#grimple

it's from the latino anarchist punk scene in southwest united states in the early 90s. it exists in the context of federal and state anti-immigrant policies

Grimple

Hi I’m toxic yaoi and your watching Disney Channel

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If I'm wont to do anything, it's spoil my players.

 Some classes that have built-in customization options or archetypes have a sort of anti-option, the universalist wizard choosing not to specialize, the heretic inquisitor, and so on. Today we’ll be looking a bit at an option for both cavalier and samurai that defies the notion of an order, choosing to forge their own path.

Like many options, however, it’s a bit more complicated than that when we take the cultural significance into play.

For a cavalier, being a knight errant means being a wandering knight, someone who eschews courtly intrigue or pre-proscribed chivalrous ideals for finding adventure and forming their own beliefs about what chivalry is and where their place in the world is. They might seem irresponsible or be suspected of being vagabonds that just happen to wear armor, but generally they are afforded as much respect as their actions merit. Theirs is a tale of leaving behind their world to explore, though actual real-world knight-errants were likely few and far between, as many were landed nobles who had to manage their territory and defend it from greedy neighbors.

Ronin, however, are a very different beast, because of how very differently honor is viewed in regards to samurai compared to knights. Samurai were less nobility, and more skilled warriors serving under said nobility, ready to defend them with their lives and defeat their enemies.

Modern fiction romanticizes the ronin as the noble loner that comes to the aid of others despite the prejudice against them, but in the real world, ronin was one of the worst things you could end up being in terms of cultural hierarchy. Since Samurai honor revolves a lot on how one’s death serves one’s master, a masterless samurai, either by way of surviving their lord’s death, failing to die in their stead, and other such things was considered to be on par with a stray dog or other undesirable hanger-on of society. Most of this bigotry was enforced by the caste system at the time, with servants of feudal lords treating them as mongrels, and spreading the idea of their lack of honor.

Perhaps now all those times you’ve seen a ronin character who is otherwise good and kind take on a hard edge when dealing with matters of payment for their services make sense now, as many prospective employers might decide to not pay. They were, however, able to find work as mercenary guards or hired muscle.

Regardless to what degree this is true in your setting, both classes with this lack of an order are used to surviving on their own without support, so their abilities focus on self-sufficiency. Furthermore, in order to gain some structure to their lives, these figures take personal tenets for their own individual code of honor, their beliefs forming their own order, rather than the expectations of others.

 Whether they are wandering warriors seeking honor and adventure in facing off against others, or vagabonds all to familiar with fending off those who see them as an enemy or vermin, the real strength of their challenge comes from when they themselves are challenged first, driving them to be more accurate and more agile when facing off against such foes.

Knowing they can rarely trust others to come to their aid, they also have the tenacity to fight back against mental control, as well as stay alive when knocked unconscious.

With no master or others to fall back on for guidance, these warriors act with surprising surety, able to summon for their will to keep standing despite their injuries, strike true, or act under pressure.

This will also makes it harder to put them under controlling effects in the first place, and they can summon absolute clarity at a key moment to succeed perfectly at a task.

In the hands of a cavalier, this “order” makes for a durable and self-reliant character, though they perhaps lack the support options of other orders. For a samurai, however, this order can make them a complete juggernaut, granting rerolls and recovery from effects beyond what their resolve ability offers. Allies will rarely have to worry about a character with this order being taken out of a fight, which puts a little less pressure on the support characters. I’d recommend building knight errants for mounted combat, since you’ll be less likely to be supporting allies, (though you could still build for that too), while the ronin should probably be built like a tank, with defensive feats in mind.

 The exact reason why these figures wander varies from person to person, not just by which class you are using this order with. A samurai might have been disowned by their lord, rather than not died to restore their honor, or have made the difficult decision to decide their lord was not worthy of their devotion. Meanwhile, a knight errant might be on their quest for a number of reasons beyond seeking adventure. They might be exiles in their own right, or have been dishonorably kicked out of a previous order. They might even be ex-nobles who have lost everything beyond the swords on their hips and the armor on their backs.

  Though raised as a knight by her father, Oriva never felt like she fit in as a half-elf among humans, though she took to the calling of mounted combat and chivalry easily enough. As such, she left home to try and find herself, becoming a knight errant.

 A gremlin infestation has overtaken the village, led by a cruel grimple called Toe-taker. The elder hesitates to hire the adventurers to take care of the problem, though, for they travel with a ronin, whom they see as just as bad as the wicked fey.

 In a land of gunpowder and poisonous, tainted magic, it would only make sense that there would be those who combine the two together, ensuring kills by tainting their already lethal firearms with poison.

Such is the case in Alkenstar and the Mana Wastes, but the original creators of such a technique are anything but friendly. Followers of the daemonic harbinger Cixyron, minor demigod of gunpowder, poisonous metal, and electricity often become these so-called “toxic snipers”, stealing firearms and complementing them with poison in honor of their vile god.

However, even in the Golarion setting, they are not the only ones who could do this, whether they be other residents of the wastes that stole the technique, or even former members of the cult that left, these techniques are useful to those who prefer to kill from a distance.

 Unlike other slayers, these are proficient with, and possess a firearm of some kind, as well as the skill to maintain it and make their own ammunition. They even gain some mastery of a gunslinger’s grit and deeds.

While they do study their targets, this only benefits them for their ranged attacks, thanks to their focus on such training.

With a slapdash innovation, these snipers have learned how to poison firearm bullets that are not specifically made to absorb poison, though they can only do so a few times a day. Such special shots do penetrate deep, however, delivering the poison to the most vulnerable points of their anatomy.

True to their name, they are also hard to notice and maintain lethality at a range, hiding and firing again.

They can also use the knowledge of anatomy to deliver shots that accelerate the spread of their poisons, rather than cause direct internal damage.

Combining range and injury poison together is fun, so this archetype might appeal to some. However, it is important to remember that this archetype takes away all of your slayer talents, limiting your character customization to your feats, so you’ll likely be going whole-hog into the archetype’s gimmick.

 More so than most slayer or rogue characters, this archetype really brings to home the idea of combat without honor. This doesn’t necessarily mean that such characters are evil, they just don’t acknowledge the value of honor, seeing combat as merely the act of fighting for survival. So they use everything: cutting edge weapons, poison, the element of stealth, no advantage is beneath them. This may cause them to clash with more high-minded characters, though.

  Escorting a carriage seems like grunt work, but the cargo in question is more valuable than the party realizes. Others have taken notice, however, including a team of deadly marksmen armed with guns and poison.

 Entering the dungeon, the party is not expecting there to be a war within. Their prey, a group of deadly assassins with guns, is currently vying for control with the grindylow population that lives in the flooded portion. Normally the assassins would have the advantage, but their firearms are useless when trying to flush them out.