Ranger

The wastes of Athas are home to fierce and cunning creatures, from the bloodthirsty tembo to the malicious gaj. Because of that, Athasians have long learned how to adapt and survive even in the most inhospitable and savage environments.

One of the most cunning and powerful creatures of the wastes is the ranger, a skilled hunter and stalker. He knows his lands as if they were his home (as indeed they are); he knows his prey in deadly detail.

Making a Ranger
Rangers are capable in combat, although less so in open melee than the fighter, gladiator, or barbarian. His skills allow him to survive in the wilderness, to find his prey and to avoid detection. The ranger has the ability to gain special knowledge of certain types of creatures or lands. Knowledge of his enemies makes him more capable of finding and defeating those foes. Knowledge of terrain types or of specific favored lands makes it easier for him to live off the land, and makes it easier for him to take advantage of less knowledgeable foes. Rangers eventually learn to use the lesser spirits that inhabit Athas in order to produce spell‐like effects. These lesser spirits inhabit small features of the land – rocks, trees, cacti and the like. These spirits are relatively powerless, and cannot manifest themselves. Their awareness is low, and their instincts are of the most primitive sort. The relationship between these lesser spirits and the creatures known as Spirits of the Land is unknown.

Races: As the race that carries the most fear and hatred of other races, and as the people with the richest land to protect, Halflings become rangers more commonly than any other race except for half‐elves. Halflings are at home in their terrain (typically Forest Ridge or the Jagged Cliffs) and the ranger class teaches them the grace to move without detection, often to deadly effect. Their practice of cannibalism to emphasize their superiority over other sentient beings puts the ranger’s tracking abilities to deadly use. Halfling rangers tend to take favored lands primarily, followed by favored enemy benefits. In the Forest Ridge, halfling rangers tend to pick pterrans and other neighboring races as favored enemies; rangers of the Jagged Cliffs tend to focus on bvanen, and kreen.

Elves frequently become rangers, serving as scouts and hunters for their tribes, but elves are not as naturally drawn to the wilderness as they are to magic. Half‐elves are the race most compellingly drawn to the ranger class, since their isolation and natural gift with animals gives them a head start above rangers of other races. Half‐Elven rangers sometimes seek to impress their Elven cousins with their desert skills, and when they are rejected, the wilderness often becomes the half‐elf’s only solace. A few half‐elves turn to bitter hatred of the parent races that rejected them, and become merciless slave– hunters.

Although ranger skills do not come to naturally humans, their famous adaptability wins out in the end, and many humans make fine rangers. A few muls take up the ranger class while surviving in the wilderness after escaping slavery. Dwarves who become rangers find that their focus ability combines powerfully with the abilities of favored enemy and favored lands, but such characters rarely become adventurers since they tend to master wilderness skills in order to guard Dwarven communities. Pterran rangers are common since rangers get along so well with the druidic and psionic leaders of the pterran villages. Aarakocra are similarly drawn to the ranger class to protect their villages from predators and enemies. Rangers are not unusual among the most hated humanoid races of Athas, such as gith, belgoi, and braxat. Among the various and dwindling communities of the wastes, rangers are the most common character class.

Alignment: Rangers can be of any alignment, although they tend not to be lawful, preferring nature to civilization, silence to casual conversation, and ambush to meeting a foe boldly on the battlefield. Good rangers often serve as protectors of a village or of a wild area. In this capacity, rangers try to exterminate or drive off evil creatures that threaten the rangers’ lands. Good rangers sometimes protect those who travel through the wilderness, serving sometimes as paid guides, but sometimes as unseen guardians. Neutral rangers tend to be wanderers and mercenaries, rarely tying themselves down to favored lands. The tracking and animal skills of rangers are well known in the World; virtually every trade caravan has at least one ranger scout or mekillot handler. Sometimes they stalk the land for vengeance, either for themselves or for an employer. Generally only evil rangers ply their skills in the slave trade. Other evil rangers seek to emulate nature’s most fearsome predators, and take pride and pleasure in the terror that strangers take in their names.

Class Features
The Athasian Ranger as the following class features:

Class Skills
Remove Swim (Str) from the Ranger's class skills.

Favored Enemy (Ex)
An Athasian ranger may selects his favored enemy creature types from the following table:

Favored Terrain (Ex)
An Athasian ranger may select a favored type of terrain from the following table: For more information on these terrains, see Athasian Environment

Hunter's Bond (Ex)
If a ranger chooses to form a hunter's bond with an animal companion, he must choose from the Athasian Animal Companions.

Spells
An Athasian ranger adds these spells to his spell list, in addition to those found in the Core Rulebook.

Desert Native (Ex)
At 7th level, an Athasian ranger gains a bonus on Initiative checks and Knowledge (geography), Perception, Stealth, and Survival checks equal to 1/2 his ranger level in desert terrain, and he cannot be tracked in such environments.

This ability replaces woodland stride.

Playing a Ranger
As a ranger, you nurture a close, almost mystical connection to the deadly terrain of Athas. To you, the burnt landscape is not a friend, but a well‐respected adversary. Danger is always present, yet you understand it and even find a certain succor in living alongside it.

Religion
Many rangers pay homage to the elements, but a greater number honor the moons and the stars that guide them in the night – even though these celestial bodies do not have priests. In several city‐states, particularly Gulg, Kurn, and Eldaarich, many rangers owe fealty to the sorcerer‐kings – virtually the entire noble caste of Gulg is comprised of rangers called judaga. Some rangers pay patronage to the Spirits of the Land, although these spirits do not bestow spells on rangers except those that multi– class as druid.

Other Classes
Rangers are slow to make friends with anyone, but have a particular affinity to druids, and to a lesser extent, barbarians and psions. Rangers tend not to lean on others for support and friendship, and often find it difficult to tolerate others who are quite different from themselves, such as talkative traders or controlling templars. Good rangers might simply try to avoid sharing a watch with a character that annoys them; neutral rangers tend to abandon annoying companions or just let them die; while evil rangers act friendly to the annoying companion and then slit their throat in their sleep.

Good rangers tend to hate defilers, although many rangers are ignorant of the distinction between preserving and defiling and hate wizards of all stripes. Strangely, many rangers have little objection to taking a companion who is of a favored enemy race, so long as that they are convinced that the companion is trustworthy and loyal.

Combat
Although you are a formidable warrior, you usually prefer not to stand against the sheer might of Athas’ fighter, barbarians and gladiators. Your greatest ally is the environment itself. While in you favored terrain, you have a clear advantage over your adversaries. Try choosing favored enemies that are more common in your favored terrain.

As you advance, you are well served to invest in spells that have an effect other than dealing damage. If you can’t drop a foe in one or two attacks, you can use entangle, snare, sting of the gold scorpion, or the like to make your opponents less dangerous in a prolonged fight.

Advancement
Perhaps the most dangerous place in Athas is inside a city‐state: an environment rife with political intrigue, diseases, and assassination. To escape these noxious environs, you sought refuge in the wild where even the foulest elements of a society fear to tread. By gaining an intimate knowledge of this hazardous realm, you buy some breathing room and security from the urban madness.

As your ranger abilities increase, you find the Athasian wilderness a more and more inviting place (if a place with such constant peril can be called inviting). You can use your skills to establish safe havens for yourself or to gain employment opportunities―perhaps guiding a group of recently caught slaves through the Tyr valley or some noble into distant dangerous, location. You can also find that continuing to advance as a ranger or barbarian augments your already impressive abilities in the Athasian lands.

Continue to focus on skills such as Hive, Move Silently, and Survival. Spend discovered treasure on poison, magic weapons, and protective magic. The Mobility feat is good to consider, as is Nature’s Child or Wastelander.

Rangers on Athas
"“Trust me. He might not talk a lot and smell funnier than the rest of your men, but there is no other one I would bring along with me around the Great Ivory Plains.” ―Waltian Inika, Gulg dune trader" The Athasian wilderness is harsh and unforgiving, calling for skilled and capable men to master its ways―the ranger answers that challenge, living a rugged life through clever mastery of his surroundings. The ranger has a potent combination of stealth, woodcraft, magic, and fighting skill, making him the master of the wilderness.

Daily Life
A ranger adventures to learn about Athas, to protect nature, and to prove his superior hunting skills. Rangers spend their days in contemplation of nature, and tending their animal companions. The Athasian ranger is a wanderer who hunts down a defiler to avenge himself for having his village destroyed, or a mercenary hunter for both monsters and humanoid creatures, or even a loner who simply prefers the company of animals.

Notables
Tales of halfling snipers are among the common Athasian legends. Any traveler to the Forest Ridge should rightfully fear the cannibals that move without a sound and strike without being seen. Thri‐kreen are fabled for their rangers, as they are fast‐moving relentless natural hunters, and their unarmed combat abilities become even more deadly when applied to subduing a quarry.

Organizations
There is no organized ranger organization; you are most likely to be a loner―or at best the leader of a group of raiders or renegades―than you are to gather with other rangers.

Often merchant houses are eager to employ you as a caravan guide through the most dangerous trade routes, or a city‐state’s templarate might hire you to provide a safe path to a templar patrol.

NPC Reactions
Within a city‐state or large settlement, you find that you are either ignored or regarded with some small amount of curiosity. It is only after a city‐dweller find himself outside the boundaries of his city‐state that he truly appreciates you. Indeed, he holds you in the highest of regards, knowing that you are all that stands between him and a horrible death in the wastes.