Rangers
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Description
Rangers come in many varieties -- rogues, fighters, woodsmen, trackers, sorcerers, witches, wanderers, leaders -- but they all share a certain empathic bond with and love for the lower forms of organic life. Many Rangers, though not all, feel this bond so deeply that they have very little interaction with those of anthropic sentience. Even the more sociable ones share a special affinity with animal intelligences that penetrates to the core of their being.
This affinity is manifest in the Ranger's need for a familiar. All Rangers must choose a familiar to fully manifest their abilities and complete their personalities. A Ranger's bond with his familiar is the most significant thing in his life: it moulds his personality, his potentials, and completes his connection with the natural world. See 'help familiars' for more information.
Rangers are all survivalists to some extent, and can go for an entire lifetime without stepping foot in a city. They can skin animals into and repair hide armour, as well as forage for weapons, food, and other materials. Each of these abilities has its own help file.
Familiars
Rangers are incomplete beings until they have chosen an animal to be their familiar. A Ranger's familiar is simultaneously his life-long companion and an expression of his deepest self. Both the familiar and the Ranger benefit from their symbiosis, which taps into magickal wells deep within nature and draws out the latent potentialities of each. Every familiar enjoins certain powers, skills, and enhancements upon its ranger, and every Ranger enjoins an enhanced animal form upon his familiar. The strength of a Ranger's bond to his familiar is determined by the average of his unmodified skills in empathy, animal lore, and enchanting, plus his unmodified charisma. The strength of this bond will determine the amount of benefit both the Ranger and his familiar get from their bond: the attribute and trait modifiers enjoyed by the Ranger, and the myriad attribute, skill, resistance, etc. modifiers enjoyed by the familiar, all have their strength determined by the Ranger's bonding ability. You can get an estimate of the strength of your bond by typing 'think about the strength of my empathic bond'.
One's familiar cannot, strictly speaking, die; it is linked to the Ranger's persisting soul, and destruction of its body merely banishes it from the physical world for a time. However, the well-being of a Ranger and his familiar are linked. If the familiar dies, its Ranger will suffer, and the death of the Ranger may cause the death of his familiar.
One should choose one's familiar carefully. The bond is a serious commitment and, if one ever wants to break it to pick a new familiar, the trauma can be severe.
Each familiar type has its own help file, as does each power listed within the familiar type help files.
To make an animal for your familiar, 'concentrate on forming an empathic bond with <target>'. This will only work on relatively ordinary instances of the animals that do not already have owners. In certain cases, you may need to be the owner of the animal through some other means initially.
Once you have a familiar, it will be permanently attached to you. There is no need to keep it when you disincarnate. You can command it to action by using the syntax 'will my familiar to <command>'; this will be somewhat taxing on Rangers with an insufficiently strong bond to their familiars. If it becomes separated from you, you may attempt to evoke magicks that will summon it to your side. How taxing this is depends on your summoning skill. To do this, 'concentrate on calling my familiar'. This will not work if your familiar is currently dead. A less taxing version of this operation is to attempt to send your familiar away from you, to safety. This can be helpful when you are about to go to places to hazardous for your familiar. To do this, 'concentrate on sending my familiar to safety'. Be warned that until you call your familiar back, you will be unable to use any of the powers it enjoins upon you.
Your familiar will gradually gain experience as you do, just like a normal follower. It will occasionally attempt to advance in level, and you will be notified when it does. You can determine your familiar's level at any time by using the 'info' command on it. Your familiar's attributes and skills will increase as it levels.
To break the empathic bond with your familiar, 'concentrate on breaking my empathic bond with my familiar'. As mentioned previously, this can cause severe, lasting trauma and/or death.
Ranger Abilities
Skinning, Tanning and Making Armour
Usage: skin <corpse> into <armour> [for <target>]
Rangers, with their strong ties to the outdoors, are able to skin and tan certain animals. The ability of this art is based on the ranger's animal and armour lores and of course, the animal being skinned must have a natural armour class. The animal can be skinned into a wide variety of armour types (a list can be obtained by typing 'help armours'). Since this task takes time, you will be unable to move while doing this. The time remaining is the default result of an illegal action you try to do during this time.
It is also possible to skin something for someone else but this target must be present with you from start to finish of the skinning process. Of course, making the skin for someone else might mean that it won't fit you.
Also, should something come up, you can abort your skinning by typing 'halt'.
Examples:
skin dragon corpse into cloak skin corpse into boot skin tiger corpse into cloak for ape
The quality of your armour will depend on the ranger's tanning skill as well as the harm skills of the creature being skinned into armour. Skinning trains the skills it uses and gives the ranger experience.
Repairing armour
Usage: repair <armour>
Rangers are able to repair armours that are made from organic materials. Since this task takes time, you will be unable to move while doing this. The time remaining is the default result of an illegal action you try to do during this time. Also, should something come up, you can abort your repairing by typing 'halt'.
Example:
repair dragon cloak
Foraging
Usage: perform forage for <what> Typical Activity Cost: 50
Rangers are strongly tied to their environment, especially in their home terrain. They know which plants grow herbs that can be used for healing and which trees bear fruit that are edible. They are also able to construct crude weapons from forest materials.
The weapons which can be foraged are arrows, staff, spear, club, javelin, bow, sling and stones. The quality seems to depend on the ranger's foraging and weapon lore skills.
Healing with Medicinal Herbs
Usage: perform forage for herbs
This will attempt, in a suitable terrain, to find medicinal herbs.
Usage: apply <herb> [on <player>['s <limb>] | on my <limb> | on me]
Rangers are skilled in the art of applying herbs to their body for the treatment of wounds. The herbs, which are found while foraging, can be poisonous if taken internally but there is little danger when one applies it to their skin or another. The herbs can also be applied to specific body parts to focus the healing in one location.
Examples:
apply blackwort on me apply wolfsbane on my left hand apply lungwort on bob's head
Trainers
Rangers can seek training from their guildmaster Sirinil as well as the wandering Damon, who will teach anyone who finds him. Damon often goes exploring in dark areas without a light and won't teach in the dark.
Affiliation Incompatabilities
Kalyxes says, [/\ As a carrion bird Ranger, you could not become a servant by joining the Stalkers of the Gate. \/] to you.
Kalyxes says, [/\ As a drake Ranger, you could not become a servant by joining the Stalkers of the Gate. \/] to you.
Kalyxes says, [/\ As a polypid Ranger, you could not become a servant by joining the Stalkers of the Gate. \/] to you.
