Ruined City Paladin (Class: BERSERKER-KNIGHT)

ariel perez

Step 1: Put on the armor.

Step 2: Never, ever take it off.

BERSERKER-KNIGHT
Start with: a weapon; a criminal record; a book of prayers, with notes in the margins; a full suit of consecrated armor, locked; no key.
+2 HP per Template
A - Castigation, Release, Order
B - Man-at-Arms, Pity, +1 Attack per turn
C - Burden
D - Make, Break

A: Castigation
As long as you're inside the armor, you don't need to eat or drink, and only take 1 damage per die from slashing weapons. It's noisy, and heavy.

The armor suppresses strong emotions and some memories; you get an additional save vs. fear.

The armor is locked, and you don't have the key. If you take it off, somehow, you can't put it back on until a priest consecrates it again.

A: Release
Outside of the armor, you are a monster. You have +1 Attack per turn, deal 1d6 damage with your nails and teeth, and cannot tell friend from foe.

You are also a criminal (again). If word spreads that you escaped the armor, a Great Power will call you home for a long, agonizing re-trial.

A: Order
You belong to a knightly order. Each has an armor perk and a set of oaths to follow.

1. Red - The armor can't be cleaned. Its scuffs and stains are a perfect record of every battle you've ever fought.
   
1. Defend the civilized world.
2. Teach the poor to fight and read.
   
3. Never harm a civilian.
   
2. Blue - The armor is opulent. It cannot be dirtied or scuffed. If you die in it, it will be beautiful.
   
1. Do not allow beautiful things to come to harm.
2. Oppose that which lurks in the Dark.
   
3. Respect your elders.
3. Grey - The armor is made of bones. They used to belong to someone important.
1. Give voices to the voiceless. 
2. Oppose tyrants where they are found.
   
3. Destroy the tomb. Spare the corpse.
   
4. Black - The armor is made of iron. It is magic-immune; you are not.
1. VENGEANCE. VENGEANCE.
2. SUFFER NOT THE MAGE.
3. BLOOD IS THICKER.
   
5. Purple - The armor disguises your voice, and is unnaturally, silky silent.
1. Speak the truth, if it is harmless.
   
2. Conceal the truth, if it is dangerous.
3. Seek the truth, no matter what.
   
6. Clear - The armor is translucent glass alloy, dotted with preserved flower petals (for modesty).
1. Oppose the Black Knights where they are found.
2. Never carry iron or its kin.
3. Spare the Witch.
7. Green - The armor is living wood alloy. It floats in water. You can play it like an instrument.
   
1. Take only what you need.
   
2. Preserve the Silent City.
3. Waste nothing.
   
8. Orange - The armor is resonant ceramic. It can interact with, and contain, ghosts.
1. Never reject a traveler.
2. Never turn down a meal.
3. Oppose those who would disturb the dead.
   
9. Gold - The armor is impossibly deformed. You and only you can squeeze into its numinous shape.
1. If you are insulted, return the favor.
2. If you are injured, return the favor.
   
3. Feel no fear.
   
10. Pale - The armor is air-tight and pressure-resistant, whenever it would be advantageous to you.
1. Always speak the truth.
2. Have no children.
   
3. Seek the End.

B: Man-at-Arms
People assume you have a good reason to be wherever you are, with whatever weapons you have.

B: Pity
You can project an aura of pity at will. If you are defeated by a fighting force, they will capture you but never kill you.

C: Burden
The armor no longer takes inventory slots--you barely register its weight.

You can wield weapons made for someone/something much bigger than you. When you do, you act last in initiative and deal d12 damage.

D: Make
You can consecrate the armor with an hour's work.

D: Break
You can destroy the armor. Maybe you shatter it with the exertion of a titanic sword-swing. Maybe you sigh, and it falls off of you in pieces.

Once you do this, you are immune to imprisonment, forever. You will never put the armor on again.

kekai kotaki

the orders rarely get along

[Heavily inspired by Skerples' Knight, Loch's Inhumed, and this Arnold post.]

I imagine this class existing in a setting alongside the Swordwife (Loch's Rotless) and the Eboshi, as a sort of fighter-y rock-paper-scissors: guns puncture armor, armor turns swords, swords are cooler than guns.