#soulknife

Meet Slátra, my new traumatized D&D character. Slátra is a rito (tengu) warlock/soulknife for a game set in Tamriel/Hyrule.

They are, so far as they are aware, the last survivor of the cyrodillic birdfolk/rito people, who were colonized and then genocided by Topal the Pilot and his crew, who discovered their islands.

As Slátra lay dying, their wings clipped, burnt and broken, they spat a prayer for vengeance to any being who would listen, and were answered by Nocturnal and Crow Mother. The daedra sealed a pact with Slåtra, taking their ruined wings and replacing them with arms made of ebonwood from the Crow Woods, and the power to take their vengeance on men and mer for the slaughter of their people. The pact was sealed with a psionically intelligent crystal that would convey their thoughts to others, so that Slátra need never again foul their tongue with the words that were pushed into their people. This crystal would later be bound to the form of a large raven and become a true companion to them.

The concept for Slátra came from realizing a 5e style kenku (as they can only speak by mimicking what they’ve heard) could be the basis for a very Link-like character. I wanted to develop this idea a bit more and took to TV Tropes, which reminded me that Doom Slayer is likewise an unspeaking character, which got me thinking about a sort of yokai take on Doom Slayer, who rather than hunting demons, hunts humans who have despoiled the wild lands. Certainly, I could take any number of directions on the build for this concept, but I love warlocks and soulknives, and this campaign is using 3.x, with the houserule that you can gestalt* two weaker classes for your character, and I’ve wanted to do a gestalt warlock/soulknife for a long time. The idea of a warrior who can conjure a blade of energy and for off eldritch blasts, deadly even when you’re sure they have no weapons on them, is just really cool to me.

*gestalt was a variant rule from 3.x where basically you leveled up in two classes simultaneously each level, taking the better stats of each, and all the class features of each.