Darklands Sailor (Ranger Archetype)
There are a lot of things that we take for granted when it comes to sailing, perhaps the most notable is sight. Without sight, it becomes very difficult to read the environmental clues around you and navigate, especially at the swift speeds that boats and ships tend to travel at.
So imagine trying to maneuver a vessel while unable to see past a certain point, and with no sky above to guide you. That is the difficulty of trying to sail underground seas in a hollow earth scenario like we see with Pathfinder’s Darklands and D&D’s Underdark.
As such, several cultures that dwell alongside such massive oceans must, by necessity, learn alternate methods of navigation and watch-keeping, training not only their eyes, but also their ears and sense of equilibrium to better navigate in the dark.
These requirements are pretty much universal to any civilization living belowground, so this archetype could hardly be tied to only one ancestry. That being said, environment that breeds this skillset is so specific you’re not likely to see these darklands sailors outside of said environment either.
With keen ears and other senses, these sailors ply the sunless depths, gaining a keen sense that lets them avoid obstacles, monsters, and hazards when swimming or sailing, which only improves over time.
The waters beneath the earth are full of terrors, so being athletic and swift in the water is a must.
Directing their allies, these sailors can keep them silent to also listen out as they do, signalling them to supplement their untrained ears.
Their knowledge on how to read the water and detect that which is hidden also gives them a keen understanding of how to hide themselves as well.
Interested in a darklands campaign that takes place at least in part with an underground sea? This archetype might just be what you’re looking for, and it doesn’t even force any sort of build, combat-wise. Of course, it’s one of those specialized archetypes that is unlikely to ever see play outside of that specific campaign backdrop.
Drow corsairs, munavri sailors, or even duergar buccaneers, regardless of species, I imagine that despite the darkness and lack of wind, these sailors have many things in common with their surface counterparts, perhaps including the same sort of superstitious caution. After all, the mysteries of the deep are frightening enough when you actually have light for the first few miles, to say nothing of when there is no light at all.
On the hunt of a dangerous assassin, the party must track them across the Sea of Night, which means hiring a boatman skilled in reading the black waters, one that can be trusted not to lead them into an ambush with pirates.
One must be wary when meeting duergar ships on the ocean below. Some may be pirates, just as any ship might, but the worst ones are slaver ships that may decide that your crew is a good source of new stock, and by duergar law, they cannot be punished for this.
Something is stalking the ship the party has booked passage on, something that the captain clearly knows about, but refuses to acknowledge. In truth, the ship has a cargo of stolen froghemoth eggs, and the mother of that brood is not happy about it.
