Beastmaster in the Making

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The church of Malar also includes lone priests unaffiliated with any particular hunt. These solitary women and men, known as Beastmasters, exhibit an amazing rapport bordering on telepathy with animals and other predators, and they are rumored to command fearsome powers resembling those of powerful druids. Beastmasters resemble savage beasts in disposition and lifestyle and exert control over most predators in large swaths of wilderness through the use of multiple, concurrent find companion spells. (Other clergy can only have one animal companion at a time.) Beastmasters only rarely call upon the aid of other Malarites in their territory, but when they do, few local Huntmasters defy their requests. There is a loose correlation between the geographic areas of influence of Beastmasters and circles of druids in the wild. Individual Beastmasters and their servitors contest in an endless cycle of violence with nearby druids.

Exiled

Rexxar was only 12 at the time of his father's death. His father, Jokdat Blackscream had failed in killing the clan chieftain during a skirmish with bugbears. As a result, the chieftain ordered him to be executed and his wife and son to be exiled.

The High Hunt

The cold man known as Dalor had been the Huntsmaster of the Malarite group that occupied part of the Northeastern High Forest for many years now, one of the longest periods of time that any of them had known. He had survived many challenges and defeated many potential Huntsmasters. Spring had come, and the High Hunt neared.

This time Dalor grew bored, it had always been customary for the prey of the High Hunts to be a human male. The past 3 times, it had simply been a farmer taken from a nearby village. Needless to say, they were all hunted down within a couple hours of the hunt beginning. They were not hunts worthy of Malar, Dalor needed something more to please Malar, a humanoid stronger who would give them a challenge during this hunt. Finding one would be harder said than done however, some humanoids did not make good prey for Hunts due to their nature. The prey had to be submissive once they were defeated.

And then, like a sign from Malar, a young orc came wandering through their part of the High Forest. The Malarites signalled to each other and they began to stalk it. The orc never stood a chance, it was struck at from all sides by Malarites. However they had specific instructions to use non-lethal force and only to capture the orc by the Huntsmaster, and disobeying this command would mean death. It wasn't long before the orc was back at camp in a cage. Despite its constant verbal barrage, the orc seemed to be in good physical condition and even better, the orc had been captured along with its possessions, a small bag containing tinder, flint and a large fur, in addition to clothing made out of fur and two axes, one bigger than the other.

Dalor was pleased. The orc was fed and watered, the prey had to be kept in good condition before the Hunt. The High Hunt would begin the next morning after the orc was captured. The cage would be taken deep in to the woods, dragged along by the animals of the forest controlled telepathically by the Huntsmaster before the cage would be opened by the animals at sunrise. The Malarites of the clergy then had until the next sunrise to capture the prey. The orc would be armed with only its mundane items it had been caught with, a small bag, two axes and its fur clothing.

The hunt was about to begin, the Malarites all stood at camp with their equipment, awaiting the Huntsmaster's signal to begin. The Huntsmaster let out a roar which signalled the hunt. No sooner had the roar ended, the Malarites began moving, like beasts through the forest, cold and relentless. Sniffing and checking their surroundings for signs of the orc.

Meanwhile, Rexxar had just been released, the previous night, one of the Malarite hunters, a half-orc explained the logistics of the Hunt to him in orcish. Although they spoke in different dialects of orc, Rexxar got the general gist of it and he began to run through the forest, axes in hands towards freedom. Even Rexxar knows that to get out of a forest, you simply have to run in one direction.

Rexxar's first test came when he came upon a running stream with no visible means across. He began to chop down a tree with his axes, he knew from experience that trees fell down the opposite way you cut them from. He didn't know why, but he knew that it did happen. The tree fell upon the river





\\ Will finish and polish up soon... just getting ideas down.