So… Super-heroes. My first attempt at having a super hero in one of my campaigns came as Silver Arrow, a vigilante in Thrane. Many elements were resonating with the Church of the Silver Flame and by that time I was a BIG fan of Smallville. This inspired one of my players to create a rogue similar to Spider-Man (Drider-Man) and his brother followed his steps with the shield-bearing Captain Karrnath. Tapping unto a few of my good memories, I decided to start a series of articles about how the Avengers would fit in Eberron. The unbelievable amazing art for this article comes from Daniel Kamarudin and Betawi Kebayoran.
Pre-War Origins
I’ll start this 5e version of the Avengers with Captain Karrnath, a brave soldier from the beginnings of the Last War. Being a soldier, what better than making him a Fighter from Rekkenmark, right? Khorvaire’s finest military academy will be Eberron’s Avengers Initiative first member’s alma mater.
Just before the Last War started, some members of Karrnath’s military elite saw an opportunity in Atur’s Academy experiments involving the undead and forbidden necromancy arts. So they decided to join renown artificers and wizards to create a perfect soldier. King Jarot had House Cannith already researching construct soldiers, and they just wanted Karrnath to have a response in a worst case scenario in which these constructs would fall out of control. Ioseff Reinsteni, accomplished Rekkenmark’s Head War Wizard, crafted the solution in the form of a powerful potion. It it worked correctly, he’ll give the formula to Prince Kaius so he could massively reproduce it. All he needed was a test subject, but war was imminent and every soldier in optimum condition was already assigned to a frontier, and the few young male still working the farms were already showing signs of malnutrition. One young and very patriotic farmer who was not accepted into the Army finally volunteered: Steffan would meet Reinsteni in order to drink the potion, but the meeting was sabotaged by Rubrum Calvariam, a necromancer from Atur, who learning about this experiment, felt their own would be discarded by the Crown if this one worked out correctly.
Next thing we know is that the Military Counsil at Rekkenmark selected Steffan to take a ship from Karrnath to Aundair… through the Frostfell. The ship’s contents and whatever happened ion their way, few people know, but many legends and rumors were born, including one involving the famed “Flying Aundairian” ghost ship. No one heard again from Steffan, until an expedition into the Absolute North discovered the ship and its crew totally frozen dead. The remains were given back to Karrnath as a gift of peace during the negotiations for the Treaty of Thronehold. There, Ioseff Reinsteni’s grandson, Erskine Reinsteni, found a way to get Steffan back to life.
And now, the character
Leuku has created a new Martial Archetype, The Guardian, which can be found here. If your DM doesn’t allow homebrewed material, then we’ll need a little more effort. We need a protective character which is able to use his shield as a weapon too. We’ll make him standard human, so he can have ability scores higher than average. His highest scores should be of course Strength and Constitution.
That brings us to skills. Don’t neglect Charisma-based ones, since our character is also an innate inspiring leader. About feats, being additional rules, the only one we can find useful is Shield Master, as it will allow Captain Karrnath to protect his fellow avengers. If the DM will allow you to, you can equip him with a javelin, and just flavorfully describe it as a throwing shield. Shawn Ellsworth, from Tribality, offers the following build up to 12th level:
- Fighting Style: Protection
- Archetype: Battle Master
- Superiority Dice: 5d10 – Save DC 15
- Commander’s Strike
- Distracting Strike
- Maneuvering Attack
- Sweeping Attack
- Rally
- Precision Attack
- Parry
- Student of War
- Know Your Enemy
- Improved Combat Superiority
- Superiority Dice: 5d10 – Save DC 15
I’ll leave the shield as an artifact for another article.
Coming soon…
Next entries will include “Ironforged”, “Dragonhawk Eye” and the “Black Scorpion”. I’m receiving suggestions for The Hulk (maybe a shifter barbarian) and pun-intentional name changes for Thor.
Red de Rol
via Codex Anathema
August 6, 2017 at 03:00PM
