Threshold: More Smith Details (Patreon)

Hi Everyone!

I'm still working on the website that will hold character information and session logs. I'll get that running soon, but it's going to wait until I've finished the Level 10+ Adventures article. However, I have been creating the character sheets for the remaining characters, and in the process I've found a few points I want to nail down... and I'd like to have you all help me with that! Today we're going to talk about Bel, the Smith. There's two details I'd like to establish. 

WHAT ROUGH BEAST?

Beleth is a Way of the Beast barbarian. What this means is that when she activates her Rage she manifests an additional physical mutation—teeth (which can such the life from an enemy), claws, or a tail (which can block attacks or strike enemies from up to 10 feet away). One of the ideas about Bel is that she doesn't entirely know where these powers have come from. But what do they LOOK like? How does she feel about them? There's two directions we could go here. 

Natural. Beleth's Way of the Beast manifestations have a natural appearance. They are more dramatic than standard shifter effects, but they still feel like the claws and teeth of natural animals. She feels like this reflects a deeper connection to the totem spirits of the Beast Within and is happy to invoke this power. When her tail defends her from attack, she could even feel that it's the Beast Within blocking it, not something she actively does. The short form is that these powers are a GOOD thing and she's comfortable using them. 

Unnatural. A second option is that her Way of the Beast powers are distinctly UNnatural. The claws and teeth that appear may be very disturbing. Her "teeth" could be insect mandibles or some sort of blood-sucking proboscis. Her "tail" could be a scorpion-like barb or even a mass of tentacles. If we go this route I'd be strongly tempted to say that they aren't consistent—that each time she manifests the "tail" it might take a different form and it would be up to the player to describe it. This would suggest that these powers aren't a totemic gift, but rather the result of something that happened to her in 992 YK. House Vadalis experiments? Mordain? Daelkyr? If this is the case, she might be somewhat nervous about using these abilities and concerned about what might happen next. 

HAMMER TIME

The Threshold characters start at 3rd level, and most have an uncommon magic item. In Bel's case, this is a maul of warning, a magic weapon that improves her initiative and warns her of danger. I want to know where this hammer came from and how the warning manifests. Here's the possibilities. I'll note that all of these ideas give the maul a personal connection to Bel: while anyone could use it as a magic weapon, I think that only Bel (or someone with a similar connection to it) could fully attune to it and use the Warning property. 

Family Heirloom. The hammer was forged by Bel's grandmother (remember, her family were well-established guild artisans in Eston). Bel believes that the maul contains a sliver of her grandmother's spirit, and that it is this that warns her of danger. 

Self-Made. The maul was Bel's masterwork that concluded her guild training. She feels that she has invested something of herself into it, and that it channels her Beast Within—that the warnings come from her own primal instincts. 

Hammer of Love. The  maul is something that Bel and Jury created while serving together in the Last War; Bel forged the hammer while Jury enchanted it. This project brought them closer together, and Bel believes that it's Jury's love that infuses the hammer and protects her.  

Thanks for your help!