Goliath Barbarian
Character Sheet
Barbarian 3 (Path of the Wild Heart) · Goliath · Guard · Alignment TBC
STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA 16 12 15 8 10 13 +3 +1 +2 −1 +0 +1
AC Initiative Speed HP Hit Dice Proficiency Passive Perc. 13 +3 35 ft 32 3d12 +2 12 Saving Throws
- ● Strength +5
- ○ Dexterity +1
- ● Constitution +4
- ○ Intelligence −1
- ○ Wisdom +0
- ○ Charisma +1
Skills
- ○ Acrobatics +1
- ● Animal Handling +2
- ○ Arcana −1
- ● Athletics +5
- ○ Deception +1
- ○ History −1
- ○ Insight +0
- ● Intimidation +3
- ○ Investigation −1
- ○ Medicine +0
- ○ Nature −1
- ● Perception +2
- ○ Performance +1
- ● Persuasion +3
- ○ Religion −1
- ○ Sleight of Hand +1
- ○ Stealth +1
- ○ Survival +0
Attacks
Weapon Hit Damage Range Greataxe +5 1d12 + 3 slashing 5 ft Light Crossbow +3 1d8 + 1 piercing 80 (320) ft Unarmed Strike +5 4 bludgeoning 5 ft Features & Traits
- Rage: as a bonus action, enter a Rage if not wearing heavy armour. 3 uses per long rest; regain one on a short rest.
- Unarmored Defense: while not wearing armour, base AC equals 13 + any shield bonus.
- Weapon Mastery: Greataxe (Cleave), Greatsword (Graze).
- Danger Sense: advantage on Dexterity saving throws unless Incapacitated.
- Reckless Attack: on the first attack roll of your turn, gain advantage on Strength attack rolls until your next turn; attacks against you also have advantage.
- Primal Knowledge: proficiency in Animal Handling. While raging, Acrobatics, Intimidation, Perception, Stealth and Survival checks can be made as Strength checks.
- Animal Speaker: cast Beast Sense and Speak with Animals as rituals only, using Wisdom.
- Rage of the Wilds: when you activate Rage, gain one primal option of your choice (choice TBC).
- Stone’s Endurance (Giant Ancestry): when you take damage, use your reaction to roll 1d12 + 2 and reduce the damage by that total. 2 uses per long rest.
- Powerful Build: advantage on checks to end the Grappled condition; count as one size larger for carrying capacity.
- Alert (feat, from Guard): add proficiency bonus to initiative rolls.
Proficiencies & Languages
- Armour: light armour, medium armour, shields
- Weapons: simple and martial weapons
- Tools: playing card set
- Languages: Common, Elvish, Giant
Equipment Greataxe, light crossbow, bolts (20), handaxes (4), spear, hooded lantern, manacles, Three-Dragon Ante set, traveler’s clothes, backpack, bedroll, oil (2), rations (10), rope, tinderbox, torches (10), waterskin, 27 gp.
Personality
- Traits: TBC
- Ideals: TBC
- Bonds: TBC
- Flaws: TBC
Background
To be added.
Session 1 - Into the Mists
Retnuh was among the five travellers in Garlan Shepard’s wagon when the fog rolled in. He sat up on the driver’s box beside Garlan and was the first to notice the old man looked unwell, four days of cold rain having left him fevered. When Garlan collapsed and the wagon fell apart, Retnuh fled with the rest of the party down the Old Svalich Road.
He was present at the The Gallows Oak inn and at the Vistani camp, where Madam Eva read the party’s fortune.
Session 2 - A Sad Village of Few Souls
In the The Blood of the Vine tavern, Retnuh found himself talking more and more with Sorvia as the night wore on, something easy and mutual sparking between them. When she offered to show him her room upstairs, the two retired together.
Lying upstairs afterward, Sorvia let slip that Alenka had seen Arabelle and Krogarov recently in town, with a wagon and two heavy sacks. Their conversation was cut short when a vision of spectral blue light appeared in the street below. Retnuh rushed out to find spirits in the form of knights, adventurers, sorcerers, and townsfolk marching in a loose, silent formation through the fog. He planted himself in their path to stop them. Several passed straight through him. He followed.
Session 3 - Spawn
Retnuh followed the ghostly procession out of the village and onto the road through the rain, until it passed straight through a black lacquered wagon standing driverless at the roadside. Harnessed to it was an ash grey horse with a smouldering coat and burning orange eyes. He fed her a handful of nuts, which roasted lightly in his palm as she ate.
A voice behind him admired the horse, and the two talked for a long while without Retnuh ever turning around. The stranger, tall and pale in fine, old-fashioned clothes, told him of the curse on the land and of the mists that unravel a person’s memory. Retnuh found he was already struggling to recall much of his life before Barovia. The stranger invited him to dine at Castle Ravenloft to see what could be recovered, promised to have his people watch for Arabelle and Krogarov, and let him ride the horse, Buccephalus, for as long as she chooses to stay. In return, he asked Retnuh to bring Ireena Kolyana to the castle. Retnuh agreed, once Arabelle is found. The stranger was Strahd von Zarovich.
Retnuh rode Buccephalus back into the village and found the rest of the party at the centre of town, grinning as he explained where the horse had come from. The mood soured at Strahd’s name. When Virro called the horse a spy, Retnuh insisted, “She is not a spy. She is a good horse.” Virro slapped her flank to drive her off and was kicked unconscious for it, and Retnuh muttered that he deserved it.
He urged the party to come with him to Castle Ravenloft, saying Strahd could help them with the curse and the mists. Ireena refused.
At the church, Retnuh made his way to the chapel, where he found Father Donavich kneeling at a claw-scarred altar, droning prayers to the Morninglord, his forearms covered in teeth marks. Before Retnuh could get a word out, a voice rose up from beneath the floor: “Father! I’m starving!” It was Donavich’s son, Doru. The party went down into the undercroft to confront him.
When Doru lunged, Retnuh was the first to act, charging in and striking him. He was bitten before Edric and Virro threw the vampire off him. At the height of the fight, as Doru clawed into Virro from the ceiling, Retnuh’s axe found purchase in Doru’s side, and at that moment the floor collapsed and the church came down on top of them.
Session 4 - Horsemen
Virro dug Retnuh out of the rubble of the collapsed church. When Virro picked up Doru’s trail, Retnuh and Ignacious rode after him, passing the funeral procession on the way, where Retnuh held out a fist to Sorvia and she bumped it with a wry smile. They found Doru in a ditch just outside town. Retnuh cut a branch from a dead tree and pared it into a stake while Ignacious talked, and when Ignacious pinned the vampire down, Retnuh drove the stake into his heart. Doru crumbled to white ash.
On the road between two halves of an old graveyard, the party found Red beside the mauled body of Stanford. Retnuh studied the dragging hoofprints and the smear of gore leading to the treeline, and suggested to Red that one of them might be bait. Moments later, zombies began to rise, and Retnuh fought them back with the others.
At Morgantha’s windmill, Retnuh scratched Tatters, a scarecrow shaped like a horse, which leaned into his hand. When Morgantha admitted she wouldn’t share where Arabelle was unless Edric agreed to help her, Retnuh refused to go in: “Then I’ll stay outside. I don’t want anything to do with you.”
Session 5 - All will be well
Outside the old mill, Ireena asked whether he would really have given her to Strahd. He admitted he might have, “but there’s no end date on the agreement,” so they could wait until she was ready. Trying to describe the ocean to someone who had never left the valley, he realised he might lose the memory as easily as everything else. The party camped below the hill rather than stay near the mill, at his insistence.
On the road to Vallaki, the party came upon two knights fighting. Retnuh decided first: he charged Dmitry, the smiling knight, and knocked him to the ground, and Ernest Festibule beheaded him. Festibule found Retnuh’s honesty about his accord with Strahd disarming, but his parting warning, that his lord Vladimir Horngaard brooks no ally of Strahd, was delivered looking straight at Retnuh. Retnuh made Virro swear to return Dmitry’s sword to that spot when he was done with it.
In Vallaki, kneeling to feed the Baron’s basset hounds, Retnuh smelled sulphur and old smoke on their breath, the same reek he knew from Buccephalus: they were hellhounds. Volenta Popofsky kissed him in a side alley, catching him completely off guard, and they shared an awkward fist-bump. At the Blue Water Inn, Urwin Martikov offered free room and board if the party finds out why the wine shipments have stopped. When Karl Wachter belched in his ear, Retnuh punched him between the legs, Volenta finished the job with a wine bottle and a kick, and the bar erupted.