Mauhul's page

Mauhul Ob'Vorroz
Orc Oozemorph Shifter 6/Primal Companion Hunter 2
NE Humanoid (orc)/Ooze
Init +3; Perception +6
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DEFENSE
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AC 18, touch 13, flatfooted 15
HP 72 (6d10+2d8+16+6)
Fort +12, Ref +13, Will +5
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OFFENSE
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+1 Butchering Axe +15/10(3d6+11) 20 x3
+1 Morphic Weapon +10/10/10(1d6+4) 20 x2
Shifter's Fury +15/10(1d6+11), +10/10/10(1d6+4) 20 x2
Shifter's Fury as Ooze +13/8(1d6+7), +8/8/8(1d6+2) 20 x2
Speed 30ft., Climb 10ft. (as ooze)
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STATISTICS
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Str 24, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 10
BAB +7; CMB +18; CMD 27
Racial Traits Orc Ferocity (Can choose to stay up when -0, but acts as staggered and loses 1 HP/round), Dayrunner (-2 to ranged attacks, replaces Light Sensitivity), Darkvision 60 feet, Orc Weapon Familiarity
Traits Convincing Liar (Bluff class skill, +1 trait bonus to intimidate), Expressive Pantomime (-5 to bluff to pass secret message without speaking), Corpse Hunter (+1 to attacks made against undead)
Drawback Bitter (-1 to healing from outside sources)
Feats Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Butchering Axe), Outflank, Boon Companion, Monstrous Mount, Beast Rider
FCB 6 (HP)
Skills (4/Shifter, 6/Hunter, 4/Mammoth Rider) Bluff +11 (8 rank, 3 class), Climb +10/17 (1 rank, 3 class, 7 STR, 8 racial, -1 ACP), Disguise +5/15 (5 rank, 10 untyped), Intimidate +9 (5 rank, 3 class, 1 trait), K. Nature +6 (3 rank, 3 class), Perception +6 (2 rank, 3 class, 1 WIS), Ride +9 (4 rank, 3 class, 3 DEX, -1 ACP), Stealth +8 (3 rank, 3 class, 3 DEX, -1 ACP), Survival +8/11/12 (4 rank, 3 class, 1 WIS, 3 circumstance, 4 track), UMD +1 (1 rank)
Background Skills (2/level) Handle Animal +10 (7 rank, 3 class), K. Geography +10 (7 rank, 3 class), Linguistics +1 (1 rank), Prof. (Guide) +5 (1 rank, 3 class, 1 WIS)
Languages Common, Orc

Compression (Ex)

An oozemorph gains compression as per the universal monster rule. This ability can be used regardless of the current form the oozemorph has taken.

Fluidic Body (Su)

An oozemorph’s base form is not that of her race but rather that of a protoplasmic blob that has the same volume and weight. An oozemorph treats her creature type as both ooze and her base creature type from her race for the purposes of effects targeting creatures by type (such as bane weapons and a ranger’s favored enemy). In this form, the oozemorph is immune to critical hits and precision damage and can’t be flanked. However, she has no magic item slots and she cannot benefit from armor; cast spells; hold objects; speak; or use any magic item that requires activation, is held, or is worn on the body.

An oozemorph reverts to this formless state whenever she is unconscious or in an area of antimagic. This is treated as a polymorph effect.

A number of times per day equal to half her level (minimum 1), an oozemorph can assume a humanoid form as a move action. This transformation is identical to alter self, except the oozemorph can maintain the form for a number of hours equal to her level. Each hour after this duration, the oozemorph must succeed at a DC 15 Fortitude save or revert back to her fluidic body until she rests for at least 8 hours. This save DC increases by 1 for each additional hour spent maintaining the form.

Ending this transformation at any time reverts the oozemorph back to her ooze form and renders her fatigued for a number of minutes equal to the number of hours she maintained the form.

Morphic Weaponry (Ex)

An oozemorph can create a number of natural weapons to fight with from any portion of her body, regardless of her current form. At 1st level, as a move action, an oozemorph can form two primary natural attacks that each deal 1d6 points of bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage, chosen by the oozemorph when she forms them. An oozemorph can change the damage type of any number of her natural weapons as a swift action. An oozemorph gains one additional primary natural attack at 6th level and another at 15th level.

The total number of natural attacks an oozemorph has at any given time includes those gained via her current form.

Ooze Empathy (Ex)

An oozemorph gains the shifter’s wild empathy class feature, but she can use it only to influence the attitude of oozes with an Intelligence score of 2 or lower. An oozemorph can use this ability on mindless oozes; when she does so, she imparts a modicum of intellect to the ooze to allow it to respond to her commands.

This alters wild empathy.

Damage Reduction (Ex)

At 2nd level, an oozemorph gains DR 4/slashing while unencumbered and either wearing no armor or wearing light nonmetal armor. This damage reduction increases by 2 at 4th level and every 4 levels thereafter, to a maximum of DR 14/slashing at 20th level.

Track (Ex)

At 2nd level, a shifter adds half her level as a bonus on Survival checks to follow tracks.

Clinging Ooze (Ex)

At 4th level, when in her natural form, an oozemorph gains a climb speed of 10 feet.

Trackless Step (Ex)

At 5th level, a shifter leaves no trail in natural surroundings and cannot be tracked. She can choose to leave a trail if she so desires.

Shifter’s Fury (Ex)

At 6th level, a shifter gains the ability to make several ferocious attacks with the same natural weapon. Instead of attacking with all her natural weapons, the shifter can choose a single natural weapon and make a full attack with that natural weapon, gaining a second iterative attack at a –5 as if it was a manufactured weapon. When she does so, all her other natural attacks count as secondary attacks and don’t benefit from shifter’s claws.

Animal Companion (Ex)

At 1st level, a hunter forms a bond with an animal companion. A hunter may begin play with any of the animals available to a druid. This animal is a loyal companion that accompanies the hunter on her adventures. This ability functions like the druid animal companion ability (which is part of the nature bond class feature). The hunter’s effective druid level is equal to her hunter level. If a character receives an animal companion from more than one source, her effective druid levels stack for the purposes of determining the companion’s statistics and abilities. A hunter may teach her companion hunter’s tricks from the skirmisher ranger archetype instead of standard tricks. The animal companion can use skirmisher tricks when commanded, a number of times per day equal to half its Hit Dice plus its Wisdom modifier.

Primal Transformation (Su)

At first level, a primal companion hunter can awaken a primal creature from within his animal companion as a swift action. The animal companion gains a pool of 2 evolution points that can be used to temporarily give the companion evolutions as if it were an eidolon. A primal companion hunter uses her hunter level to determine her effective summoner level for the purpose of qualifying for evolutions and determining their effects.

Activating these evolutions on the animal companion is a swift action. A primal companion hunter can use this ability for 1 minute per day per hunter level. This duration need not to be consecutive, but it must be spent in 1-minute increments. An animal companion transformed in this way cannot exceed the maximum number of attacks available to the eidolon of a summoner whose class level equals that of the hunter. While transformed in this way, the animal companion’s type changes to magical beast, though the primal companion hunter still treats it as an animal for the purpose of the Handle Animal skill.

Nature Training (Ex)

A hunter counts her total hunter level as both druid levels and ranger levels for the purpose of qualifying for feats, traits, and options that modify or improve an animal companion.

Wild Empathy (Ex)

A hunter can improve the initial attitude of an animal. This ability functions as a Diplomacy check to improve the attitude of a person. The hunter rolls 1d20 and adds her hunter level and her Charisma modifier to determine the wild empathy check result. The typical domestic animal has a starting attitude of indifferent, while wild animals are usually unfriendly.

To use wild empathy, the hunter and the animal must be within 30 feet of one another under normal conditions. Generally, influencing an animal in this way takes 1 minute but, as with influencing people, it might take more or less time.

The hunter can also use this ability to influence a magical beast with an Intelligence score of 1 or 2, but she takes a –4 penalty on the check.

Precise Companion (Ex)

At 2nd level, a hunter takes Outflank as a bonus feat. She does not need to meet the prerequisites for this feat. She automatically grants this feat to her animal companion as well.

Track (Ex)

At 2nd level, a hunter adds 1/2 her level to Survival skill checks made to follow tracks.

0-
Create Water
Detect Magic
Know Direction
Mending
Purify Food and Drink

1-
Acid Maw
Feather Step
Lead Blades

EWP: Butchering Axe (grants proficiency with Butchering Axe)
Outflank (+4 to flank when flanking partner shares this feat)
Boon Companion (+4 to effective druid level in re animal companion)
Monstrous Mount (grants worg animal companion)
Beast Rider (+2 to effective druid level in re animal companion)

Belt of +2 STR, +2 DEX (10000 g)
Cloak of Resistance +2 (9000 g)
+1 Butchering Axe (4360 g)
+1 Amulet of Mighty Fists (Mauhul's) (4000 g)
+1 Amulet of Mighty Fists (Halmash's) (4000 g)
+1 Leather Lamellar Armor (1210 g)
Deluxe Dungeoneering Kit (130 g)
Masterwork Survival Kit (50 g)
Masterwork Backpack (50 g)
Area Map (50 g)
Leather-bound Holy Text (25 g)
Folding Shovel (10 g)
Barbarian's Kit (9 g)
Wooden Holy Symbol (1 g)
Piecemeal Lamellar Cuirass fit to a medium animal (30 g)
Piecemeal Studded Leather legs fit to a medium animal (10 g)
65 gp

Halmash
Aberrant Worg Animal Companion 8
NE Magical Beast
Init +3; Perception +8
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DEFENSE
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AC 25, touch 14, flatfooted 21
HP 52 (7d8+10)
Fort +7, Ref +9, Will +4
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OFFENSE
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+1 Bite +11(d8+8+trip) 20 x2
Trip +13
Speed 50ft.
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STATISTICS
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Str 21, Dex 18, Con 15, Int 6, Wis 14, Cha 10
BAB +5; CMB +10/12; CMD 24/30
Racial Traits darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, scent
Feats Combat Reflexes, Outflank, Dirty Fighting, Improved Trip, Vicious Stomp
Skills (1/HD) Escape Artist +8 (1 rank, 3 class, 4 DEX), Intimidate +5 (2 rank, 3 class), Perception +8 (3 rank, 3 class, 2 WIS), Survival +6 (1 rank, 3 class, 2 WIS)
Languages Common, Orc

Link (Ex)
A druid can handle her animal companion as a free action, or push it as a move action, even if she doesn't have any ranks in the Handle Animal skill. The druid gains a +4 circumstance bonus on all wild empathy checks and Handle Animal checks made regarding an animal companion.

Not Quite Animal
The DC to use Handle Animal on an aberrant companion is 5 higher, as if it were a nonanimal with an Intelligence score of 1 or 2.

Aberrant Sight (Ex)
An aberrant companion gains darkvision with a range of 60 feet.

Evasion (Ex)
If an animal companion is subjected to an attack that normally allows a Reflex save for half damage, it takes no damage if it makes a successful saving throw.

Alien Mind (Ex)
At 6th level, an aberrant companion is immune to mind-affecting effects that specifically target animals, such as charm animal. Anyone who attempts to use such an effect against it takes 1d4 points of Wisdom damage (Will DC 20 half).

Combat Reflexes (may take as many Attacks of Opportunity as has DEX bonus)
Dirty Fighting (acts as INT 13, DEX 13, IUS and Combat Expertise for purpose of qualifying for feats; if flanking, provokes no Attack of Opportunity for using a maneuver it is not trained in but no bonus, if trained, flanking bonus is +4)
Outflank (flanking bonus is +4 if flanking partner shares feat)
Improved Trip (+2 to trip CMB and CMD, does not provoke)
Vicious Stomp (opponents that fall prone within threatened area provoke Attacks of Opportunity)

Combat Riding Package (attack, come, defend, down, guard, and heel)
Attack All Creatures
Flank
Hide Tracks
Hunt
Intimidate
Perform
Preen
Sneak
Subdue

Bolster Companion
Rattling Strike
Sic 'Em
Quick Climb
Quick Swim
Vengeance Strike

Mauhul kneels in the grass, wiping their blood off the head of his axe. None had been innocent. They would all face Judgment.

A black wolf the size of a man pads around the campfire, sniffing and licking the blood and the bodies. "I'm not complaining," it grumbles, "but didn't they pay us to guide them thru these woods safely?"

"Necromancy is the most foul art, Halmash. They could not be permitted to live."

The worg laughs a chittering laugh and falls on its side next to its friend and protector. "But wizards or not, they were still people before you killed them. What does your Pharasma say about murderers like yourself?" It lays its massive head in the orc's lap, nuzzling into his chest as it continues speaking. "It feels good to kill, doesn't it brother? To feel blood, anyone's blood, rush hot against your skin? You are not innocent, Mauhul. What would she say about that?"

The orc scratches his friend behind the ear before standing, pushing thick black hair out of his face. "It does not matter. We will all face Judgment when the time comes. No one is above Her."

He is not here as he dismembers the necromancers. He is remembering the first time he died.

He and Halmash were young then, just pups. Adopted by their clan's leader, they had been raised together to foster a relationship between orc and worg, to serve as example to both pack and clan. Safety in numbers.

Together many battles would be fought, pressed against the line of Lastwall, invaders seeking to gain ground the orcs had rightfully claimed in blood, but none could stand against the pair. Together, they tore through armies.

But in a single skirmish at the north border, that would change. He and his worg had been sent with a small band to seek out and kill Ustalavan necromancers that had been stealing the bodies of the fallen. The pair were no match for their dark magic.

A strange spell struck them both, melting his mind and body, leaving him dead on the field.

Mauhul wipes sweat from his brow as he sets down his axe. Returning to a knee, he stokes the fire into something hotter, larger, fatter, something that will burn long and hard. One by one, he feeds the flames the parts and pieces of these necromancers, destroying their bodies forever.

The only thing that awaited them was Judgment.

When Mauhul first saw the Boneyard from his place in the River of Souls, he was overcome with joy and loss. Countless souls waiting to be judged. The River flowed for miles and miles ahead and behind him. At the end of it, the Spire stood impossible tall and dark, with a Dark Moon floating overhead.

While most flowed easily along at their own pace and speed, others were ushered out by skeletal men with wings and tails, but the skulls of great crows, and a few were wrenched away somewhere else entirely, disappearing in cries of great pain. When one of these skeletal figures pulled him from the River, he demanded an explanation.

PHARASMA KNOWS THE FATE OF ALL, the reaper whispered. YOUR TIME HAS NOT YET COME, MAUHUL OB'VORROZ.

Satisfied, the orc let the reaper carry him off. One nagging thought, however, ate at him. "What about those souls that seemed to melt into nothingness before me?"

The winged reaper shook its head as it set the soul down to wait for resurrection. CLAIMED BY UNDEATH. THIS THE MOTHER OF SOULS CAN ABIDE LEAST OF ALL, FOR NECROMANCY STEALS AND TRAPS SOULS AWAY FROM THEIR REST AND JUDGMENT. ONLY ONCE THE NECROMANTIC CREATION IS DESTROYED DO THEY RETURN TO THEIR JOURNEY. FOR TOO MANY, THIS NEVER HAPPENS. IT IS A SAD THING, MAUHUL OB'VORROZ.

As the orc pondered on this, he began to feel pulled and tugged in all directions. Was it happening to him? The necromancers that had killed him, were they perverting his body into a zombie, a ghoul, simply a skeleton stripped of its flesh?

YOUR PEOPLE CALL FOR YOU, WARRIOR, the reaper assured him. IT IS A CHOICE. YOU CAN STAY HERE AND FACE JUDGMENT BEFORE THE LADY, OR YOU CAN RETURN TO LIFE.

Mauhul surrendered to the pull of the living.

One log still burns on the fire. The bodies of the wizards successfully cremated, the log is moved and the ashes scraped away. As the orc buries the ashes, the wolf speaks once more, red eyes staring at the moon.

"How many years has it been, brother? Since you died, since we changed, since they cast us out into this?"

"Seven." The shovel pushes deeper into the earth.

"Can we not just go back? You are stronger now, more learned in your curse. We could simply lie, say you have mastered it, or fought it off."

The shovel digs deeper. "What would you have me say? My form is constant and unchanging? That I am orc and orc alone, I do not simply melt away into nothing if I lose focus, I do not sleep in a bucket you carry? This is our life now, Halmash. They would not welcome you back, either." The orc speaks a word and twin tentacles emerge from the black wolf's back. "I may have been the one to die, but I was not the only one changed by their foul magic."

The worg exhales quick and frustrated. "At least here, there is plenty to hunt," it relents.

Mauhul finishes laying the ashes and cremains deep in the hole he has dug and fills it. Exhausted, he falls to the ground. "The night has been long, friend, and I am tired." They lie on each other by the smoldering remains of their last log until sleep finds them. Here, his curse manifests. The orc's form melts away, congealing into an unnaturally blue puddle of goo, which snakes up the body of the wolf and rests between its shoulder blades.

It was the day after his resurrection that they faced exile.

Halmash and the rest of the warband fought off the necromancers and carried Mauhul back to camp, parts and pieces of a man stuck together with webs of a bright blue ichor. At his father's bidding, powerful magics were cast to stitch him back together and return him to living. Mauhul rejoiced with his father and Halmash. To celebrate their safe return, the clan and the pack gathered in the war tent, feasted and drank for an hour. One hour.

In front of all gathered, Mauhul fell to the ground, writhing in agony, and melted away into a pool of that same bright blue ichor. The feast was scattered, his father called for the wise woman. "What has become of my son?"

She poked and prodded at the ooze, casting bones and gutting a deer to examine its entrails. "The answer is simple. This is your son. The spell that was cast upon he and his worg has changed them both, but in dying to it, your son transformed. He will never be more than this. Even the man that sat here drinking beside you was just this pool of liquid. Tomorrow, he shall resume his shape and form, and he may speak to you. For now he may only listen."

His father nodded calmly. "Leave us."

Alone with the ooze, the chieftain poured a horn of ale upon its mass. "You have embarrassed me twice today. I should have listened to those who told me that perhaps you were unworthy of your resurrection. Sentiment blinded me then. It does no longer. In the morning, when you have become more than this, when you are yourself once more, pack your things and leave. Leave this camp and leave the Hold."

At this, the ooze finally moved. It coiled itself like a snake and raised an arm or a head, listening intently.

"I gift you two things, Mauhul. For my unworthy son, I leave you with your life intact. That is one. I ask you take Halmash with you. That is two. Never were you separated before, and never shall you be. And if the wise woman speaks true, I cannot let the beast remain in our camp. It will be a blow to the pack's loyalty, but they will come to see it as I do."

From here, the chieftain ate and drank in silence and solitude, occasionally throwing scraps at the protoplasmic mass that was once his son as if it were a dog. After he had ate and drank his fill, he left. They would not see each other again.

And it has been seven years. He wakes in his bucket, having been placed there by Halmash at some point in his slumber.

The wolf shortly arrives with a pair of rabbits in its mouth. "Who are we today, brother? Mauhul has gone off to escort these wizards thru the forest, if he returns to town, it will be clear he guided them false. Are we Masha, the tracker? Perhaps we are the dwarf, Matthias, was it? Or are we a new face, and a new story, a mountain-man perhaps?"

An elvish woman steps out from the bucket, grabs one of the rabbits and skins it. "The face we wear is irrelevant, Halmash. There is no hiding our soul from Judgment."

Mauhul is a unnaturally bright light blue sentient ooze weighing about three hundred pounds. After years of learning and training himself, he can look like anyone, as long as they are between two and a half to eight feet tall, but generally he appears in one of four forms.

Masha, the elf tracker, a tall and narrow woman with pale skin and dark hair, a long but thin face with a sharp jaw and a cruel and aquiline nose. Matthias, a brown-skinned dwarf hunter with a limp and a clean shave. Rarely, he will appear as Merrin, an ugly and well-tanned halfling hermit who only comes into town for supplies.

The body Mauhul once had and that he uses to represent himself still today is six foot ten and intensely muscular. His face is broad and long, with fat and firm tusks, and eyes that are almost entirely black, glinting with red. The grey-green orc has broad hips, wide shoulders and long but coarse black hair he meticulously upkeeps as ritual. He could simply reform his body in perfect condition and grooming, but the process of combing, brushing and braiding his hair ties him to his past and grounds him in a body.