Named the Morekareth, this is a TPK just waiting to happen. These things are down right vicious, and will force your playgroup to think on their toes, and fast. Between the Greater Sunder, their Way of Triumph ability (a successful attack of both power slams forces Fort and Ref saves that could leave you stunned and prone, on top of the damage), and their seriously badass ability to 'port any foe (within weight limit, assuming they fail their save) to within reaching distance...these things are insane.....I am so killing a playgroup with this..lol

Seriously, crunch wise, fluff wise, a very cool critter/race. It's hard to just define them as a monster, as their origin is fascinating, and truly defines them, and their viewpoint on the world. The offspring of a Hero, given life at the moment of the Hero's falling. Sin given flesh essentially. They are the perfect antithesis to what we hold a hero to be, and yet in their eyes, this is their world, we're the ones who are wrong and weak, and they will not hesitate to remind us.

Several things about their tactics I must mention, as I love the sheer evilness of it. They radiate an aura of degeneration....healing abilities and spells, good luck with that....best part of that is, while that aura is keeping you from healing and weakening you, it's feeding those HP's to him. They refuse to fight with weapons, and expect their opponents to do the same, and will target and destroy weapons in the hands of their opponents who disagree with them on this (grinning, ear to ear). But the best part, in my humble opinion...they won't start a fight. They'll stalk you for days, weeks, whatever it takes, but they won't start the fight. They prefer to let you, so they can judge for themselves how long to take to kill you...That is so BADASS!!

There's several other really cool features, but those are the ones that really stood out to me and convinced me to write up an encounter, or two. Oh, and did I mention? There's an advanced version also, the Auld Morekareth. Bigger, meaner, nastier...yup yup.

5 Stars easily, very few "critter" write ups get me to stop and design an encounter on the fly, but this one did, and I can think of no greater praise than I had to stop what I was doing to make sure I had him ready to bring to the table.

This is my kind of monster. Nasty, imaginative abilities and cool background make this race really cool.
The background could easily be used in Conan/Mesopotamian games as well as high fantasy and I can easily picture a series of adventures centering on the creatures: Thanks to their deadly abilities, PCs may actually be forced to slay the creature in a dishonorable fashion, triggering a whole set of adventures centering on the morekareth.

What's to say more: Awesome mechanics, cool tactics, great fluff. Easy to implement in almost any campaign.

My only, very minor criticism would be that the art didn't really impress me when compared to other RiP-artwork. But that's probably due to the fact that the morekareth reminded me of one of my most beloved Conan/Red Sonja crossover comics featuring an honor-obsessed juggernaut like this. :)

The Hero's Bastard, also known as the morekareth, presents some unusual challenges to the party, and gives the DM some nasty tricks to play. Is that spellcaster standing 50 feet away firing rays? The morekareth can use its "summon foe" ability to bring the spellcaster into melee. The morekareth also hampers healing within 120 feet of itself. With these abilities, the players will have to come up with some clever tactics to defeat the monster.

The morekareth has a well-realized motivation for existing and potentially tracking down someone in the party, and this is backed up by one of its signature abilities, Flesh of My Flesh, which allows the creature to consume a creature of its bloodline to gain more power.

For $2, you get a powerful foe (and an advanced version) that raises questions about heroism. It's not something you'll be able to reuse, but it could easily be the centerpiece of a mid-level campaign.