#battle dancer

“Rider” © Cindy Avellno, accessed at her ArtStation here

[And Monster Girl Summer is officially a Go! Part of my goal with Monster Girl Summer is to reflect on the games I’ve run in the past. And to sort of mentally catalog how many of the PCs started out monstrous, or became monstrous over the course of play. Like Dalya here. Dalya was originally a human, but ended up reincarnated as a gnoll. And was in the half of the party that survived their fight with Karzoug, as opposed to being wiped out in round 1. Time stop + reverse gravity + prismatic sphere, don’tcha know.

I ran Rise of the Runelords in 3.5. Dalya was originally built using the battle dancer class from Dragon Compendium. So making her a brawler was a easy choice for the conversion.]

Dalya CR 18 CG Humanoid (gnoll) This tall, lean hyena headed woman has her hair done up in a dyed fringe, and tattoos are visible beneath her fur. She wears leather armor and carries a buckler and spear.

Born to an exiled Shoanti father and a Varisian merchant mother, Dalya was used to living on the road. But she didn’t expect it to turn out the way it did. Visiting the Swallowtail Festival in Sandpoint, she was caught up in a goblin raid, which rapidly turned into investigating the growing power of the Sihedron cult and, eventually, opposing the forces of Karzoug. Underneath Thistletop, Dalya was slain by the barghest Malfeshnekor, but her allies were able to fight the beast back long enough to recover her body. Possibly as a side effect of being slain by one of Lamashtu’s chosen, Dalya was returned to life as a gnoll when brought back through a reincarnate spell. And Dalya couldn’t have been happier with her new body.

Dalya’s adventures continued from there, and she proudly brags that she’s never lost a fist fight with a giant. She was instrumental to killing Karzoug and preventing Varisia from being overrun by an army of lamiae and other monsters. But Dalya is not one to rest on her laurels, and she is in no way retired. Her current mission is to help a few packs of non-evil gnolls to settle in the Storval Plateau without causing too much conflict with the Shoanti quahs living there already. Her allies in this mission include a quartet of advanced crocuttals and Krojun Eats-What-He-Kills, a powerful warrior of the Sun Clan, himself reincarnated into a monstrous form (a bugbear) following a fatality in combat.

 Many martial arts styles resemble dances in their grace and poise. In fact, some, like capoeira, were in fact specifically designed to resemble dancing as a way to disguise their training and practice under the watchful gaze of oppressors.

In other styles, the martial arts are honed into a dance-like art form to demonstrate the user’s mastery over their own body.

Regardless of the specific style, however, there do exist those martial artists who fight with dancing styles, becoming a blur of motion that moves between foes with ease. That being said, this archetype is heavily based on capoeira, even coming from the former Cheliax colony of Sargava in the Mwangi Expanse before it fell and became modern Vidrian.

We’ve covered similar archetypes before, but those are mostly associated with bards or the occasional skald. Today’s archetype favors the martial arts side of things over performance and magic.

 As their style is as much performance as it is a combat style, these battle dancers use the instinctive passionate movements of their bodies to master various combat techniques.

The acrobatic style that these brawlers use leaves them in constant motion when attacking rapidly, flipping and kicking foes. As such, with every attack during a flurry, they move a little, which often leaves them dancing between foes or moving in circles around a single one. This does mean they can more effectively spread their attacks around, but also could leave them out of position if they do not plot their course carefully.

These acrobatics also aid them in defense, letting them flip and roll away from foes as needed.

Later on, they even master the ability to distract foes with their attacks, allowing them to provide the advantages of flanking even if they only exist across from an ally for a second before moving on, assuming the enemy and ally remain roughly in the same place, of course.

Positioning is the name of the game with this archetype, and they essentially have the ability to spread multiple attacks among foes while constantly moving into a more favorable position. Because of this, methinks your feats should revolve around combat maneuvers to better control the battlefield, using martial flexibility to pick up the slack in various ways when needed.

 Given that this style has such links to oppressed people, it only makes sense that even among those who are not trained in the style, it remains an iconic part of their culture. If your game uses such lore, consider how members of that culture will react to masters of the style, or those from outside the culture who have learned it.

  A century ago, the Shukah people defeated the white dragon Veeloc who had enslaved them, surprising him with martial arts they had disguised as their ceremonial dances to honor him. Now, Veeloc has returned as a ravener, hungering for their souls, rather than their supplication.

 Hidden away in enclaves in the Shadow Plane, the fetchlings live ever watchful for their velstrac tormentors. In preparation for being discovered, their martial arts styles are acrobatic and dance-like, making sure that any kayal that falls to velstrac corruption can be found out due to their masochistic tendencies showing in their style.

What started as a simple experiment to see what my current D&D character, Belphi, would be like if I’d made different class decisions has taken on a life of its own and become a character I now plan on playing in an upcoming campaign: Nefari Blackflame!