5e Classes (Paladask Supplement)

Adventurer by SIXMOREVODKA (Source

Adventurers have different backgrounds and races, but they also have different classes, skill sets for combat and traversal that allow them to go above and beyond what a normal person could ever hope to accomplish.

This chapter will be looking over the roles that each class has within Paladask and expand on the archetypes of those classes available to players within the setting. This chapter will also describe additional classes not from the player’s handbook.

Seekers

While Seekers are not a class on Paladask, they play an ever-important role on the plane. Fore who would dare to accompany caravans moving city to city? Who would dare go after that missing person people claim ran into the nolands? The only individuals brave, mighty, and willing enough to traverse Paladask's nolands are the Seekers. Seekers are highly-skilled adventurers who have been granted special permission from either a king or a representative of a king to freely travel about outside of the cities of the plane. Obviously, any Tom, Dick, or Harry can test their luck outside of the safety of the walls, but let a Seeker find them, and they will be forcefully sent home and could be charged with up to a year in prison!

Seekers undergo rigorous training and receive the militia's best gear. More often than not, Seekers are trained from childhood to be able to withstand the vileness of the nolands. While it is possible for individuals to begin training to be a Seeker later on in life, those who train from childhood tend to be more successful. Most don't make it past 30.

Players WHO ARE NOT SEEKERS doing any actions in the nolands, unless otherwise stated by the Dungeon Master, have disadvantage against those actions.

Artificer

(Unearthed Arcana: Artificer)

The artificers of Paladask are inventors by nature, the engineers and architects of the world. Their work has brought homes to the needy and luxuries to the not so needy. While some artificers focus solely on architecture, others focus on inventing new and practical gizmos and gadgets. Some artificers prefer to work with alchemy, devising new and practical potions alongside wizards and such. Other artificers yet work hand on, recovering ancient items for study or building things to match the needs of the places they visit. They design the walkways and the carriages that ride atop them. They plan the cities’ layouts and hire the people who put their plans to work.

The best artificers are the inventors, improving upon their previous designs and culminating a wide range of uses and tools into one simple household item. Artificers too help adventurers, crafting exciting weaponry and armaments, combining the magical aspect of the world with the hands on, traditional aspect of the world. Artificers are chemists and engineers as much as they are arcanists. Artificers that travel the world are practical, they need to be able to improvise and find new and necessary applications of their technology.

Skilled artificers have promising careers ahead of them, weaving magic into objects that anyone can use requires both dexterous hands and a nimble mind, along with years of study. For some, these tools are the only opportunity people will have to hold magic in their hands and can give someone an amazing resource to take with them. For adventurers a solidly constructed magic item can mean the difference between life and death.

The steady advancement of new technologies in Paladask has been somewhat of a boon for artificers. The recent spike in banknote usage has led to many artificers accepting fake checks in return for their goods, putting many out of business. The advancement of gunpowder has sent many artificers scrambling to find new ways to advance on that technology, as gun company after gun company continue to keep sprouting up.

Barbarian

(Player's Handbook pg. 46)

Barbarians are few and far in between in Paladask’s cities, but groups of nomadic barbarians can sometimes be found in the world’s nolands. These wanderers see themselves as seekers, though they are far less respected than them (perhaps for the fact that they are breaking the law).

In a landscape where everything is constantly trying to kill everything else, barbarians sprang up surprisingly resilient, and haven't moved an inch to the surrounding dangers of the nolands. The only sense of order barbarians have on Paladask is that they sometimes settle down out in the wild and set up tribal camps, crafting their heirarchies and fortifying their territory's borders. Sometimes, different barbarian tribes will wage war with one another, never over anything serious and civilized, on no, just over who gets to keep the women and children of the losing tribe and force the losers off of their own land, weaponless to die.

Barbarians are seen as savages by the civilized peoples and thus so are not easily welcomed into Paladask’s cities. The few barbarians who live within cities are hired to be bodyguards or bouncers or something of the like. The cities' militias enjoy the company of barbarians, even welcome it. Fore barbarians are not the smartest group of people, but they sure can topple over enemies like it's nobody's business. They represent a more physical force, and most certainly not an intelligent one. Barbarians on Paladask are gruesome, voracious, and relentless; true warriors at heart.

Bard

(Player's Handbook pg. 51)

Bards do what bards will do. They perform and they jest and they entertain the masses, putting on lavish shows and travelling across their cities. Every king has their own royal bard and each royal bard takes with them a crew of fellow entertainers. These groups of 3 or 4 are often a one per city deal and are local celebrities where they hail from.

Their skills are expertly honed and their trade is exceptionally difficult. Their are multiple schools for bards and multiple taverns for the sad bards who couldn't make it to sit alone and drink themselves to death at. To be a bard on Paladask is no laughing matter, fore bards spend their lives waiting and learning, practicing and praying for their big chance. This is a lot of time, mind you, seeing as there has never been a bard Seeker in all of Paladak's cities, meaning no bards are travelling around in the nolands singing ogres to sleep; they are busy practicing vocal scales and leaving all those problems to the more capable.

Some bards are simple entertainers, but their foundation in the skills built up by the bardic institutions makes them valuable in their niche. Though there are many people capable of playing music or displays of skill and performance ability bards are on a completely different tier, there is a magic to what they do, both literally and metaphorically. Bards are focused on their art and they are intensely skilled at performing it.

Cleric

(Player's Handbook pg. 56)

The gods play a significant, but not all-encompassing, role on Paladask. There are temples and shrines devoted to various gods and there are followers and worshipers who focus on each of them, most thoroughly so when it comes to clerics. Here is a link to the Pantheon (LINK). Each God chooses select followers to be their representatives, acting forevermore in the name of that God. Sometimes those selected are in fact devout priests or ministers, but sometimes the Gods can be mysterious in their choices. There is always at least one cleric of each God on Paladask at any given time, but there can be many more than that.

Clerics live in the mage’s corners (LINK) of cities, where all magic users are forced to live. Each city has its own mage corner and its own cleric population. Clerics generally do the day to day religious duties called upon them; like running religious activities, being parades or funerals. Many people see clerics as trustworthy guardians of sorts - even individuals who distaste magic (to which there is a great majority).

Some clerics are homebodies who serve a particular community of the faithful, but adventuring clerics tend to have a certain crusading zeal to do their deity’s work in the wider world. This work may include ministering to far-flung communities, or seeking out and defeating threats to the civilized world. While clerics not too often attempt to become Seekers, they are so respected and their faith so trusted that Kings often permit them Seekership without any training necessary. In this case, the cleric would act as cargo in a way, with a caravan to bring them to their destination and other Seekers protecting them. This circumstance has happened in the past, but clear religious evidence must be made present to the King granting the Seekership, or it would not happen.

The existence of clerics is the surest sign of a true god over a lesser powerful entity. Feylords, for example, have no clerics. Neither do fiends, though they may have priests or warlocks. Only a true god may empower a cleric with divine energies.

Druid

(Player's Handbook pg. 64)

Disgraced seekers, daring and determined civilians, or even barbarians who have lost their touch can leave their previous life and become druids. Druids are one with the wilds, hunters and gatherers who channel their magical ways through wilderness gods. Druids are reclusive and do not rejoin civilization after prolonged periods of time. They do revel in the abundance of nature to no surprise, with the dangerous nolands serving as lush and fertile land with every creature under the sun abound. They seek to preserve this splendor against those who would despoil it.

Druids are a mysterious order of people; they rarely interact with the more established and staid people of civilization, instead they isolate themselves within their order of people and their deep wilderness. They are their own people, independent of the world within their own circles.

Fighter

(Player's Handbook pg. 70)

A solid sword arm is a valuable asset to many. Knights are always looking to bolster their numbers from among the nobility. Just about every able bodied person has some modest ability with a weapon from serving as a part of the local militia and others continue this training on to join the military or the city guard.

Some people don’t embrace a career with the military, or at least not in the service to a higher cause or a nation. Some become soldiers of fortune, loyal to their employer and the gold they have to pay. Some become adventurers, hoping to find gold and glory or simply to scratch the itch of wanderlust.

These people without alliance to kings, countries, or gods find themselves in service to guilds or companies. Trading guilds hire warriors as guards or thugs.

Some fighters travel a less reputable path and become crooks, pirates, or pit fighters. They pillage and plunder along with rogues and barbarians to take what their swords can give them.

Paladask will never be a completely safe plane, so having access to a fighter when the situation calls for a fighter is a good perk of living here.

Gunslinger

(Homebrew)

With the advent of gunpowder not too long ago, and the creation of firearms soon after, the gunslinger class rose from out of the blue. Most gunslingers were previously artificers or even rangers who converted to the newer, albeit costlier weaponry. To many of the gunslingers, their firearms are their most prized possessions, and their skills are ever-improving.

Gunslingers find home in militias and wall guards, fore a firing line of militia can cut through almost any enemy in a very short time, and an accurate, gunning wall guard can stop threats dead long before and quicker than a normal bow-wielding guard could. Gunslingers do have to worry about their guns jamming and their guns malfunctioning and their gunpowder getting ruined by rain or anything, but you can't beat that close range killing-power.

Gunslingers are a hit or a miss. Either you love them or you despise them. Many gunslingers have formed rebellious anti-government clans or joined forces with fighting gangs. Still some have held steady positions within cities and within their cities' offices. Though not all persons with firearms are gunslingers, no. Gunslingers have trained their shot and practiced their art and honed their skill and studied their guns. While being a gunslinger seems easy, privateering along the Eastern Coastline with 30ft high waves crashing about and 4 enemy pirate ships surrounding you would make all but the most professional lose their minds; trying to hit a moving dragon in just the right spot as it comes down for an aerial strike can make any go dizzy; having a gun jam and the gunpowder soaked and the back up gun nowhere in sight would drive anyone away from the occupation as fast as ever.

Being a gunslinger takes skill, not a skill so easily obtained.

Click here to learn how to play the gunslinger in D&D 5e!

Monk

(Player's Handbook pg. 76)

Monks are sought out for not only their wisdom, but also for their voracious lethality, if necessary. Their secluded meditation becomes form and the movement of fists is an expression of philosophy as much as it is of violence.

Monks don't often try to become Seekers, fore they despise the entire system. They despise the mage's corners. They despise the stereotyping that runs rampant on Paladask. And they especially despise the idea of Seekers. To monks, every situation can be solved through thought; there is no need for walls and militias and firearms (especially firearms). Their long meditative states leave them with a heightened senses and a more elevated mind. Many monks meditate in order to open their third eye, so that they can see the world for how it really is.

Many monks find occupation alongside wizards or artificers (who do not manufacture firearms). They lend their knowledge and insight to these individuals, all while testing their creations and spells and helping them with fieldwork. It is an unspoken precedent between these three classes, that monks, artificers, and wizards all get along and should all trust each other.

Monks hate firearms (generally).

Paladin

(Player's Handbook pg. 82)

The paladins of Paladask are often the guardians of the walls. They are holy soldiers that smite down non-believers and all-around evil doers. Their word is final and their arms are ultimatums; comply or perish.

Different paladin orders in Paladask emphasize different elements of righteous behavior, but all paladins are expected to hold true to a common set of virtues:

Liberality. Be generous and tolerant.

Good faith. Be honest and keep promises.

Courtesy. Treat others with respect despite how they treat you. Give honor to those above your station. Earn the respect of those below your station.

Lawfulness. Laws exist to bring prosperity to those under them. Unjust laws must be overturned or changed in a reasonable fashion.

Bravery. Gain glory through battle. Defend any charge unto death.

Pride in one’s actions. Lead by example. Let your deeds speak your intentions. Humility in one’s deeds. Do not boast or accept rewards undue to you.

Unselfishness. Share resources, especially with those who have the most need.

Good-temperedness. Render service cheerfully and without disdain.

Wisdom. Cause the most good through the least harm. Piety. Be faithful to your god.

Kindness. Protect the weak. Grant mercy to those who seek redemption.

Honor. Hold true to the code. Death before dishonor.

Every paladin's priorities vary, that being dependent upon their upbringing, their views, or their hopes for the future. Paladins are (because of these virtues) seen as local legends; the folk epics are written about. Their gumption and bravery lead many to become Seekers, or to train Seekers. More often than not the winning side of a battle and the side of a battle with the most paladins in its ranks are the same side.

Ranger

(Player's Handbook pg. 89)

The nolands of Paladask are vast, lush, and dangerous, and any that can traverse them safely are valuable. Many Seekers who do just that are also rangers, people gifted with knowledge of the woods and the critters that live in them. Rangers tend to enjoy the peace and quiet brought with the nolands (and the dangers of them) more so than the worry-free atmosphere brought with the cities on Paladask. The maps of the plane were created by rangers, the bestiaries (LINK) on the planet were created by rangers, the trails in the nolands -again made by rangers.

Though rangers are not always connected together by group or creed, they are linked by a loose creed or common goals and practices. Rangers will often leave marks and symbols to help other traveling rangers. These marks can indicate campsites, danger, monsters, shelter, or a ranger’s cache of supplies. These simple trail markers aren’t at all a “secret,” but they are usually meaningless to people who haven’t received a ranger’s training.

Rangers have homes within the cities on Paladask, creating bestiaries or cartographing maps of the mountain ranges or whatnot, but they also do make home in the nolands. Often time, druids and rangers will travel together, or maybe a barbarian tribe will make room for a helpful little ranger.

Rangers use trees to their advantages, likewise with rivers, and caves, and bushes, and really anything in the wild. They do still bring their own toys along, whether it be a specially-made animal trap or bait for a harpy or another hungry beast.

Rangers have immense knowledge of the wilds and have proven invaluable to the Seeker occupation and caravan safety.

Rogue

(Player's Handbook pg. 94)

Thieves and murderers and societal scum alike, rogues are the bottom of society on Paladask. They break into homes and follow their own creed. There's no hope for rogues, or is there?

Rogues can almost always be found to be associated with one of two guilds, and can be found living in abundance in Paladask's undercities (LINK). On Paladask, slitting throats at night and sneaking out of homes richer than you entered are valuable skills associated with rogues, fore on Paladask (and intertwined with the rogue class) there are two guilds that work in the darkness; that score big behind your back if they don't stab you in it.

The Thieves’ Guild (LINK) and The Dark Brotherhood(LINK) are two of the most secretive, exclusive gatherings in all of Paladask; so secretive many have never heard of them. The Thieves’ Guild does as is assumed, priding itself on its members’ ability to sneak into homes and snatch as many goodies as humanly possible. The Dark Brotherhood, on the other hand, is the organization in charge of removing '‘undesirables’' from society. 90% of all members in both organizations are rogues, with the exceptions being sorcerers or perhaps warlocks. These organizations are very sought after, either for individuals who think what they have to join their ranks, or officials who want them shut down for good. The thing is... nobody knows where either are.

On the off chance a rogue doesn't pursue this lifestyle, one might be able to find them in politics, surprisingly, either lobbying their life to be easier, plotting against an enemy, or even running themselves!

Sorcerer

(Player's Handbook pg. 99)

Magic users are confined to the mages’ corners of the cities. To be painfully honest, those who wield magic are looked down upon for being different, ostracized from the normal life of an everyday civilian. Sorcerers often cannot find employment except in the high courts, where openings are few and far in between.

The sorcerer's life is not so different. They channel ancient, powerful magic through their bodies, often not even being able to control it. This leads to many sorcerers finding safety in the nolands, fore any use of magic within the cities (even mage corners) is punishable by death. Their safety from scared persecutors forces some to dabble in more dangerous magic, raising the dead and the like. Rarely sorcerers will join up with others in the nolands, more commonly living alone until they can control their magic better -if that ever happens.

There are few mage sympathizers in the cities, but as one travels further into the nolands, and the savagery increases, mage sympathy grows.

Warlock

(Player's Handbook pg. 105)

Whether through great study or bargain with a powerful entity, warlocks have obtained immense magical skill. Some are powerful enough to create portals to other planes, where dark dealings and malicious intentions run rampant. Occasionally, camps of warlocks can be found in the nolands, guarding portals and being up to no good.

There is another side to this as well, where warlocks will assist artificers or serve in the royal courts, both helping craft new tools and protecting officials.

But still similar to the sorcerers and the wizards of the world, warlocks are discriminated against. Those who have powers often hide them and those who birth magic children often have them ‘taken care of’.

The warlocks of Paladask on top of being discriminated against also have a very dastardly reputation. To everyday civilians, warlocks are thought of as sinister and mischievous; always up to something. They are greedy and villainous, and those who dare travel at night by the mage's corners need be wary. Of course not all warlocks are inherently evil and bothersome, but people judge books by their covers, and a book that has a grossly violent and disgusting and evil title will not be opened.

Warlord

(D&D 4th Edition Player's Handbook pg. 143)

Warlords are the epitome of righteousness and honor. All that paladins are, warlords are that plus some. Most warlords achieve their status through militaristic conquest or through their experience being a Seeker. Paladask is grateful for their warlords, fore without them, countless dragons, cyclopes, and other monstrosities would have taken the world for themselves ten times over.

Warlords boost the morale of their parties and provide bonuses to those faithful to their lead. The warlords are big. They are strong. Persuasion flows from their mouths and their God's power flows through their veins. The warlords of Paladask are the first to mobilize for war and the last to cease their efforts. They are often captains of the guard, or military strategists, or seekers; and all are respected. Warlords take hit after hit and would rather go down twice than let an ally go down at all.

Click here or here to learn how to play the warlord in D&D 5e!

Wizard

(Player's Handbook pg. 112)

Wizards, too, live a hard life on this plane. While they are seen as the most ‘civilized’ and the most ‘educated’ of all the mages, they are nevertheless below the average citizen. Their magic is seen as pure and their practice is seen as respectable, but people still cannot bear to live next to a free mage, regardless of their class.

There are Universities of Magic on Paladask, but they receive no courtly funding as one could guess. Following their passion at magical institutions, wizards either delve into research, which can send them out on adventure for more practical research. Some wizards remain with their institutions, pouring over the school’s libraries. Other wizards find careers with crafting guilds, merging their two fields of expertise and become enchanters of magical items. Rarely some others find a path with the government, becoming advisers on arcane matters or serving positions like artillery within their military.

---

Back to Main Page → 5e Homebrew → Campaign Settings → Paladask