GLoG Class: The Trampled

The Road

A vaguely Middle East + Central Asia inspired setting, evoking the historical Silk Road in themes and setup for adventure. When a traveler speaks of the entire region, they call it The Road of Dead Buddhas. Upon its breadth not a soul can forget the wisdom of the sages: "If you see the Buddha on the road, kill him."

As people travel these lands for gold and glory, certainty and conviction are as picked-over by vultures as the many corpses that litter its trails.

There Are Barbarians at the Gate

Han era Chinese statue depicting a Xiongnu man being trampled

So-called civilization has declared you Other, and the hooves of war have stamped out your way of life. Being marked as a wretched thing by imperial agents from faraway cities, you have embraced the lifestyle they inflict upon you. You have been trampled, but not defeated. You will become the wretched thing they make you out to be, for the honor and memory of those who couldn't get back up.

Special prerequisite: To take a template of Trampled you must literally survive being trampled beneath a horse. It is both metaphorical and literal: surviving a scourge of Sankhati knights, throwing yourself under a horse drawn carriage, a stampede of buffalo or a big enough Dire Hog, etc.

TRAMPLED

Starting equipment: broken shield or a broken breastplate, shoulder pain or hip pain, spear

Starting skill: stealth, trapmaking OR tactics

A: Bent, Not Broken, Go For the Knees

B: Anti-Cavalry Action

C: Wretched of the Earth

D: The Wheel is Broken Upon my Back

Bent, Not Broken: It’s easier for you to scuttle on all four limbs than it is to walk upright. While all four of your limbs are touching the ground, you can scuttle upright surfaces at half your usual pace. You can test Strength or Dexterity to scuttle upside-down across surfaces.

Go For the Knees: When you crit or bloody a target (bringing them ≥ half health) they can’t move until you’ve acted again. You can smell unarmored knees at fifteen paces.

Anti-Cavalry Action: You deal double damage to mounts and mounted combatants. When initiative is rolled and you’re in close proximity to a mounted combatant, you go first.

Wretched of the Earth: While moving horizontally on the ground, you cannot be killed.

The Wheel is Broken Upon my Back: Enemies roll Morale checks with disadvantage when you are moving horizontally (roll 3D6 and take the lowest two). Animals and wild beings will treat with you as kin, and horses will rebel against their riders at the sight of you. Can equines be class-traitors?

Once, you can designate a hex on the map to be Bent. Settled agriculture becomes impossible there, becoming a wild place supportive to life but inhospitable to the trappings of so-called “civilization”.
Roads sink into mud, crops wither while wild food blooms, and the land becomes a haven for all whom have been Trampled. You can always find safe groves, glades or caves to rest there.

You can always test CHA to try and recruit a unit of Trampled soldiers while resting in this hex. 

More on the Silk Road GLoG