View source for Stavis Vladimir Kraskov

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[[Image:Will.JPG|frame|right]]

[[Category:People]]
[[Category:Russian Personas]]
[[Category:16th Century Personas]]

==Name== [[Image:Stavis.jpg|frame|left| Corporal Stavis Rhkov]]
Stavis Vladimir Rakhov is mundanely known as Will Tull.

==Description==
Being one of the tallest members of the Iron Ring, he's one your most apt to notice first. Being Chatelaine of the Iron Ring, generally means he'll be one of the (if not very) first members you will meet. Friendly and enigmatic, Stavis (Or Stabis as he is commonly referred) was an obvious choice for his position among the Ring. Responsible for nearly all of the first group of official pledges, he is always on the lookout for new talent. Stavis often acts as personal bodyguard to his Commander,  Darius, and has proven himself a quick study of martial combat and an eager, and often worthy, opponent to any who would challenge the Iron Ring.

==Interests==

===Combat===
Stavis is a man described as having the heart of a warrior, he not only appreciates and enjoys martial forms of combat, but is one of the more active Iron Ring fighters both boffer and heavy.

===Armorsmithing and Weapon Craft===
Through his love and appreciation for armored combat, he is learning how to upkeep, repair, even create his own armor and weaponry for both boffer and heavy combat.

===Brewing and Distilling===
Though mostly from the consumption end, Stavis enjoys all brews and concoctions and has aspirations of become the first official member of the Iron Ring to brew his own beer.

===History and Culture===
While not the most articulate or factually efficient speaker, Stavis is a diligent history study and loves conversing, teaching and learning about anything relating to medieval studies and re-enactment.

===Writing===
Fancying himself a writer, whether poetry or prose, novel or limerick, he often finds his pen more elegant and effective then his weapon.

==Persona History== [[Image:William.JPG|frame|right| Corporal Stavis Vladimir Rkhov]]

Born in Moscow, Russia in 1556 from a chance meeting of a Russian courtesan and a Romanian merchant. He lived mostly on the streets, his mother, an opium addict and woman of ill-repute, had little if any morals to instill in the young street rat scraping what he could, stealing when he needed. He learned well the ways of guile and thievery. When he was thirteen, hard times and severe weather left his mother sick when Autumn came, and took her when the first snows fell on the city. Left entirely on his own, it was not long before he found without resorting to violence he could not steal the means to survive, and being a tall and ungainly young man, peoples sympathy was passed onto to younger pan handlers. It was then he joined the militia, helping to bear the arms of what remained of Ivan the Third's army that liberated Moscow from the Tatars.  The year 1571, was the year when things would turn him to the path he treads, it seemed no sooner did he learn the history of the city whose streets he knew so well, he was set to turn sixteen years of age, Moscow came under attack. 

The battle was quick, a horde of Crimeans came and seized the city in one relentless attack. Stavis fought hard, but more and more of his comrades fell, and their forces became less able to hold back the relentless onslaught of the oncoming horde. As the city burned around him, he followed the masses as they turned and fled. Most did not survive the first few nights out on the steppes, and neither would he had it not been for the most unlikely of friends. A Crimean, known as Little Horse, or Colt, as Stavis came to know him, crossed his path as he fled the battle. With Colt's help, both in his knowledge of the outlying lands and native tongue of the same people who burned his city behind him they escaped, heading west across the steppes. Stavis, with his mother gone, and Colt, longing to leave the barbaric ways of his people, headed for the Romanian province of Wallachia. The next few years found the pair walking and riding when they could. 

On a roundabout path, their journey lasted several years, and when he was nineteen, they found their way into Targoviste, a central city of Wallachia, they found the land of his father in a time of chaos, rival prinicipalities overthrowing one another for rulership, foreign sponsorship further adding to the blood shed. This is where they got their first taste of work as a mercenary, helping to bodyguard a prospective prince, who was ultimatley poisoned, leaving the pair out of work and with a foul taste in his mouth for the land of his Stavis' father. They used the money they earned to search out Stavis' father, Vladimir. It soon became apparent that being a merchant, and from what he could tell, a successful merchant, that the allure lay in the west, in Europe. 

The century past since the end of the Hundred Years war, many tales of gun powder and the end of castle walls, of kingless lands and hired blades, gypsies and philosophers, great sailing fleets, exotic trade and above all... warmer weather. Once again they was on a caravan west, by the time his twenty second birthday came, Stavis and Colt found themselves in northern Italy again fighting as a mercenary and betrothed to his own gypsy and fellow mercenary, Nynadin. While the search for his father continues, he has no desire as of yet to return to his home country.

==Affiliation== [[Image:smallwheel.JPG|frame|left| Unit Device of the Iron Ring]]
* Stavis is a member of [[the Iron Ring]].

===Rank and Station===
* Corporal of [[the Iron Ring]]
* Chatelaine of [[the Iron Ring]]

===Awards and Accolades=== 
* Dog of the Sea, Kraken Battle, 3rd Place (Hired on with the Broken Scabbard)
* The House of Fools/Orc's Belly Bare Chested Knife Fight, 1st Place (Seadog Nights, 2006)

==SCA History== 
* [http://www.thepirategathering.org The Gathering], May 2006.
* [http://www.seadognights.org Seadog Nights], July 2006.
* Acorn War, September 2006. 
* [http://www.thepirategathering.org The Gathering], May 2007.
* [http://www.seadognights.org Seadog Nights], July 2007.
* Sport of Kings, August 2007.
* Beaverton Farmer's Market Demo, September 2007.
* [http://www.faireinthegrove.net Faire in the Grove], April 2008.
* [http://www.phmoms.com/westantirwar An Tir-West War], July 2008.
* Tryggvy's War, Boudica's Revenge, July 2008