The sounds of the yipping, reminded him a lot of the Hyena's he had seen in documentaries on tv, Which made sense since gnolls from what he vaguely remembered were bipedal hyena antromorphs, in dnd and the Bestiaries he had read in the town's sparse library had confirmed this.
Marlin Directed Billy into a Direct confrontation. Marlin felt no need to try and sneak, first of all this was the hometurf of gnolls if he could hear them, they must have been aware of him. Their sense of smell the same as dogs, and the direction of the yipping was downwind.
Walking through the Shrubbery, head held high as a dark Lord on his trusty steed, Billy needed no encouragement to do the same.
They walked straight into a group of 4 demi gnolls.
Tyrant speech Threatening display: "Hello there~". Marlin put on an air of superiority, He felt the darkness with him stir and bubble to the front of his mind. His intimidation was automatically fueled by his Dominination. He knew why, these creatures responded to strength, a Dark strength especially.
Imagine Marlin's surprise when the largest of the 4 a burly bulky but still midget Gnoll spoke back in fluent Tyrant speech. "greeting's illustrious one, it is a plllleeasure to meet one of the prophesized one of the great and terrible Sssssadanisss!".
"Daaaaamn talk about stroking the ego, it feels Good~ tobe talked to like that, with such respect",
Marlin thought. he smiled darkly, playing into the fantasy these gnolls might have of him.
Tyrant speech Strength display "You would do well to serve me then"! Marlin boasted, puffing up his chest.
The lead Gnoll hackled, it sounded like a laugh, Marlin couldn’t really tell, he spoke.
Mocking tyrant speech“Why would i a dark lord lissen to the likes of you? Someone who has not embraced their Destiny? His fate”
Marlin let out a mocking laughter. And responded. “Because im stronger then you! I don’t need to embrace fate if im going to make it my little bitch”!
“Well said my lord”, and billy himself and to marlins second surprise today. Billy responded in perfect tyrant speech “Bow to your superior Master”!
The three other gnolls did so and the lead Gnol snarled “i challenge you to a duel to the death lets see how well you fight a true lord”!
Marlin was on the gnoll within an instant, he had seen where this was going the moment the bastard called himself a dark lord.
He didn’t know what disciplines this creature might have but he knew of a few problematic ones that he didn’t care to find out about.
Marlin roared:
frighten “you will die”! Fail.
the gnoll smirked baring his teeth and managed to get out of the axe swing and follow up shield strike. He attacked Marlin recklessly. 2 landed on his shield a second one, that Marlin couldn’t dodge he took willingly, leaning into the blow with psychotic laughter, The gnoll struck him on the head, Marlin felt blood drip down but all in all, the hit hadn’t hurt as much as his last blow to the head.
10 damage
He channeled all his masochist glee into his next: “Pathetic”! Frighten success, I can take it, took full effect
The gnoll flinched, took a few paces back but Marlin was on him in a heartbeat and struck twice again, this time the shield strike guided by his precision technique, landed into the Gnoll’s throat he pumped his the fury that had been gathering in core into the blow to make it that much faster. It pierced The gnoll’s throat as he slammed the shield down with the Gnoll into the ground, Decapitating the Gnoll.
Pling!
For showing your strength and will to dominate by slaying another lord for the first time and simultaneously gaining 3 minions in the process you gain 231 personal XP in total for the superb use of your head and shield.
The three little gnoll’s bowed their heads and spoke in terrible Tyrant speech.
“bestow… namme”
”Alright from left to right, Gary, Jerry and Barry”
New minions gained!
you have gained 3 new minions
gary demi Gnoll Role minion Class Finder Attributes 10, 14, 8, 6, 6, 6 HP 8 Discipline Hunters Mark Skill set Stealth Survival Weapon of Choice Small bow
Jerry Gnoll Role Minion Class Stabber Attributes 10, 14, 8, 6, 6, 6 HP 8 Discipline Precision Skills Stealth Blades Weapon of choice Daggers
Barry gnoll Role Minion Class Big stabber Attributes 10, 14, 8, 6,6,6 HP 8 Discipline Weapon mastery Skills Stealth Pole arms Weapon of choice Short spear
Marlin looked his 3 newest recruits over, he had gained a ‘hunter, assassin and weapon master’ he was happy overal. Exhilarated he had gained a limited version of each role.
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Minions as a rule Billy included had limited things they could do with their skill sets. Where he had a wide variety of proficiency within a skill set. For example his axe skill set, gave him proficiency with a wide variety of versions of various shapes, sizes. anything with a a sharp weighted edge at the end of something he could swing and that could he argued was an axe, he used it as an axe.
In the case of Barry for example the weapon master his pole arm skill only gave him proficiency with longs sticks and spears.
Barry had the discipline all weapon masters started out with. Further augmenting Barry’s capabilities with his weapons.
Weapon mastery
Choose 1 weapon set. you become an expert with weapons that fall under this set. As long as you are wielding a weapon that you have chosen to master: you will gain the following benefits.
You may use your weapon skill set instead of agility or the bulwark skillset, when using the defend action.
You can still attain expert or mastery training with other weapon skill sets but those will not gain the benefits of this discipline.
yea that was just as good as his Heart of fury, in a vacuum just Marlin having a little spar with the overeager Gnoll made it clear Barry was just a bit better with a spear then Marlin was with an axe
Barry was, good, like really good it was a bit of a geek moment for Marlin to see the discipline weapon mastery in action.
To see the weaving of offense and defense with a weapon made it abundantly clear as to why so many groups preferred the weapon master. A weapon master was good right out of the box vs his warrior that needed a moment to get going. He was only observing a gnoll using it. Who had piss poor attributes.
He could imagine how a high dexterity weapon master, would be an absolute nightmare to deal with. Hell Betty would make a decent one if he really thought about it.
Of course the moment Marlin used his heart of fury, rage and everything else he could overpower Barry no problem including the fact that 8 constitution made them tire out quickly. All in all, it gave him a good idea of what he would be potentially up against with a real weapon master.
”huh ive never seen my dad’s stuff”, he suddenly realized. “He probably has a whole shitload of bullshit that would make me green with envy”, he muttered.
Jerry liked to stab, he straight up refused to fight. constantly trying to hide and sneak around to get the jump on Marlin.
Deep Precision
you slip your weapon through someone’s defense more easily, when you flank an opponent you gain all the time in the world to make it hurt
To see it in action was weird, they had hunted a deer and Marlin instructed Jerry to make full use of precision, it was basically an innate knowledge of how to strike not so much where. Jerry was absolutely vicious with a dagger. Once he sprung onto the deer’s back he slammed his dagger down, twisting, ripping and doing whatever he needed to do, to inflict pain and suffering, within seconds he was covered in blood expecting praise for a job well done.
Gary was basically a full fledged tracker. That was his entire stick.
Hunters mark left a temporary trace of energy on someone or something.
hunters mark
Action: flourish.
You mark 1 enemy,
whenever you beat their AC with an attack, you gain a flourish energy.
An enemy is marked for 1 hour
if the enemy escapes you gain advantage to all attempts to track your quarry down. You can refresh the mark at any time as long as you are within reasonable distance.
it made it very easy to track down a deer Marlin had him test it on
When Gary used it, Marlin felt the energy drain, turns out not a single minion had either of the 3 energy types, Fury, flourish and focus.
at first he thought this was bullshit until Gary started hitting the deer with arrows. And Marlin felt an influx of the energy return.
Marlin was dumbfounded, for marlin to properly use precision or staggering techniques, he needed to “flourish” them.
Atm he could burst 2 techniques and then had to wait 6 seconds during combat for him to have the capacity to do it again. This had proven to be quite annoying when his lower then average strength kept failing him. He couldn’t help but notice that without precision strike, he wasn’t really hitting anything.
With Hunters mark active, Gary, could theoretically generate 1 flourish charge every 2 seconds and this was in addition to Marlins own natural regeneration.
Yea Marlin had some thinking to do.
Well not really, it was clear, he had to become the tank, he needed to use one of his precious discipline slots to gain expert level with intimidation so he could mock and taunt more effectively, to keep the pressure of his group.
As a warrior, no matter what he did his heart of fury would only allow expert level with 3 skill sets, unlike fighters, wizards or rogue’s who could have up to 9.
and one of his Expert slots had already been taken by perception.
It was all good for Marlin. His brief uses of tyrant speech and talking down, mocking and frightening his enemies had started feeling better and better. Their fear always tasted sweet.
After all the testing him and his gnolls skinned all the deer corpses, they started their way back to town. it was time for some quality time with Milly he had been gone for the greater part of the day.
He couldn’t help but think he was forgetting something.