What the heck, right? The Hound is just dead, without a satisfying, climactic fight?! And Briene, who has proved utterly useless in combat with the Hound, just decided it was a good idea to wade into the bubbling black pool of awfulness in the Hound’s lair!?!

Honestly, Briene has more than earned a level-up based on surviving repeated dangers alongside our party of adventurers. Yet I said previously that her advancement would wait until the end of Doom of the Savage Kings. We aren’t precisely at the end of our adventure (How will the Jarl react to the party’s actions? Will Umur make good on his promise to marry Ymae? etc. etc.), but we’re close enough to allow her an actual DCC class. I also mentioned that, if Erin died, Briene would become the new Cleric of the party. Although she fainted at the end of the last installment and her healing powers have momentarily failed her, Erin is very much alive. In that case, then, I said that I wanted to explore a possible third-party class for Briene. Today is that day!

First, let’s remind ourselves of Briene Byley’s Level 0 character stats:

Briene Byley. Level 0 Healer. STR 8, AGL 14, STA 11, PER 9, INT 15, LCK 15 (righteous heart, +1 to turn undead). Init +1; Atk club +0 melee (1d4); AC 11; HP 1; MV 30′; Act 1d20; SV Fort +0, Ref +1, Will +0; LNG Common (+1); AL Lawful; Equipment: grappling hook, holy water (vial), 33cp.

It’s always interesting to look back on the Level 0 stats. For example, I completely forgot that Briene would get a +1 bonus to turning undead had she become a Cleric, or that she randomly carried a grappling hook around.

In the fiction of the story, we established that Briene’s father had been a woodsman and hunter, teaching her about the outdoors. It was Briene that led the party to Ulfheonar’s tomb, through the dense woods north of Hirot. In looking through possible third-party classes, I thought it would be fun to make Briene a Druid (one option is here, and another here). But as I sat down to level her up, it occurred to me that having a third spellcaster was probably overkill, especially given how unique and scene-eating magic can be in Dungeon Crawl Classics. At the same time, I like that Briene has obtained a bow, playing to her Agility bonus and away from her underwhelming Strength. A ranged combatant is something the party desperately needs. Alright, then: Briene is about to follow in her father’s footsteps and become… a Ranger!

As far as I can tell, there are three different third-party options for a Ranger class. First, there is Raskal’s, which debuted in the awesome Crawl Fanzine #6. Second is one that builds on ideas from the first, by John Carr. Finally, the amazing Knights in the North (where I stole my Shul Cleric write-up, you may recall) have also offered one. Which flavor of Ranger do I choose for Briene? They’re all sweet, but I’ve chosen John Carr’s for a few reasons:

• d8 Hit Dice makes more sense to me than the d10 of Raskal’s.
• The other two options provide Mighty Deed effects, and I like keeping this benefit restricted to our Warrior and Dwarf classes.
• The “Healing Herbs” feature fits the fiction and character perfectly.

That said, I’m going add one small feature to John’s that the other two include, which I’ll describe below. Fun fun! Let’s get into what Briene gets as a John Carr Ranger…

Hit Points: I’ve already covered this roll in Joane’s level-up (link above in the header). Briene is happily sitting at 10 hit points and will gain a d8 each level thereafter.

Combat Path: Briene can choose either Two-Weapon Fighting or Archery. It’s clear that, for Briene, archery is the way to go. This path means that she can ignore the -2 range penalty for medium range (which for her shortbow means she can fire up to 100’ with no penalty). More importantly, she can ignore the 50% chance of hitting an ally when firing into melee. This “firing into melee” penalty came up in the Hound battle, and will be especially important since Umur, Erin, Haffoot, and Joane all fight up close.

Favored Enemy: All three Ranger options have something like this, where a broad class of creatures is the specific foe of the PC. I like how John handled this feature the most: When attacking a favored enemy, Briene will gain three boons: 1) she will increase her Action Die from a d20 to d24, 2) her critical hit range will increase (to 21-24 on a d24), and 3) she gains an improved Crit Die and Table when landing a critical hit.

The only time Briene was particularly useful in combat was against the ghouls in Ulfheonar’s tomb. She will, as we find out below, also be wholly dedicated to purging the forest from blights like the Hound. Finally, her lucky “boon” (though she doesn’t know it and likely never will) is for turning undead. Putting these three ideas together, Briene favored enemy will be “Undead.” I also like Briene being an undead hunter as a nod to her almost becoming a cleric (at least in my mind).

Healing Herbs: Among three great Ranger options, this feature pushed me most onto John Carr’s write-up. Using naturals herbs and saps, Briene can heal as per the Cleric Lay on Hands ability, using the “Adjacent” column for all effects (in other words, the healing is not dependent upon alignment of the healer and patient). John doesn’t say what attribute roll Briene will make, but for me it makes most sense that the roll be based on Intelligence (not Personality as the Cleric). As an added bit of flavor, if Briene rolls a natural 1 on a healing check, she will accidentally poison the victim.

Other Benefits: Briene will now get her level (for now +1) to several useful wilderness skills, including climbing, detecting and setting natural traps, sneaking and hiding in natural environments, traveling without leaving a trace, and survival skills (like making camp, tracking, foraging, etc.). She’ll also gain a +1 to her Reflex and Fortitude saves.

Finally, I mentioned above that I would steal one feature from the other Ranger class write-ups, which is language proficiency. I like the idea that Rangers pick up languages in their travels, and so Briene will get twice the number of languages she’d normally get for her Intelligence (in this case, 2 instead of 1 additional language). One of these will be the alignment language of Law, which is a nod to her time in the Temple of Justicia. For the second language, I’ll leave this open for now and wait for the story to shape the answer.

Title: John doesn’t offer title suggestions for his Ranger class, so I’ll peek at the other two. Even though Briene will keep her Lawful alignment, I like the title suggestion for a Level 1 Neutral Ranger from Knights in the North: Seeker. It fits her temple origins, and the general vibe of Briene looking for her purpose now that she’s linked up with this crew of adventurers. Seeker Briene Byley, welcome to the party!

Putting all of that together, here is her new character sheet (not an official Goodman Games one because of the unique class, so instead I used a generic one from Jeremy Deram:

Stepping back, Briene fills many of the obvious holes in the current party. She is the singular ranged attacker (although Hilda can do some damage at range, it’s highly unpredictable). Briene is a secondary healer, especially important for times when Erin is the one who drops. Finally, the party now has some wilderness skills to aid them in overland travel, something I’ve been hand-waving up until this point but now can make a more interesting part of adventuring. Despite entering this level-up intending to make Briene a Druid, I’m highly satisfied with where she finds herself.

I’m equally pleased that Briene’s third-party class doesn’t feel overpowered (which is the primary concern for most third-party products in any system) while adding significant flavor to the existing party. In short, Briene feels “ranger-y” in a very DCC way. There are something like a hundred possible classes created by fans over the last dozen years of the game’s existence, and the Ranger feels like a nice way to explore the possibilities here.

As a reminder, I’ve decided to level up characters after the completion of adventures (though I’m also tracking XP, which I’ll detail in my Doom of the Savage Kings reflections). Erin, Haffoot, Hilda, and Umur will achieve Level 2 soon, and it will take them two decent-sized adventures to reach Level 3. Joane and Briene, now officially a cohort, will level up after the first of these two adventures. This system means that Joane and Briene will always be lagging slightly behind the other four, but they should also find themselves at the same level more often than not.

Circling back to where I started this post, why was Briene wading into the pool again? Let’s add a narrative, as I’ve done with other level-ups, to explore Briene’s motivations…

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The black pool did not have the consistency of water. Instead, it was like slippery tar, both clinging to and sliding off Briene’s skin and clothing as she waded into it more deeply. The liquid was also hot, though rapidly cooling. She suspected that, while the Hound had been alive, the black stuff would have badly scalded her.

When asked later–repeatedly–why she had walked directly into the Hound’s birthing pool, Briene could not articulate her motivations clearly. As the others had huddled on the shore opposite her, near their foe’s rapidly dissolving form, her initial instinct had been to run to Erin’s aid. The cleric of Shul had collapsed. Though Briene could not perform the miracles that Erin performed, she was a healer by training. It was why she’d endured the fanaticism of Father Beacom at the temple in Hirot, to gain access to people in need who required her mix of herbs, poultices, and medicines, all learned from her woodsman father. The sight of Erin slumping to the muddy ground made Briene gasp and drop her bow, and, before realizing it, she had already taken a step in her companion’s direction.

It was then that she’d paused. Alone in this part of the cavern, something called to her. The call was not a sound so much as a tingling down her spine, an invisible line connecting Briene with… something wrong. She’d frozen, mid-stride, and her eyes had swiveled to the black pool, encircled by swamp water cascading into it from above.

To be sure, the horror of the forest’s corruption had deeply shaken Briene, whose fondest memories were trailing her father through trees and game trails. She hadn’t realized it until guiding Erin and her adventuring party to Ulfheonar’s tomb, but she felt most at ease surrounded by nature’s abundance. Briene’s mother had died in childbirth, so her father had been her world. His love of woodcraft had shaped the forest into a private sanctuary of love and protection, a world that felt more sacred to Briene than any temple to Justicia. To have the forest defiled was… well. It was exactly, she suspected, like a cleric seeing her god’s temple defiled. The wrongness of it overpowered her.

With the threat of the Hound eliminated, it was as if her senses had expanded, taking in the wider chamber for the first time. Something within the pool–she was utterly certain–was the true origin of the forest’s pollution. The Hound was merely a herald, a minion of the true evil here. The witch’s net, the fabled spear, the might of the assembled adventurers… all of it was to combat the herald, not the true threat to the natural world surrounding them. It was as if, she tried explaining later to her companions, the forest itself was pointing her to its wound, imploring her to help.

To heal.

And so Briene found herself wading through hot, unnatural fluid, Chaos’ birthing chamber. With each stride she moved deeper, first to her calves, then to her knees, and now to her hips. As she moved deeper, the forest seemed to cry out louder, the tingling upon her spine becoming a maddening, frantic scratch. Here was the source of corruption. Here was its blackened heart.

“Blast it all to the Nine Hells,” she heard the dwarf’s voice, dimly, echo across the chamber over the crash of falling water. “Briene! Get over here, lass! We need a healer!”

Briene, her face a mask of concentration, pushed deeper towards the center of the pool, the foul waters now to her ribcage.

“Briene! No!”

Momentarily, Briene startled out of her trance and looked over. Her dear friend Joane stood upon the shore. In one hand she held Ulfheonar’s wolf-spear, the butt digging into the muck below. Joane’s face was etched with shock and concern.

“I– we have to stop it,” Briene said uncertainly. “It’s here.”

“What?” Joane called out. “Bree, what did you say? I can’t hear over the water!”

Briene shook her head. Without trying to explain herself, she plunged under the liquid’s oily, clinging surface, hand outstretched.

Several heartbeats later, when she surfaced with a gasp, the entire group ashore was shouting and crying out. Briene wiped muck from her eyes to see Joane already to her knees in the pool, trudging towards her with a face of utter horror. Umur had also taken several strides into the black water, cursing in his native tongue as he passed through the halo of falling water from above. Haffoot knelt by Erin and Hilda’s slumped forms, her eyes wide and focused on the seemingly crazy young healer from Hirot.

“It’s okay!” Briene shouted at them. “I found it!”

Fist outstretched, she began moving towards her companions. Joane and Umur stopped their advance, waiting for her.

“What in blue blazes are you doing, lass?!” Umur shouted over the waterfall, just as Joane yelled, “Are you alright, Bree?”

“I found it!” Briene said again, almost hysterically. She walked past Joane first, then Umur, and both followed in her wake. They exchanged a look behind her back, confused and concerned.

The thing in her fist pulsed and throbbed, making the fluttering along her spine almost maddening with its intensity. When she reached the shore, she opened her hand.

It was a black orb, perfectly round, the size of an acorn. Such a small cause for such overpowering darkness, she thought with wonder, even as every fiber of being recoiled at seeing it. But then, Briene supposed, mighty oaks originated from acorns, didn’t they? Everything begins with a seed. And here was the seed of corruption, this oily black orb, some ancient item of Chaos that had begun with magic like Hilda’s that Briene could not understand, borne of forces beyond the limits of her conception. For a fleeting moment, the thing reached out to her mind, trying perhaps to connect with her despite its alien evil. Or perhaps it sensed the threat of Briene, the warden of the sacred forest, and it made one final attempt to survive.

Before Joane or Umur could glimpse the item in her palm, Briene clenched her wet fingers and crushed the thing in her fist. It squelched, like an egg bursting. Black ichor oozed between her fingers, dribbling to the wet soil below.

All at once, the cacophonous, staccato dancing upon her spine ceased. The clinging, slippery fluid drenching her seemed to sigh, returning to something closer to water in its consistency.

Briene smiled a tight, fierce grin, shaking her hand free of the orb’s gore. The forest was still ill, a dire sickness that would take years to heal. But at least the infection was gone.

Her companions, agape, stared at her, unsure what to say or do. Briene, still grinning, dropped to her knees in the muck and immediately began rummaging in her satchel for the herbs and poultices that might heal Erin’s wounds.

Doom of the Savage Kings, Chapter 13