#jiang-shi

[highland-onsen]

[nineheavenspress]

Jiang-shi

A versatile heritage/subspecies (think like the revenant) in our upcoming book, the Black Market Guide to Immortality.

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he just wants to say hi, i promise :) for SheriffBoku!

[capriccio-aratelia]

This is my undertale oc Xiu-Chi, yeah I ship her with Dalv, (sometimes she calls him Dalvy

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Icon commission for @mischief-rei; Thank you!

[dailycharacteroption]

Fortune-Finder (Ranger Archetype)

(art by Nadiah Najib on Artstation)

They say that the oldest stories of adventure are derived from the “elixir quest”, A need drives someone to abandon their home in search of something that can’t be found there. This might be a literal elixir or medicine, or it might be the need to return things to normal by stopping a war or destroying an evil artifact and the like.

However, some choose to adventure not because of a tangible need, but a desire to explore and discover.

Originating in vanara culture, these ba-sadhaks, or “fortune-finders” originate from remote vanara villages until their wanderlust blossoms and they travel far from home to see what they can find, delighting in new discoveries and adapting as they go.

Given how quiet these vanara wanderers are about their origins, it’s no surprise that the majority that follow this path remain vanaras, but the practice has indeed spread, and could theoretically appear in some form wherever a person feels the need to go out and see the world with a bit of survival skills and the like.

The result, as we shall soon see, is a ranger that can be effective not just in their favored environment and against favored foes, but against all to a limited degree.

Though these rangers gain favored enemies and terrains as normal, they are quick to adapt, and can even focus their efforts. They gain lesser benefits in unfamiliar terrain, and when facing a foe, regardless of if it is favored or not, they can study it to gain bonuses in combat against them, as well as utility bonuses as well.

Agile and used to making their way, they are quite adept at moving through terrain that would slow others, though obviously magical entrapment can still slow them.

Eventually, they can maintain their focus on multiple foes at once, and study them much faster as well.

The most powerful among them can slip away from even magically manipulated terrain. What’s more, they can study a previously studied foe further to gain even greater advantage over them.

This archetype is all about studying your foes almost the same way as a slayer or investigator might. So with that in mind, I recommend taking a decent intelligence score and charisma score to better utilize the various skills their abilities give them an advantage on. Beyond that, focus on a build that focuses on targeting a single foe at a time to take advantage of their study.

There’s a certain “everyman hero” appeal to this archetype, as if the character were a witty and clever traveller that anyone could place themselves in the shoes of and go on adventures that involve outsmarting fantastical foes through not just their skill at arms, but also their cunning minds, which is perhaps why it fits so well with the mischievous monkey people.

While wanderlust can inspire an eager mind, it can also lead to unfortunate ends, and may a wanderer never comes home. Such is the case with one Loxus Fireseed, whom the party have been hired to track down. The poor soul discovered the lair of an ancient jiang-shi master, and met his tragic end.

They say many tengu populations remain in hiding, far from the diaspora of the rest of their people. However, some seek to learn of the outside world, and are trained to do just that, preparing them as best they can to use their minds and bodies to survive within and without civilization.

Clever, but also foolhardy, Bashi the vanara has been wandering the world for years, a staff in his hands. However, playing tricks on others and getting up to mischief tends to make enemies. Now, a nagaji noble musters forces to make the playful monkey man disappear.

[jojoseames]

Patreon original art reward! A spooky figure from Chinese folklore: the jiangshi, also known as the hopping vampire!

(Patreon.com/JoJoSeames)

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