"Rise, warrior, and fight for greater glory tomorrow."
Brynhild Eirensdottir, the Shining Valkyrie is a savior of the battlefield—heavenly insurance that a lost duel need not be a last duel. Descending to the bloody dirt of the arena from the sky above, the cool shadow of her breathtaking mithral wings is a welcome sight to any fallen hero. But those who pray for a second chance from her healing touch had better put on a good show, for there is only one thing she loves more than life—the games.
This product provides Game Masters with details on a heavenly healer found amongst the Faces of the Tarnished Souk, ready for immediate use in any campaign—but especially for use within the Coliseum Morpheuon. Each entry features ingenious stat-blocks from multiple OGL sources, history, motivation, secrets, and insight into the NPC's most carefully guarded dreams, along with complete game statistics for low, middle, and high levels of play.
Within you will find: Brynhild Eirensdottir, the Shining Valkyrie, a mithral-coated maiden of battle who will ensures that the games go on.
This latest installment of the FotTS-series is 14 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page credits, 2 pages of advertisements and 1 page SRD, leaving 9 pages for the three incarnations of Brynhild.
As is the usual procedure in the series, this pdf begins with one page of aptly-written prose on the background of the character, a sidebox on how to best use her and information on dreamburning.
In the by now time-honored tradition of Rite Publishing and this series in particular, we get a very complex, multi-templated NPC, whom, in order to understand, we should dissect:
Minor spoilers ahead, players might want to jump ahead.
One of the templates is the mithril-clad template (CR+1 ), the template that (ironically) tarnishes Brynhild, for she obtained it from a devil who still can cash in his payment for the favor.
/SPOILER
Brynhild is an aellar elf, a rare type of winged elf and the race gets its racial traits presented as well: Aellar get +2 to Dex and Int, but -2 to Con, low-light vision, elven immunities and the aellar ancestry from another excellent book by RiP. Irt should also be noted that Brynhild utilizes the mixed mystery oracle archetype, which is also included herein. Oracle? Yep, our stalwart, honorbound valkyrie is actually an oracle with the curses of haunted and tongues, but represented in a way that is both unconventional and imaginative.
Her low-level CR 6 incarnation, Brynhild the Merciful, is thus clad in the template, but lo! And behold, her mid-level incarnation once again starts to show the imaginative interweaving of templates I’ve come to enjoy so much in these pdfs: The “Enchanted” (CR +1) template is added to her, as are levels – here, she clocks in at CR 13 as Brynhild Eirensdottir, the Iron Swan.
Her high-level incarnation also gets the immortal-template (CR +1) and boy, Brynhild Eirensdottir the Shining Valkyrie, is a terrible beauty to behold, both her b/w-artwork (though I’ve seen this one before), but mostly due to her CR 20-statblock, including cool abilities like turning into a fiery, positive energy elemental. She also gets access to the Mystical Healer feat, two new spells and 3 items, though you might know the spells “Cleanse of Alcohol” and “Discern Health” from RiP’s excellent 101 0-level-spells. The items are Robes of Renewal, greater and lesser and a helm that features a deathwatch and status-effect.
Conclusion:
Editing is top-notch, I didn’t notice any glitches. The same holds true for formatting. Layout adheres to RiP’s classic b/w-two-column-standard. The b/w-piece of artwork is nice. The pdf is extensively bookmarked.
Brynhild is a VERY interesting take on the valkyrie-trope – she is a healer, but one that may irk the players due to the tendency of enabling fallen warriors to fight again. Her carefree enthusiasm is contrasted starkly with the implied taint of her infernal-babbling fits of rage. I really like that particular duality, as well as the idea to use the mithril-clad template in conjunction with the metal mystery. Brynhild is a great character that might be utilized in a plethora of ways, as ally, adversary, annoyance or sponsor any combination of the mentioned. I really liked this installment of the series, though, as a healer and a rather interesting take on it, certainly was not too easy to design. Nevertheless, I slightly preferred the last three installments, some of which also provided a bit more content. Given that there’s nothing wrong per se with Brynhild, she still remains an awesome addition to your campaign and sans any true gripes and with only personal preferences to go, my final verdict will be 5 stars – Well done, once again!
I really have high hopes for the Shining Valkyrie. I have a soft spot for strong female characters. They appeal most strongly to my innate desire to want to be a hero. This is the reason I role play, not just for good tales and good times with friends. Spoilers below, you have been warned.
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So, she’s a healer and doesn’t like cheaters, but won’t stand up to the Khan or help those in need until a fight is done, but only is interested in the Coliseum Morpheon and has little interest in the folk of the Tarnished Souk. Hmm, I already want to change her motivations and personality. The stat block is the most useful part of this for me. She is just a heal-bot, and not a very interesting one though evidently easy on the eyes. Still, she’s not my idea of a strong female character. Stating her up as an Oracle per Pathfinder Advanced Player’s Guide is useful to me. The added bit on the Aellar (winged elves) is also quite useful. Still she’s an NPC not a PC so she shouldn’t be the hero of the story, that is the players’ jobs. I can live with the weak character motivations. It also gives the party some role play possibilities.
Just like the other Tarnished Souk NPC supplements, this one includes a couple of different lower level stats for the same character. In fact, if I use her as she is written up, I prefer to keep her at a lower level. This way it makes more sense that she hasn’t tried to buck the system. This goes to show just how much the multiple stat blocks that appear in all the Tarnished Souk materials shine. The flexibility of being able to use the same character at multiple levels for many needs makes this a great product. Along with the various stat blocks there are also a couple of templates that have been applied to her including notes on how to become a Mithral-Clad creature.
This is where the format of the Tarnished Souk NPC creations demonstrates its usefulness. I can make use of this character even though I dislike the write up of the NPC as written, for the CR 20 version. The lower level stat blocks allow me to keep this same vision of the character’s personality and not have to modify to suit my own view of how a powerful healer like the Valkyrie behaves. I still can do that, but it gives me some flexibility to utilize her as a flawed individual at a lower level who has room for growth, and can be affected by the PCs in either a positive or negative manner.
I am still not going to give this one a full 5 stars, the female heal-bot beauty trope is an old and tired one in my opinion. So I am giving this supplement 4 out of 5 stars.
I really appreciate the honest feedback about the character motivations. Making strong, deep female characters is something I am very interested in, and since we're going to continue doing a lot more Faces, it is something that I want to get good at. So, if you don't mind me asking - what changes, additions, or deletions would you have made to Brynhild's persona?
I really appreciate the honest feedback about the character motivations. Making strong, deep female characters is something I am very interested in, and since we're going to continue doing a lot more Faces, it is something that I want to get good at. So, if you don't mind me asking - what changes, additions, or deletions would you have made to Brynhild's persona?
My answer:
Spoiler:
That is a very good question and not easy to answer. It is hard to create a truly strong female character because the media, such as it has been these past few centuries, does not celebrate such women. Usually if they are strong, they are also evil, spiteful, hateful antagonists of the hero rather than heroes themselves. I was asked once to come up with movie tropes that typify a character I created for a online role playing server once, and I discovered to my chagrin that there was nothing at all like my character.
To answer your question specifically with regard to Brynhild, the first question I ask is "Why"? Why does she just watch on the sidelines like a NFL medic, waiting for her team to drop, once the whistle is blown to show that the play has ended? Why does she not challenge the Khan? If it is because she realizes he is too powerful, then why doesn't she seek out help if she is not powerful enough to take him on herself? Is it perhaps because he has some sort of hold on her? What is it?
This is why I would prefer to use her at a lower level than the highest provided, it makes a more clear reason for her to hesitate and act only on the sidelines. Perhaps she is waiting for a group of true heroes who demonstrate they are capable and honorable enough to work against the Khan. I find it hard to believe given what you did show of her character that she wouldn't prefer him gone.
I appreciate the answer, and I think you've got a good point regarding the question of why Brynhild stays on the sidelines. A character's motivations for inaction are sometimes just as important, if not more important, than their motivations for the actions they do take.
As soon as you ask the question, the answer comes to my mind,
Why:
Spoiler:
I have always believed that, in the realm of Dream, archetypes and iconic roles - the Platonic ideals - have inherent power. And those beings who can come to fit in and exemplify those roles gain special distinction and power - but if they stray from that archetype, they lose that power. My love of this idea/concept/trope came about because my friends and I truly cherish Unknown Armies, with their Invisible Clergy of archetype immortals.
NPC #12 in this series will also involve this concept, pretty heavily.
In her highest incarnation, as the name indicates, Brynhild is on the path of the archetypical role of "Valkyrie". As we know, valkyries were great maiden-spirits of battle that were defined by their roles on the sidelines, sorting through the worthy and unworthy dead after battle. In her highest incarnation, she is enchanted and immortal, indicating that she is awfully close to being 100% valkyrie. Hence, her life is more about other heroes' battles - not so much her own.
As for the Khan, he's the guy providing hot and cold-running battles, allowing her to constantly do her thing. Now she's good and he's evil, so clearly there's conflict there, but that's the gist.
...but of course the writer's sin is in not making it clear to the reader at the outset. There is no credit for having to explain things after the fact. So your critique is certainly apt and appreciated.
As was pointed out by Dark Sasha some roles are for the sidelines as the PCs are the heroes of the story, but I also saw it as a reversal of the damsel in distress as she is the one who flys in to rescue the PCs from death.
I also se the archetype role of the Valkyrie limited by the rules of the Power That Be (be that odin or the khan of nightmares), I mean really if you challenge the Khan, the Voracious Visitor is just going to eat you :)
Also: Nice review, Dark Sasha! Though I considered Brynhild to be a nice take on the Valkyrie (who usually don't heal and rather carry the fallen off to Valhalla...) and not a heal-bot - interesting how our perceptions differed!
Also: Nice review, Dark Sasha! Though I considered Brynhild to be a nice take on the Valkyrie (who usually don't heal and rather carry the fallen off to Valhalla...) and not a heal-bot - interesting how our perceptions differed!
I guess when I read the title I was hoping for something more like the traditional Valyrie, with quirks of her own obviously. Still a very useful addition to the denizens of the Tarnished Souk and the Coliseum.
Hmmm... this oracle archetype gets 11 revelations +2 final revelations (even if not together). A normal oracle gets 6 revelations +1 final revelation. Is this not too much in exchange for a second curse? The Dual-Cursed Oracle gets 2 extra revelations, not 5.
Ok, I re-read everything and... if a curse which doesn't improve is worth 2 revelations, 2 curses which don't improve are worth 5! That said, I wonder which oracle wouldn't choose an archetype like this... I would! (And the Merciful Healer feat too!)
