About Myōbatsu the Night ShepherdTanaka Myōbatsu
Edicts Seek justice for the dead, use coercion instead of violence when possible
HP 39
Deliberate Death ↺:
Frequency once per day Trigger You are about to gain the dying condition as a result of another creature’s attack or ability, and that creature is within your melee reach. Effect Once, you died because someone—murderer or monster, soldier or executioner— chose to strike you down. Just before losing consciousness, make a melee Strike against the triggering creature. Ancestry Feats:
Skill Feats:
Exemplar Class Features:
Humble Strikes: Even the most unassuming weapons can accomplish heroic deeds in your hands. When you are wielding a simple weapon, increase the damage die size of that weapon by one step. Shift Immanence ♦
Spark Transcendence
Body Ikon: Scar of the Survivor
Weapon Ikon: Barrow's Edge
Weapon Ikon: Thorns of Mortality
Worn Ikon: Palisade Bangle
Exemplar Class Feats:
1st -- 2nd Thorns of Mortality 4th 6th 8th 10th Free Archetype: Vigilante:
General Feats:
Epithets:
Root Epithet (3rd Level) When your divine spark bonded with your soul, it became dyed in your personality and qualities. As your deeds give shape to this nascent divinity, you come to bear an epithet—a word or phrase that reflects your story and that others come to call you by. Your epithets each affect one of your ikons, granting it additional capacities. At 3rd level, you gain a root epithet, which describes the core of your personality and affects the qualities of your body ikon. If you are already trained in the granted skill, you become trained in a different skill of your choice, as normal. Root Epithet: Mournful
Backstory:
Myobatsu, the Night Shepherd Father: Tanaka Haru (Deceased)
Tanaka Myōbatsu, or Batsu for short, was born in the Burrows district of the Depths, in a small ysoki den of about twenty residents--nearly all of whom were related by either blood or marriage. Batsu had a hardscrabble life, but was surrounded by loving family and many cousins to play with. He was a happy child, though the adults would sometimes whisper to each other and glance at him furtively when they thought he wasn’t paying attention. He was too young to understand why at first, but he soon learned it had to do with his “birthmark”: a patch of white in his charcoal fur in the shape of a spiral. Pharasma, it seems, had marked him. When he came of age, he apprenticed under a hryngar smith named Dornguk. He was a bright and precocious young adult, and took quickly to the tasks given. It went well, until one day Dornguk left the forge on an errand looking nervous. When he finally returned hours later, he was agitated and sweating, holding a bundle of mithral pieces and ordering Batsu to help him craft a new item from them. Batsu was nervous, having never worked with anything so fantastic as mithral before, but Dornguk wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. They worked the forge all night, and a tonic from Dornguk helped Batsu stay awake (even helping him concentrate on the task at hand). To Batsu’s surprise, he successfully helped the old smith finish the item in a single night. Exhausted and sweaty, they beheld their creation: a clasp of intersecting mithral plates with an exquisitely-cut ruby in its center. Something about the gem felt off to Batsu, but he couldn’t place what. He had no knowledge of magic. Dornguk wrapped the clasp in a thick cloth and shoved it in Batsu’s arms, telling the ysoki to take it home with him and hide it well. Too tired and frightened to argue, Batsu did as he was told. When he arrived in the wee hours of the morning, his father was already awake. He took one look at Batsu, screamed, and ran from the room. Wherever his father ran, more screams erupted, and soon the entire ysoki den was a cacophony of madness and terror. Batsu hid under the kitchen table, weeping and clutching the bundle. It wasn’t until over a minute passed that he realized the bundle was empty. Confused, he finally crept from under the desk and slunk down a warren tunnel. His mother’s mangled corpse greeted him. Panicking and sobbing, but unable to stop his feet, he moved down the tunnel and around the corner, where he saw his father ravaging the body of one of his cousins. The ruby clasp was buried in his flesh at the nape of his neck, the ruby pulsing like a hideous heartbeat. Two of his uncles jumped on his father and wrestled him down. There was a red flash, and the ruby clasp was suddenly on one of the uncles, who proceeded to rip and tear with his claws and teeth, until both the other uncle and Batsu’s father were dead. Batsu stared on in horror, wanting nothing more than to hide from this macabre scene, but instead following behind his uncle as he continued the rampage. The clasp jumped wearers two more times. Each time someone managed to pin down or even kill the wearer, the clasp jumped to someone else, who then continued the bloody rampage. And all the while, Batsu followed, too terrified to try and stop the massacre, but unable to stop himself from following along. Eventually the clasp wearer, at that point one of his cousins, finally noticed him and jumped on him. Batsu screamed and wailed, frantically clawing and wriggling in an attempt to escape her clutches. Finally his teeth found her throat and he tore it free of her body. The clasp flashed, and Batsu felt like his fur was on fire as the clasp buried itself in his flesh. He felt an entity crawling around in his head, tendrils of psychic power like oily tentacles tearing at his psyche, trying to rip it open and slither in. Moments later, he felt what he could only describe as the hand of Pharasma Herself reach down and rip the entity out of his mind. The clasp burst away from his flesh, ripping skin and scorching fur as it flew away, struck a wall, and exploded. Nothing was left of the clasp when the dust settled. Overwhelmed by his wounds, Batsu passed out. When he woke, Myobatsu was in chains, in a cell in the Broche. He soon learned that as the only survivor, covered in blood and defensive wounds, he was being charged as the perpetrator of the massacre. His claim of a cursed clasp was patently ignored, since no such item was found anywhere within the dens. Of all his family, only his brother Soren and his cousin Rika survived, since they were working up in King’s Heart when the massacre happened. Both spoke as character witnesses on his behalf, but without any other witnesses, and with the physical evidence against him, Batsu was convicted and sentenced to death. The executioner’s axe swung seven days later. Myobatsu died for a massacre he didn’t commit. The pain, fear, and anger that roiled in him at the moment of his death kept him from properly moving on. He woke one year later, but his face was not his own. When he sat up, he sat up in Soren’s bed. His body was covered in lacerations, and blood stained the sheets all over. Looking in the mirror, he saw Soren’s face, though at first it was difficult; Soren’s face had been stabbed over two dozen times. Even as he looked on, the wounds began to close, leaving thick, puckered scars all over his face and body. Somehow, Batsu was inhabiting his brother’s body, but the fur had darkened from Soren’s chestnut to Batsu’s own charcoal. Batsu searched the apartment, and found that his brother’s things had been ransacked. He found only a handful of items of any use: Soren’s dusty old black leathers and battered buckler from his brief stint as a Watchman; a rust-pitted dagger under the bed that hadn’t seen use in years; a small bangle made of pewter their mother had gifted Soren for his coming of age ceremony two years ago; an old bone mask from a costume from back when they were children, and nothing else. Even Soren’s clothes had been taken. As he held the items, he felt power begin to radiate from them. It was difficult for him to put into words, but it was like the uncomfortable tingle of an electric shock just touching them. Yet when he held the bangle, he felt his brother’s urge to protect his loved ones--the whole reason he’d become a Watch member in the first place, even if the bureaucracy of the job eventually made him quit in frustration. Even though it hurt to hold it, Batsu clutched the bangle and it was almost like holding his family again. The dagger… was another story. It seemed to pulse with a seething darkness that hid just under the metal facade, fill the little holes and divots left by rust, giving the blade a jagged, sinister look in the dim light. It felt… hungry. Just touching it sent a thrill of terror through him, yet he found he couldn’t quite bring himself to put it down--just as he couldn’t quite make his feet run away from the massacre of his family. The memory of that, and the knowledge that whoever murdered his brother was still at large, steeled his resolve. Batsu felt the fear drain from his body, replaced by a cold, hateful fury. Someone had murdered his brother, who had already lost all but one of his own family to tragedy. It was wrong. He put the bone mask over his face, donned the leather armor and bangle, and slipped into the dark recesses of the Depths. Over the next few days, he hunted. He cornered thugs and pickpockets, threatening and cajoling until they gave up bits of information. Piece by piece, he put together the puzzle of Soren’s death. A group of hired killers were paid to murder Soren and make it look like a simple home burglary. What they took, however, no one seemed to know. Fearing that Soren wouldn’t be the only victim, Batsu went to check on Rika. He arrived in time to interrupt a trio of dwarves clad in black leathers. He battled with a prowess he’d never learned, as if some dark force guided his rusty blade. His strikes seemed to seethe with strange energies, continuing to eat at the flesh of the assassins as he struck blow after blow and dodged strikes with seemingly impossible agility. Eventually the assassins fled, presumably to nurse their many wounds. Batsu gave chase, but he quickly lost them. On the bright side, Rika was alive--though very confused by her cousin’s strange transformation. Batsu explained what happened, and Rika was relieved to have one cousin back, but mourned the other. When the truth came out about what happened to Soren and Batsu, the constabulary was in a conundrum. Batsu was a convicted murderer; however, he had already suffered his sentence. In the end, the Watch agreed to let Batsu go, but his reputation was stained. Unable to find reputable work due to his fearsome reputation, he managed to find jobs via Geralde Brightfist, who used his reputation to hire him as muscle for strongarm jobs. While not an official member of the Blacknoon Thieves’ Guild, he has done plenty of freelance work for them. His ability to frighten unruly targets into compliance has earned him the nickname “the Night Shepherd” among the other Blacknoon freelancers. A few weeks ago, an Iruxi mystic named Valahask tracked him down at Soren’s apartment, eagerly asking about the clasp mentioned in his testimony during his trial. Valahask believes Batsu’s tale, and thinks that the scholars of Clan Tolorr might help him understand both the tragedy that befell his den and the strange resurrection he experienced into his brother’s body. If the truth of the clasp can be revealed, Batsu might even be able to clear his name and find the person or people responsible for the massacre. His first target, the hryngar smith Dornguk, is currently in the wind, but Batsu continues hunting. He feels power that he doesn’t entirely understand, but he intends to channel these strange energies into hunting Dornguk and getting answers.
Fun Stuff:
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