Kraken Slayer (Paladin Archetype)
(art by Fran-Hdez on DeviantArt)
I can’t remember how many times I’ve said it, but I don’t get how D&D and Pathfinder did krakens as a concept.
Giant predatory squid that attacks ships? Check.
It’s also a fully intelligent creature and is almost always a tyrant monster that enslaves and rules over smaller aquatic beings, conjures storms to bring trouble to surface mortals, and so on…. Ok? Why??
Intellectually, I understand, D&D needed a giant monstrous threat underwater which could be like a dragon in not just power level but scheming, but they had already made the classic chromatic dragons all terrestrial, leaving only the bronze dragon, a metallic dragon, as the only one of the core 10 that live in the ocean. (Also, they probably were at least a little influenced by Cthulhu, but were not keen to make a tentacled monstrous overlord too close to it while Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu RPG had the rights to use those monsters directly.)
But the fact that kraken are such powerful and typically evil aquatic monsters alongside the alghollthu means that to the aquatic peoples living below the waves, they fill much the same role in their folklore, as great evils that heroes must arise to slay on occasion.
Enter the kraken slayer, a form of paladin seen among aquatic cultures that seeks to protect others from the depredations of the evil that lurks in the depths, be they krakens, alghollthu, cults of monstrous underwater gods, and so on.
The tradition originated among the tritons, those goodly aquatic folk that originated from the Plane of Water, which does have it’s own kraken problems on occasion. However, it has since spread to other goodly peoples beneath the waves, (and in theory, above the waves as well, assuming that such heroes have a method of consistently surviving and moving freely underwater.)
As is fitting of their focus, these divine warriors alter their smite slightly so that it is aquatic and water-based evils that particularly suffer when they unleash their divine wrath upon them.
They also gain immunity to poison in addition to disease, useful given how many toxic foes there are beneath the waves.
Their divine bonds also vary, with those that bond with their weapons eschewing elemental damage to instead improve their weapon’s performance in water. Meanwhile, those that choose a mount must bond with a creature suitable for the waves, big enough to cling to while it swims, though they thankfully do not limit you on this as long as it makes sense.
Krakens, like their mundane cephalopod kin and many other creatures, use grappling and constriction as weapons, and so their aura blesses them and those nearby with the ability to slip free of grapples with surprising ease.
With no ability to magically grant freedom of movement, this archetype is pretty much exclusive to the aquatic playable ancestries unless you’re willing to invest a lot in magical solutions. That being said, it’s a pretty good way to alter the abilities of a paladin to better serve being underwater. Definitely consider it if you’re playing both an aquatic ancestry and a paladin, and if the campaign takes place at least a considerable bit underwater.
The lore for the archetype states that these warriors must balance hunting the monsters of the deep with protecting their people from them, but I find that’s primarily what the paladin experience is like: remembering that you are a defender of the people first, and not abandon them to chase down the wicked out of bloodlust and zealotry.
The southern part of Malgalos Rainforest opens up into a river delta where the massive mangrove trees rise out of the silt, and the waters run deep indeed in places. Long have the vanara of that region held alliance with the tritons of the deeper water, and a few have even learned a few arts from them, using magic to join them as defenders of the continental shelf, fighting off creatures from darker waters.
Though he dislikes the facility on principal, the kraken slayer Shophis has agreed to attend the grand opening of Balkas the Inscruitable’s underwater palace, which comes complete with a menagerie with simulated environments where monsters from around the world are kept, such as bloodbrush from the Sanaan Desert, and so on. However, Balkas’ underwater jewel has raise the interest of several underwater powers that seek to either destroy it, or worse, claim it for their own.
For generations, the kraken slayer order of the merfolk city of Angilas has only been so in name only, being no krakens sighted in the region for nearly two centuries. However, just because they are not seen does not mean they are not present, and the recent arrival of a group of adventurers may force the hand of the clandestine cephalopod that has been manipulating their society from the shadows.
