Three Rangers

SYMBIOTIC HUNTER

The line between Kin and Beast is not so far as some would like to imagine. Some select few tap into that blurring and form deep connections with animals around them, joining in a mutually beneficial partnership. Those who believe this process can be accelerated by the use of psychedelics are usually not on the right track, though Terris McGillicutty the Lizard Lover is one notable exception. Start with a bag of animal feed, a ghillie suit, smelling salts from all corners of the world, and encyclopedic knowledge of animal tracks and scat.

A Imprint. You have an animal companion: N1 H(2 x Templates) A One appropriate mundane of your choice I To serve you. It will follow your commands out of combat. In combat, you can use your MANEUVER to make it roll on its Behavior Table for its action. To make your companion’s Behavior Table, choose 2 options from the list below each Template, which can be repeats.

        ATTACK: Your companion attacks the strongest, meanest-looking creature it can see.

        PREY: Your companion attacks the weakest creature it can see.

        DEFEND: Your companion jumps in front of an ally, giving N bonus to DEFENSE rolls.

        LICK WOUNDS: Your companion heals N WOUNDS or STRESS.

        FETCH: Your companion goes to get something of your choice.

        DISTRACT: Your companion becomes the target of an enemy’s next strike.

B Bond. By shutting off your body, you can project yourself into your companion’s form. You can sense through their senses, move them, and talk with your voice through their mouth. Long periods of your original body being comatose can have adverse side effects.

C Germination. Your companion can take on a visual appearance that betrays a more supernatural nature at will. In addition, it is N2, and gets a magical ability of your choice.

D Concordance. Your companion can act and roll on its Behavior Table on its own accord, and you can use your MANEUVER to instead choose its action. In addition, your companion can now talk and fly.

PRIMAL EXEMPLAR

You can hear it, if you stay quiet enough. It is the words of the wind’s whisper, it is the letters scribed by the pawprints of scampering animals. The old peoples often call it the Voice. The Voice sometimes talks directly to some accursed few, and in their maddening perpetual dialogue they learn secrets off the beaten path. Start with a totem of your homeland, shawls in the colors of your native wilds, a handful of vaguely suspicious berries, and a Voice in your head.

A Eternal Dialogue. The Voice is constantly babbling in your skull. Template times per day, you can ask it a question, and it will reply with a question intended to get you on the right path (like socratic dialogue). As long as the Voice is in your head (which is always), your mind and soul cannot be read or artificially swayed.

B Honorary Hooves. The Voice feels you on its back and helps you find the fastest ways across its bones. You and your allies can interact with 3 HEXES in a day instead of the normal 2, and while your feet touch the naked earth, your speed is doubled.

C Helping Hands from All ‘Round. The Voice tells you how to best use its gifts. Make an INT roll over the course of a TURN’s access to natural materials to replicate any mundane object you have available. In addition, wild plants and animals are naturally friendly to you, and you cannot get lost in the wilderness.

D Communion Through Rebuttal. Your voice joins the Voice’s harmonious cacophony. Spend a use of your Eternal Dialogue to instead make one command to the Voice that its agents must abide by. Be careful, for the Voice is amoral and indiscriminate.

CLARET STALKER

There are myths of monster hunters so depraved that they adopt the sins of their prey, forever shunning themselves from the light of the civilized Sun. Those legends stem from the Claret Order, a fringe occult order dedicated to the ritualistic hunting and slaying of the beasts of the night by any means necessary. The civilians in their carapaces of stone and wood shouldn’t have to know how black it can get on a moonless night- that is the burden of the Claret Stalker. Start with a pentagram tattoo marking your Ordership, a trophy from your last kill, a named blade forged from cold steel, and the suspicion of the layman.

A Sunless Cloak. Your blood red eyes allow you to see perfectly in any sort of darkness, and people who don’t know you’re there can’t see you when you’re in the shadows. In addition, if you’re dual-wielding and use two OFFENSIVES to make one attack with each weapon, one of those attack rolls of your choice has ADVANTAGE.

B Transmogrification. When you kill a named, intelligent supernatural creature, you can harvest a Strain from it. Ingest that Strain within a week to gain one of the creature’s capabilities. The capability occupies a DEX slot for as long as you want to have it active.

C Strains of Red Salt. When you taste blood, you know the name and physiology of the source creature, as well as their emotional state at that moment. Drink enough of a creature’s blood to kill it to become that creature for up to day.

D Lords of the Edge. You have started your own Order, and train disciples in the dark arts you know so well. You start with three Squires, orphaned rejects with one level in Claret Stalker. They are fiercely loyal to you, and eager to learn, but within 13 years you will die by one of their blades, and your Order will fade into whispered rumor.