselves without the guidance of their fathers or closest kin. Among these rites, before they could partake in what was known as the ‘blood hunt’, adolescents were told to craft their own bows, as a sign of independence and hunting skill. Yet because Kyreth himself was born into Ascalon’s nobility with his mother’s parentage, the rites of adulthood his father undertook in his youth need not have applied to his children. Kiefer was a man who respected the traditions of his ancestors, though, and with it taught his only son everything he knew about his ways of the hunt and how to live off the land, among other things.

In the case of Kyreth’s bow, however, Kyreth as a young boy was enamoured with the design of a bow he saw carried by a traveller who was passing through Ascalon on some kind of trade errand. The bow was shaped after what would become known as a Half Moon Shortbow, which was considered somewhat exotic in Kyreth’s youth before its design was fancied by crafters around the world. Nevertheless, when Kyreth was tasked by his father to craft his own bow before he could become a man, Kyreth leaned back on his memory of the traveller’s bow when he set about designing what would never leave his side for decades. To some it is the ranger’s closest companion for the sentimental value it holds to him, which is helped in part with his chosen grip, being the remains of a garb his dear sister wore when she was a servant of Dwayna; the very same she would come to lose her life in, before The Searing. Before Kyreth's innocence was lost to the tides of her terrible fate...


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Of course, there is another reason I chose to model something off the Half Moon Bow... for I wanted to draw something that can be seen in the game, and it's been Kyreth's chosen bow for years.

Wow, and has it really been like two years since I’ve drawn a bow illustration? Seriously, I need to get out and draw more. x_x

Artwork / Kyreth Oakheart - © Kristopher P. Love // Guild Wars - © ArenaNet