Arcane Ranger
Archæologist Ranger
Beastborne Ranger
Corrupted Ranger
Coven Guardian Ranger
Deepwood Sniper Ranger
Green Reaper Ranger
Grim Warden Ranger
Heavy Arbalest Ranger
Infernal Rider Ranger
Landspirit Ranger
Lightcaller Ranger
Nightstalker Ranger
Nittin Ranger
Nomad Ranger
Polis Sweeper Ranger
Predator Ranger
Redeemer Ranger
Red String Ranger
Spear of the Weald Ranger
Spellbreaker Ranger
Spirit Guardian Ranger
Stargazer Ranger
Steel Warden Ranger
Stonesinger Ranger
Strider Ranger
Tinderbox Ranger
Venator Ranger
Windrunner Ranger
Arcane Rangers are mysterious and elusive warriors, masters of blending martial prowess with the arcane arts. Their connection to the hidden energies of the world allows them to summon powerful magical weapons, shifting the tide of battle with a mere flick of their wrist. Trained by ancient Elven masters, these arcane archers excel at weaving arcane patterns in the air, imbuing their weapons with potent energies to vanquish their foes. They are the vanguard of the magical world, blending their knowledge of arcane secrets with the natural intuition of the ranger.
As they grow in power, Arcane Rangers learn to manipulate the very fabric of the magical realm, shaping the energy around them into powerful weapons, barriers, and defenses. Their abilities make them invaluable assets on the battlefield, and their presence alone can inspire allies and strike fear into the hearts of their enemies. In a world where the arcane is both a weapon and a shield, the Arcane Ranger stands at the forefront, wielding the mysteries of the universe as their ally.
The first and often last lesson these rangers learn is that if you want to study ancient tombs and forgotten mysteries, first you have to survive them. These hands on researchers rely on their magic to give them the edge they need when a trap is sprung or monster disturbed.
Whether by infected bite or insidious curse, your blood was marked by the indelible stain of beasthood, a curse of lycanthropy. A new form, a primal, bestial self, lies just beneath your skin, awaiting the allure of blood and the thrill of a hunt to emerge in a terrible spectacle. Perhaps, if you can avoid the violence of combat or the siren call of moonlight, you can resist the lycanthropic urge. Or perhaps you see the infection as a blessing, a fearsome weapon, with claws that rend and teeth that bite.
You have become afflicted by the mysterious illness that haunts the island known as the Corruption. This same foul magic, which has stained the coastlines black, now resides within your body. It curses your skin and seeps from your pores, and in time it will even become difficult to distinguish you from it.
How this has happened is your story to tell. You may have been one of the first responders to the Corruption when it came to the shores leaving you to possibly be the only survivor of that brave band of rangers. Perhaps you were an explorer, who stumbled on a pocket of Corruption and became infected, or maybe you were inflicted with this Corruption by an evil witch.
There are spirits that rule over nature, protecting the wilderness from outside threats. They are stewards of forests, deserts, snow-capped mountains, and all things that fall under the domain of nature, and their power is immeasurable. Like all spirits, though, the power they can exert upon the world of the living is limited. In order to enact their will upon the material world, these spirits lend their power to very unique witches to make them strong enough to safeguard the spirits’ domains. These witches are called guardian rangers.
Guardian rangers use the spirits that preside over nature as a source for their power and magic. The nature spirits guide them, emboldening their strikes and granting them abilities that no other witch has access to. The most powerful guardians can even briefly summon these incredibly powerful nature spirits to assist them in battle, making them an immeasurable threat to whoever dares oppose the will of the wild.
It is said that when the most powerful guardian rangers die, their own spirits transform into nature spirits — granting their powers to younger, more inexperienced ranger witches, perpetuating the cycle, and protecting the domain of nature across generations.
The Deepwood Sniper is an ancient tradition followed by wood elves that use the cover and protection of high treetops in its favor. They lurk on the top of the tree while seek for invaders in their territory. Rarely a hostile creature can see these archers, and on the occasional situations they are seeing hidden on the trees, is too late.
Green Reapers specialize in a school of assassination that specializes in harvesting and catalyzing the toxic elements of flora and fauna. These rangers often work as killers for hire utilizing their extensive knowledge of toxins to end their marks’ lives discreetly or with gory panache, depending on the poison used and the client’s wishes. Green Reapers exhibit a morbid curiosity when encountering a toxic substance they’re unfamiliar with, typically followed by an enthusiastic application of the toxin on the next foe they encounter.
Sometimes it takes a monster to destroy a monster. Rangers that take up the mantle of the Grim Warden undergo a dark alchemical ritual, known as the Warden's Rite, where they inject sinister alchemical compounds into their bloodstream to enhance their physical abilities. They sacrifice any chance for a normal life, mingling their blood with that of monsters, in order to gain sinister power to destroy their foes.
Gunslingers use their expertise to hunt and track for coin, using their marksmanship skills to bring down their prey. Some gunslingers work by a personal code that defines what they will or will not do for money, while others have no scruples in who or what they hunt.
A niche contingent of rangers specialise themselves in a specific type of weapon, believing raw power is best suited to take down their quarry. These rangers are known as the Heavy Arbalest. This archetype obtains mastery with a special heavy crossbow known as an arbalest. Using this oversized weapon, the Heavy Arbalest makes use of special bolts alongside magic to pin their quarry or go in for a brutally quick kill.
Infernal Rider Rangers roam both the streets of the world and the wastes outside of it, using high-powered arcane cycles to get around in both speed and style. They often roam in small groups, using specially made vehicles that allow them to fight while riding. The screams of fiends are a sign that an ambush from one of these gangs is imminent.
Landspirit archetypes are rangers who have devoted themselves to a landspirit that resides in their region. They are sworn to protect the balance between spirits and mortals in the region, and fight in their patron's name, if their lands are threatened by forces trying to disrupt the spirit. Rangers of this archetype lean towards heeding the call of nature and of their patron spirit, that protects the boundaries between the wilderness and their civilizations. They are the wildest sort of rangers, voyaging further into the wilderness and into the source of their landspirits, rather than staying close to fringe settlements.
Rangers that walk the path of the Lightcaller draw their power from the positive plane, and use that power to defend the wildlands and hunt down the evils that dwell there. These rangers wield their radiant weapons like extensions of their body, and learn combat techniques that make them highly varied in their combat styles. To them, every weapon holds a distinct purpose when hunting down prey. Fiends and undead are often these ranger’s favored enemies, and many of them ally with celestials.
The Nightstalker archetype emulates a unique form of shadow magic, used to create shadowy familiars to accompany you in battle. By walking this path, you learn to use your shadow familiar like an extension of yourself, using them like a weapon as you stalk through the dim forests and vast plains of the world, searching for your prey. Your choice of familiar defines your style of fighting, with each familiar playing a different role on the hunt and on the battlefield.
The Nittins are a warrior culture that emphasize the strength of the individual, in contrast to societies that defend themselves with large armies of hoplites and mounted cavalry. A typical Nittin conclave will outline its territory, usually an island, and fight viciously to drive away trespassers. When the territory is threatened, they may band together into war parties, whose collective battlecries are said to strike fear into enemies up to a mile away.
A lone Nittin huntress relies upon her mechanical companion, an avian stimfay, for support in battle. Every huntress learns to build and repair these mechanical birds when they are young, often forming deep and lasting bonds with the strange creatures. Each huntress is formidable in close quarters with her deadly kopis blade, but she also trains with an exotic ranged weapon called the chakram.
Nittin conclaves are ruled by women, and huntresses are almost exclusively female. Men are generally regarded as the weaker sex, but they may be trained in the arts on occasion—for example, when a mother who wishes for a daughter is given a son instead.
The esoteric rangers known only as Nomads delight in travel, exploration, and discovery. They desire to learn all they can, uncovering secrets and hidden lore wherever they venture. No matter their origin, Nomads strive to keep their mind in a meditative state that allows them to perceive a strange, living web of knowledge known as the Noosphere. This web links all who follow the way of the Nomad, and allows them to access knowledge from far off places and distant lives.
Protecting the boundary between the settled areas of the world and the wilds requires watchers from both sides of the palisade. Polis sweepers consider cities to be ecosystems all their own, with food chains to respect and imbalances to correct. They listen to the city's whispers to find their way and will cut out parts of it that are killing the whole - whether that means offing a corrupt official or burning an abandoned building that's a den for plague rats.
Lost and weak, pitiful creatures populate our world. They are all around you, beaten down and oppressed by the misery of life. Most will toil endlessly to no real end, only to die without accomplishing anything of meaning or worth. They will simply let death take what it wants from them as life had before it, passing on quietly and without a fight. But even in death some souls will not find respite. Some are tied to this world by a traumatic death, remaining as vengeful spirits. Others are enslaved within their corpse, animated against their will by a dark being or necromancer. Such is the way of things. If life is not fair, then death is no different.
For those that have the ability to see them, a soul detached from its body is one of the most helpless things you could encounter. However, they are also extremely resilient, nigh indestructible. Yes, they can become lost or corrupted, bound to serve others, but they will survive. And in survival, they keep inside them hope and a longing to either return to the mortal world or depart for the afterlife that awaits them in the realm of their god. If only they could be released from their torment and made free.
Enter the redeemers. Most who enter this rare vocation are motivated by a profoundly personal experience, and the empathy they feel for those souls trapped in an undead form calls them to action. They will search out these souls and free them from their prisons of bone and spirit, following them into the aether or the lands of the dead itself if need be. All creatures deserve peace, and the redeemers will see that they find it.
The Predator archetype involves hunting monstrosities of the world such as the basilisk, hydra, and wyvern. They study these creatures’ traits and emulate their abilities and behaviors using their swift cunning, physical might, and primal magic.
Rangers of the Red String archetype dabble in the invisible forces of fate, able to influence them to certain degrees. Their strong link with the esoteric workings of fate, destiny, and predetermination make them some of the most formidable hunters and trackers.
The wealdspears have long defended the limits of their forest homes. These warriors can make a dizzying variety of ranged and melee attacks in quick succession, using ancient magic to flash across the battlefield.
Where there is power, there are those that abuse that power. Spellbreakers are a small, but dedicated, fraternity of rangers who specialize in hunting spellcasters that use their arcane abilities to bring harm to others. While most pursue the life of a Spellbreaker for noble reasons, there are some who seek to destroy any who wield the weave. Most Spellbreakers operate in the shadows, only revealing themselves when the time is right and their success is a certainty. When one wrong move could end in disintegration, there is no room for error.
Some rangers turn to the primordial to protect their homes, bonding with an elemental spirit. Spirit Guardians entwine their essence with these totemic guardians, manifesting aspects of the spirits’ powers, and becoming far more attuned to the denizens of the Elemental Planes.
Mortals have always looked to the stars for stories of the past, guidance in the present, and glimpses of the future. Most believe that by reading the motions of the heavenly bodies, one can even change fate. The great constellations, the adder, elephant, hare, stag, and wolf, all tell legendary stories and can even grant mortals a portion of their radiant power.
The wandering and solitary rangers known as Stargazers spend their lives studying the night sky for this purpose. Each night, they align their soul with the constellations of the night sky, and draw upon the energies of the heavenly lights to produce radiant magic and tip the scales of fate.
These armorclad rangers manipulate magnetic fields to propel themselves with incredible speed to land devastating blows or avoid incoming harm. This unique skill set originates among the hobgoblins of old, who have perfected the method compliment their war effort with swift and precise strikes at crucial pillars within the defense of their enemies.
Stonesingers were born of dwarvish culture, a sect of Rangers dedicated to defending their borders from any would be invaders from the underdark or mountains. They grew closer than any of the dwarves to the land beneath their feet. Now they are spread all over, the teachings of the song of stone a tune that many might carry. They have a deep attunement to the earth, the rocky core of the world a siren's call that drums in their ears whether out at sea or at the peak of mountains.
There are rumours of a strange item given to the servants of Hell, to those who sell their souls for power. A tinderbox, which can summon terrible hounds with eyes that glow like hellfire. In truth, there are many Tinderboxes, and hell has many messengers. You have been cursed with one, and its hounds, doomed to caretake it until your own hubris consumes you.
Venators are a curious lot, rangers who conjure forth spirits in the shape of various flying animals to support them on the hunt and to bolster their physiology to superhuman levels. Should you meet one, be sure to take note of the spirit's form. It will likely be obvious, at least to one who has trained in such things, but the shape of the spirit will tell you something about the venator's favored tactics.
Their exceptional skillset is taught from one ranger to another at conclaves that are held at a secret location in the Shadowfell. The first venator is said to have been Malachai Thousand-Arrows, a legendary ranger who was exceptionally swift and learned to bend spirits to his will after he became obsessed with death as a result of losing his brother. He has been passing on his knowledge for generations now, only requiring his students to swear that they will never pass an opportunity to slay a demon. Where this hatred comes from, I'm sure is connected to his long-lost brother somehow.
The sky calls to the earth below, beckoning to the land. The wind whispers, screaming in the highest peaks and whispering in the quiet valleys below. You hear the voice hidden within the breeze, and it has become your constant companion. The soft caress of the air can be pleasant, but the furious tempest also carries the maddening sounds of the darkest places and the cries of the nightmares that dwell within. Rangers who follow your path reject the cruel grasp of the world beneath them, fighting against the wicked beasts and hellish things that lurk below. Your voice carries like the shout of a hurricane and your blades and arrows hiss as they cut the sky itself. You’ve chosen to embrace the breeze, calling upon it in your quest to venture beyond the earth. You’ve chosen to ascend, triumphant, as a windrunner.