Thursday, January 17, 2019

Back to the Backpack: New C&C character classes

If you've read the character class descriptions in the C&C PHB, or the new Unearthed Backpack tome, you're already familiar with the tried and true Troll Lords format: 3-5 introductory paragraphs comprised of 0-4% informative background and 98-100%
stock words and phrases selected at random from a large purple bin marked "Descriptive Text" and tossed together into a jumble of pseudo sentences. Words like "windswept" and "maelstrom" and "primal" seem to come up regularly. I wonder if the Chenault brothers have a side gig as script writers for movie trailers.

So in light of the paucity of information in these descriptions, and in order to spare my readers the suffering of reading many paragraphs of disjointed blathering--irony alert--I've distilled the 14 or so new classes presented in the Adventurer's Arcana down into one sentence (or less) descriptos for your ease of consumption. Read on:
Arcane Thief: MU who can't cast their own spells.
Archer: 'nuff said.
Divine Knight: Paladin on steroids
Foresworn: Fallen paladin.
Ethereal knight: Planes-walking, game-busting fighter
Magic User: Just like a regular MU except they get d8 HD, can wear armor and use swords but can't cast spells.
Oathsworn: Paladins who don't have to be lawful good.
Pacer: Master of Parkour
Primal Druid: Like regular druids but harder to track.
Rune Mark: More of a campaign setting than a character class.
Seeker: As a jack of no trades, the Seeker seeks a purpose.
Skald: Barbarians with wicked awesome tattoos.
Thief: see Archer, above.
Warrior Priest: Cleric.

Now for the quiz. Below you will see the first sentence of the character class descriptions from the book. Based on the information above, can you guess which class Monsieur Chenault was trying to describe? 
  1. "The world is a harsh mistress governed not by the machinations of nations and tribes but, rather, the laws of nature."
  2. "Amidst the wreck and ruin of sword and axe, of battlefields carpeted with iron helms shields and mail, there are those who set themselves apart."
  3. "The gods oft have their own designs upon the world."
  4. "Service to the gods and their priests yields many fruits from the comfort of security to the suffering of labor unrewarded."
  5. "Beyond the physical world lie a host of other worlds; dimensions that defy the imagination, realms where gods dwell, planes of chaos and law, of evil and good, where the intangible holds dominion."
  6. "Where magic lingers in the fabric of a world, where it is woven into the curtain of life, where the language of it creates all things, in such worlds magic is governed by laws known only by a few."
  7. "There are moments in every one's lives that shape them into what and who they are but for some those moments are such that they define them."
  8. "The [bleep] may be a wonderful asset or a terrible adversary."
  9. "Beyond the hearth, beyond the home, beyond the wall, lies a wilderness both brutal and unforgiving."
  10. "In the crumbled ruins of ancient cities, tombs and crypts where dead kings lie, in halls of libraries upon tablets of stone and vellum scrolls, echo the secrets of a language spoken only by gods."
  11. "In the maelstrom of the world's chaos, events often take on a life of their own, pulling all with them, devouring the weak and leaving the strong bereft of direction."
  12. "Adjacent to the world of men lies and enchanted realm of wild abandon."
  13. "In the sprawling towns and cities, vast urban complexes rife with villainous malcontents, there are those who refuse to follow the law."
  14. "The [bleep] does not choose any one deity to serve, but rather serves a pantheon and the culture it espouses." 









Answers: In case you haven't figured out the pattern here, I didn't bother randomizing the descriptions; they're written out in the same order as the the list above. Which is to say warrior priest is 14, arcane thief is 1, runemark is 10, and so forth.