Character seed: Buddy the shark

[Douglas Muir 406]

Once there was a neutral good druid who took a shark as his animal companion. When he leveled up, the shark took a point of Int, gaining Int 3 -- consciousness and (basic) sapience. The druid died a while ago, but the shark is still around.

Buddy is a neutral good shark who can speak some Common. His conversation is pretty limited, though:

"Hi! My name's Buddy! I'm a shark!" [starts singing] "I'm a shark, I'm a shark, I'm a shark, I'm a shark..." (1)

"I like swimming!"

"I'm... a shark!"

"I'm hungry! Are you hungry? Because I'm hungry!"

"I'm a shark!" [starts singing] "I'm a shark, I'm a shark..."

"Hi!"

It turns out that, once you get past their alarming appearance, sharks are actually incredibly jolly and cheerful creatures. Well, jolly and cheerful creatures who will eat you. But Buddy's master taught him basic morality, so Buddy now only eats the following:

1) Fish.
2) Bad people.
3) Unless you're really hungry. Then, anything.

I'd run Buddy as four parts large, friendly dog, one part serial killer. (2) Though none too bright, he does sincerely want to be helpful. He hangs around the harbor of a large city looking for ways to make himself useful. Buddy will be happy to help good-aligned PCs (or nongood ones with a decent Bluff roll -- Sense Motive is not a class skill for sharks). And, hey -- if something turns up that involves eating bad people, so much the better.

Thoughts?

Doug M.

(1) Sung to the tune of "I'm The Map!" from Dora the Explorer.
(2) Or, say, a mashup of King Shark from Secret Six and Questionable Content's Randy the Bandicoot.

[Davor]

/thunderous applause

[Helaman]

Love it

[tumbler]

Wait, what?

I'm not opposed to the idea, but how does he speak. I understand that gaining the 3 intelligence lets him know common, but he doesn't have the apparatus to do so, does he?

Does he need some sort of collar or spell or something?

Maybe we need a 1st level druid spell: Animal Speech. Equivalent to speak with animals, but allows animals to speak one language.

[tumbler]

Also, it would be cool if he had an archnemesis that was the little poisonous octopus wizards can have as a familiar. The octopus has maybe an intelligence 5, so he is like a super genius among animals, and of course he is eeeviil.

[Davor]

tumbler wrote:

Also, it would be cool if he had an archnemesis that was the little poisonous octopus wizards can have as a familiar. The octopus has maybe an intelligence 5, so he is like a super genius among animals, and of course he is eeeviil.

Ooo! That's awesome! Then, the two would become locked in battle, when suddenly a rush of arcane energy fuses them together, creating SHARKTOPUS!