Hemeshka Sobk's page

Not a double shield build (or a straight class Ftr), but this dudes profile is a fighter type who locks your weapon using Osirion Blade Binder, and then beats you in the face with his shield.

While it's not the most common combat maneuver choice, I'm partial to blade-binding.

Use a temple sword to lock the weapon of a foe, and then follow up with shield-bashes to the face. As long as they try to hold onto the bound weapon, they also count as flat-footed, allowing you to pick up a level of rogue, and brutalize them. And, as long as you have their weapon bound, you get +4 to rolls to disarm or sunder that weapon.

If they drop the weapon to avoid these penalties, you've still got a sword and they don't, which is also a handy advantage. :)

Another Faction NPC, this time an Aspis Consortium 'heavy' who might be sent to deal with new recruits, or potential annoyances. Uses rules from the Campaign Setting (the Blade Binder feat).

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Tall, dark and marked with elaborate tattoos of fanged serpents coiling along his limbs and torso, Hemeshka Sobk has tight locks of hair that whip around his head like angry snakes when he fights. He screams and frothes in combat, the very picture of a berserk warrior, with sickle-like blade and spiked shield flashing as he surges forward with unlikely speed, given the weight of his armor.

Hemeshka was a burly, over-proud and aggressive child, who failed time and again the training of the martial practitioners of Irori, located outside of the town of Shiman-Sekh. Growing ever more wrathful, as his temper caused him to fail again and again to be accepted as a pupil by the monks, he abandoned this path and returned to his nomadic brethren, hoping to swallow the shame of his failure and forge a new destiny, only to be cast forth from his people after a violent reunion with his mocking brothers. Now without any purpose, he found himself hired as a caravan guard by a group of foreign strangers who had lost more men than they expected to the harsh desert.

Unfamiliar with their tongue, his abrasive commentary went unnoticed, and over the months working alongside these coldly effective warriors of the Aspis Consortium, he mastered their babbling tongue, as well as impressing them with his ferocity in combat against the myriad dangers of the desert.

Hemeshka prefers now to operate as far from Osirioni as possible, and even feigns ignorance of the customs of his homeland, to avoid assignments in the area. He finds that the rudiments of the fighting styles of Osirion that he picked up in his failures at the monastery are unfamiliar to the warriors of distant lands, who expect him to strike with his blade and defend with his shield, not to hopelessly entangle their blade with his own, and then brutally bludgeon them into unconsciousness with his spiked shield…

Every item of gear represents a vital lesson he has learned. Healing elixirs, because one can never count on an allied spellcaster. A restorative potion, due recover more swiftly from the effects of poison, or the chilling touch of an undead khaibit. Enlarge potions, purchased from the same Aspis transmuter who first demonstrated the effectiveness of that spell upon him. A spare temple sword, and some daggers for backup, in case he has a weapon struck from his hand, or sundered. A short bow, for those frustrating opponents that will not close for proper combat.

Hemeshka is typically assigned simpler tasks, but has proven quite adept at following orders, as he does not suffer overmuch from personal initiative, or the concept of greed. His failings are entirely in the area of self-discipline, as he remains easily angered, and if he fails in an assignment, it will be more the fault of his lack of temperance, and not a deliberate attempt to take advantage. His greatest ambition is to have an endless supply of strong drink and soft women, but he recognizes that he lacks the insight as to how exactly to make himself into the warlord he sees in his dreams, and so he has accepted that his lot is to follow the directives of his Aspis Consortium leaders, and to take the spoils that come with swift and violent resolution to any task they set before him.

When tasks are set before him that require skills not in his limited arsenal, he speaks quite reasonably, with diplomacy unexpected to a man of his grim appearance, hiring whatever temporary workers are needed for a given task, as he is not above hiring some expendable fools to clear the way, while his own men approach later to relieve them of the spoils of success, deal with whatever reduced opposition remains, or, in some cases, thank his employees and pay them whatever fee was agreed upon, if they appear to have quite handily dealt with whatever threat they were sent to explore, and he does not feel that his own men would be able to resolve the situation through his preferred stratagem when dealing with non-Consortium hires, a sudden but inevitable betrayal.

Boons: Hemeshka can teach another warrior the skills of Osirioni blade-binding (both the maneuver, and, eventually, the Feat), or how to use the foreign temple sword, although he will only do so for someone that he does not consider a potential rival or threat to his own position.

Anyone who trains in the techniques of blade binding for at least a week with Hemeshka gains a +1 bonus to blade-binding checks, which does not stack with the Blade-Binder feat, and does not operate against someone who has that Feat.

Anyone who trains for at least a week in the use of the temple sword with Hemeshka only suffers half the normal non-proficiency penalty, and can take advantage of the weapons bonuses to blade-binding or trip maneuvers.

As Hemeshka has some minor pull in the organization, he can also arrange for goods or services from Consortium suppliers without any usual markup, or perhaps even for a small discount (if the goods aren't marked up in that area).