While the paladin can be differentiated by temperament, the nature of his penitence, and the underlying sin, the ranger is a creature entirely of his environment. The hat makes the man: be it the wild wood, the sandy wastes, or the open ocean. He stands simultaneously it's subordinate and adversary.
1. F*** YOU CHARON
(Lethe paddler) (beastmaster)
Environment: Underwater Aquatic
Amelēs Potamos is less a river than an agriculture. Hostile spirits dig their way out of the clay shrieking for vengeance against all flesh and are placated by the water like newborns on the breast. Shriveled boatmen flit about with ladles to soothe them. A sometimes occupational hazard is imbibing the liquid yourself and wandering off into the darker darkness, and inevitably to the surface, possessed of only the most vestigial of memories.
A paddler out in the wider world shows a special talent for apprehension of undead, running them like cattle. They can't quite smell him even with their elevated senses.
Nebulous - By some arcane mechanism, the paddler blends into his environment (translucency from prolonged traffic with the dead; cursed by an ornery and only 9/10 deceased witch; via magic ring) As hide in shadows for a thief of the same level, except it is on ALL the time, like it or not - the hand moves "unconsciously to the chain about his neck."
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| Frank Frazetta |
2. EARTHBOUND GLASSMAN
(wall-crawler) (explorer)
Environment: Outer Firmament
Tales of the brilliant-cut cathedral with a window to diffuse worlds are told across all societies. This construction, if it even exists, requires a LOT of maintenance. There is only so much light to go around, of course, and requires sharing between suns. If sufficient number of windows are occluded, look out. It's Chicxulub all over again.
Hostile spiders spend a lot of time pursuing this goal — the whole "she sucked up all light she could find, and spun it forth again in dark nets, until no light could endure" deal. Lolth and her girls are only an afterglare in some abandoned alcove with a blacked-out window, sorry m'lady, you are only a lesser god after all.
To keep things illuminated, crawlers go full spider theirselves, suction cups, working outside and upside down full extra-planar. Sometimes a team drops through to retrieve a particularly noxious bunch of spiders who broke the glass. Sometimes the team get ambushed, and there's only a single one left - her silver rope cut - trying to figure out what to do next.
Combat Clairvoyance - There is a repetition out on the Superfice. Anything that happens to you has already happened a thousand times. It makes a crawler damn near impossible to hit. Modified opposed roll mechanics - roll against any successful hit and negate it if higher. HOWEVER, on a 1, adversary's roll is adjusted to a 20, and it hits someone else. (remember when you bumbled through that tiny little hole and ended up here?)
If the crawler is feeling particularly heroic, she can THEN choose to step in front of this blow and take it herself, but at double damage (compounding if you do crits on a 20).
(if this results in her death, doubtless 1d10 crawlers will immediately appear and carry her skywards like Enoch)
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| Ilija Batinica |
3. SENESCHAL
(fop handler) (falconer)
Environment: Imperial Palace
There is a wilderness inside the City. It is a Hameau de la Reine type of situation - constructed so that the aristocrats might forget their burden and adjudicate with clear consciousness. Let us all pretend we are country bumpkins - except it's a big party.
It's vicious in there, obviously, what with the debauchery and jockeying for position, and requires somebody in the background to extract over-enthusiastic participants.
Circumspection - The seneschal is RECOGNIZED by the relevant VIP. +3 on reaction roles. It's out of fear, of course, but court etiquette being as it is, it looks a lot like warmth and fraternité.
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| Taiko554 |
4. UNEXPLODED ORDNANCE
(man-bomb) (ferelan)
Environment - DMZ
The nightmare of asymmetrical warfare is a continual ratcheting up - repetitive exclamations of, "surely this," never mind that such term is an introductory clause, not a doctrine likely to win concessions from the adversary. Humans are wonderful for getting used to anything — so no matter the horror, you're always starting at from a newly established indifferent baseline.
You can make a bomb that does anything anymore — it doesn't have to blow the entire sky to smithereens. This is not in fact preferred, see above. Complete destruction accomplishes nothing. Rather, this weapon does the following:
| 1 | MIND ROTTER | Widespread (1d10) damage to Int, Wis, Chr. Those reduced to zero as revenants. | 5 | DEBILITATOR | Ages the bodies to infirmity (1d10 damage to Str, Con, Dex). |
| 2 | DEVOLUTIONER | Inhabitants revert to their pre-evolutionary forms. | 6 | TOXIC INTOXICATOR | Incapacitation through inebriation, or alternatively, addiction and withdrawal. |
| 3 | RUST MONSTER | All metal becomes dust. | 7 | HYSTERICIZER | Mass hysteria and hallucinations. |
| 4 | SUPER SOAKER | Endless, endless rain. To yon arks, Agamemnon! | 8 | REFORESTER | A forest appears out of nowhere. |
Mission: Decommission - Can take apart any explosive device, be it steampunk dwarven or bio-triggered sentient. As pick locks for a thief. Don't get the wires crossed Johnny!
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| Margharet Manzano |
5. BOTTLESWAIN
(soaker) (forest runner)
Environment - Arctic Alpine
Since the invention of alcohol, there has been a process of continual refinement, both physically (a.b.v.) and mechanically (processes more elaborate) — from the yeast pit sludge of Jiahu to the roman amphorae to old Kentucky moonshine. Kandor, also known in some quarters as barabas after the de-crucified criminal (subsequent location unknown), is the latest leap forward - wherein you can drink an entire civilization over the course of a weekend. It is 254 proof, almost a perfect zenzizenzizenzic (humanity needs room for improvement or the number squishes at the end). Obviously, such an alcohol level defies mathematics, but there is some back folding here so you drink it twice.
They cook up the bottle cities in great vats, at such temperatures that a lifespan passes in a millisecond. Civilizations rise and fall. If you catch it right, you can bottle a micro-society immediately before its collapse. For a nominal price, anyone can go full on Galactus. "I fear something terrible has happened" and that.
These operations are generally illegal except in certain dictatorships where the circuitry of the state has become embroiled in the manufacture.
The soaker is a product of a feedback loop situation where an entire factory gets hooked and collapses on itself - all the while by necessity going for cheaper and cheaper stuff until they are drinking bitter young and vigorous cities by the nation-state. This cannot but end in a Twilight Zone-ite twist wherein the genies are unbottled and the staff somehow end up inside their own bottled cities. The New Guys don't touch the stuff, leaving behind a trove of embottled workers and the one guy who was called in sick on the day of the crossover. The soaker.
Beer Goggles - A bottleswain can establish a psychic link with another similarly inebriated individual and see through their eyes. Often they do this with an animal, which although running into walls all over the place, can make a moderately inconspicuous spy.
Wobblies - He needs it. If he is NOT consuming regularly he will barely be able to function. (-d6 to all statistics, including HP).
| Stumpy: | "Have a bottle of beer, Dude?" |
| Dude: | "Nah. I'm full of ... beer. It doesn't do any good." |
| Stumpy: |
"It'll start working on you tomorrow or the next day ..." |
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| Mike Kelley |
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