Sawtooth

Cult of the Beaverkin

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History

Before Time

The Beavermen appeared, like the other Beastmen, during the Great Darkness. They were persecuted and hunted for their fur by many unscrupulous races and even today, they are the rarest and most furtive of the Beastmen. They were saved by the appearance of their great hero Sawtooth. He quested to obtain power over his environment and led his brethren to the mountain rivers and taught them to build unassailable refuges.

Since Time

The cult of Sawtooth has enabled the Beavers to survive comfortably in their wilderness environment, it serves no other purpose and even today, most common folk are unaware of the existence of the Beavers or their cult.

Life After Death

The Beavers all believe that they will follow Sawtooth to the Great River in the Sky and live in luxurious lodges. Sawtooth allows resurrection and Death Divint.

Runic Associations

The Beavers are the Beastmen found in Water. Some also ascribe to the Beavers the Runes of Plant, Stasis and Mastery, but none of these have been proven adequately.

Nature of Cult

The cult provides the Beavers with the skills and spells required to survive in their environment. Unlike all other Beastmen, the Beavers also revel in a degree of luxury as they have mastered their environment so well. This makes the typical Beaver a rather laid-back individual who dislikes discomfort and pain. Adventurers are very rare, the handful that do leave their homes do so for a variety of reasons, (usually destruction of their environment by invaders), and often join other cults. However, no beaver feels happy unless near a body of water large enough to swim in.

Particular Likes and Dislikes

The Beavers share the Water Rune's distaste for chaos and will not allow their rivers to become polluted with it, though they try to ignore chaos elsewhere. Neutral to most cults, they have been known to upset the Earth cults of Faerie by chopping Trees, Matar by flooding fields and damming streams and Neibelung for flooding mine entrances. But these are rare occurrences and little bloodshed has been known. They get on well with the non-chaos Beastmen cults, and as Baboons hate swimming, Zadok can be tolerated. However, there have been some vicious skirmishes with Banuril elves. Bagog, Klute, Engariel and Uriah are all hated. The other chaos cults are distrusted. Relations with other Water Rune cults are all good. Sawtooth is associated to Poseidon and Kraken; however, contact with Poseidon is very rare as Poseidon is a coastal cult and Sawtooth usually deep inland. Sawtooth and Kraken do not compete for food or living space and both have been known to fight chaos invading their rivers. Finally Azrael is associated as he is to so many Beastmen cults.

Organisation

Beavers are associated into clans, each occupying a river stretch which they will dam with logs and mud. They form villages of log huts either by the shallow lake formed or preferably on islets in the lake. Each family will both maintain a surface log cabin usually luxuriously fitted with wooden furniture of excellent workmanship and a second, well camouflaged house with an aquatic entrance in the middle of the lake. The latter can easily be mistaken for a small island, of which there are always many in any lake, some natural and some artificial. Some more outgoing Beaver communities trade timber for other goods from more sophisticated communities. There are some wild Beavers who have regressed to the point where they will not build the surface cabins, but only the aquatic ones.

Centres of Power and Holy Places

The only power that Sawtooth has is limited to the area where they conduct their logging and damming. Intruders interfering with their dams will be met with aggressively and preferably by surprise. There are no known Holy Places.

Holy Days and High Holy Days

The cult has a Holy Day on Waterday, Stasis Week. That in Sea Season is the High Holy Day. However, there are no ceremonies, each individual offering his own thanksgiving to Sawtooth in his own way.

Lay Membership

Open to all Beavers, (who are born into it anyway), and some individuals of other races who can demonstrate logging and Damming.

Lay Members can gain free training in Swimming and half price Listen, Spot Hidden and Logging and all 30% skills at full cost. They may learn half price Disruption and Protection; and free Detect Enemies. Lay Members may initiate when they have least 50% Logging.

Initiate Membership

Initiates are all dedicated to preserving the environment suitable for Beavers to live in. Initiates get free Swimming, Logging and Damming; half price Carpentry, Listen, Spot Hidden, Camouflage, Hide in Cover, Hide in Water and Move Quietly. All other skills, save those under Lay Membership, can be bought for full. The weapon skills of Bite, Battleaxe (1 and 2-H), Hatchet and Throwing Axe can be bought at half price, Great Axe for double cost, (and the trainee must get his own axe).

The cult teaches free Detect Enemies, Disruption and Protection; half price Bladesharp, Ironhand, Extinguish and Healing. The spells of Bludgeon, Darkwall, Fanaticism, Firearrow, Glamour, Lightwall, Mobility and Xenohealing are all unavailable form Sawtooth, but are not specifically banned. All other spells can be learnt at full cost, including the Matar spell Reaping which the Beavers use when chopping-down trees.

Initiates throw 3 points of POW to Sawtooth on Holy Days, and 5 on a High Holy Day. They are free to do as they please within the limitations on behaviour mentioned earlier. Most individuals prefer to remain in their village. Cultists may even leave their cult if they so wish; however if they want to rejoin they must undergo a lengthy proving process as well as renounce all other cult ties above Lay Level. Initiates may learn Light Crossbow at full cost and obtain such weapons from the Newtlings.

Runelord Membership

There is no ceremony involved in achieving Runelord, and no test, when an Initiates achieves the requirements for Runelordhood, he is raised to the status whether he wishes it or not and will probably be confirmed in it by a vision at the next Holy Day. The requirements are 15+ POW and 90% in a Cult Weapon Attack and Parry (any compatible combination, e.g. Bite Attack and Hatchet Parry), Logging, Damming, Camouflage and any other cult skill, (Swimming is assumed to be 90% already and cannot be counted). Benefits are as for any Runelord. Beavers may attune Iron or Tin, but will get none from the cult. Allied Spirits are always placed in water-voles. Runelords may not leave the cult.

Runepriesthood

Like Runelords, Runepriesthood is achieved upon attaining 18+ POW whether or not the individual desires this. They place their Allied Spirits in voles and gain all the normal benefits of their status. They may train STR, CON and DEX, and can train their skills to the limit of DEX×5%.

Runespell Compatibility

Runepriests of Sawtooth can use Small Undines as their elementals and the following Standard Runespells Dismiss Elemental I II & III, Divination, Divine Intervention, Mindlink, Multispell I II & III, Shield, Spell Teaching and Warding. They also get the following Cult Special Runespells.

One Point Spells

Alarm: Range: Self; Duration: Instant; Non-Stackable; Reusable
Beavers usually use the slap of their tails upon the water's surface as an alarm signal. If this spell is cast simultaneously, all Beavers and Sawtooth cultists on that river, including all tributaries upstream of the caster will hear the warning and perceive the direction as upstream/downstream and the approximate distance.

Gnaw: Range: 160m; Duration: 15 mins; Non-Stackable; Reusable
Acts like Truesword II, only affects the Bite Attack of a Beaver by doubling the damage done by its teeth, but not that from magic or DB.

Speak to Beasts: Range: 160m; Duration: 15 mins; Non-Stackable; Reusable
Allows the recipient to converse with all mammalian animals of INT less than or equal to 3, one per round. Oratory can be used to influence them.

Summon Ancestor: Range: 160m; Duration: 15 mins; Non-Stackable; Reusable
Summons a random spirit of the caster's ancestors from the Halls of the Dead, as per the Ancestral Summons Table.

Two Point Spells

Smite Dambuster: Range: Self; Duration: 15 mins; Non-Stackable; Reusable
When cast, enables the caster to fight as if he had Strength, Coordination and Vigour on, provided his opponent has tried to break a beaver dam, has attacked a member of the caster's clan unprovoked, is engaged in wanton destruction of trees, polluting the rivers or is a chaot.

Subservient Cult

Spirit of Reprisal

There is no real Spirit of Reprisal. Initiates are free to leave if they so wish, but almost never do. Runelevels are not allowed to leave, but the cult Spirit of Reprisal is unknown as no Runelevel Beaver has ever left!

Associate Cults

Azrael

The Beavers are another of the races that Azrael aided by his Spirit Spells. He offers the following spell to Sawtooth.

Summon Specific Ancestor: Range: 160m; Duration: 15 mins; Non-Stackable; Reusable; 2 pt
Must be stacked with Summon Ancestor. Summons a specific named ancestor of the caster's from Sawtooth's Great River.

Kraken

The Newtlings and Beavers get on together very well and in remembrance of the stand both races made against chaos, Kraken offers the following spell.

Kraken I: Range: 60m; Duration: 15 mins; Non-Stackable; Reusable; 1 pt
Converts a Small Undine into a large squid-like monster with eight tentacles capable of reaching 20m from the water. The Kraken's tentacles have hit points as arms and SIZ and STR 2D6+12 and CON 2D6+6. The Kraken will attack any non-Beaver, attempting to drag them into the water. Once in the water the victims will be helpless and subject to a bite of 2D8 plus DB. All attacks are at DEX×5%. A Kraken cannot leave the water, though it can be called to marine waters or even stagnant pools. These must be large enough to accommodate its bulk. If the Elemental Spell is dispelled or expires then the Kraken returns to water. If the Kraken is destroyed then the elemental spell remains usable, but the Kraken spell must be resacrificed for. Beavers dislike casting this spell in their home lake as the dislike slimy things. They do so only in extremis.

Poseidon

The Sea God befriended Sawtooth in his quests and gave him much aid. Poseidon offers his friend the following spell.

Riverwatch: Range: Horizon (or River's Edge); Duration: 1 voyage: Non-Stackable; Reusable; 2 pt
This spell costs 2 points for Sawtooth cultists. When cast, it automatically warns the caster if bad weather is approaching or enemies have sighted him or his refuge, or if the water around him is dangerous. Beavers often cast this spell upon their refuges and dams; in which case it is permanent, though of course it cannot be reused until it is removed from its previous locale.

Miscellaneous Notes

Cult Skills

Logging: Manipulation Skill; base: 5%; cost: 200/500/1200/EXP
A skill by which the user can find a suitable tree and cause it to fall in the direction desired when cut-through by Teeth or Axe. It also covers the ability to transport said logs by water, even into building small canals from the mainstream.

Damming: Knowledge Skill; base: 5%; cost: 400/800/1600/3200 Covers the construction of small dams of logs and clay across small waterways, and also the best location for such a dam.

Beavers

These creatures are the rarest of the Beastmen. They are large furry beings, brown in colour with typically rodent-like features (i.e. big-teeth). They tend to be lazy, though as they enjoy their way of life they will engage in logging quite happily.

Beavers have many strange habits, the strangest being that they have a fondness for a certain type of bark, Buzzbark, which they cure and smoke in large wooden hand made pipes which they fashion themselves. Beavers are vegetarians who eat young shoots and bark from logged trees, plus certain fruit and root nuts which they put into winter store. This can be supplemented by certain beetles and insects living beneath tree-bark. It is customary for a Beaver when he logs a tree to press into the soil three cones, nuts or fruit etc. from the logged tree, by this measure they avoid deforestation.

Starting Beaver Characters

Starting character Beavers will have Battleaxe, Hatchet and Throwing Axe at 30% plus bonuses and any one combination of attacks and Parries at 50% plus bonuses. They can also Bite at 50% plus bonuses for 1D8 plus damage bonus.

Their non-weapon skills are Swimming at 70% plus bonuses; Logging, Listen and Spot Hidden at 50% plus bonuses; and Damming, Camouflage, Carpentry, Hide in Cover, Breath Control and Move Quietly at 30% plus bonuses. In water, Beavers can Hide in Water at 50% plus bonuses and when doing so, look exactly like logs but can see and hear around them quite adequately, (c.f. Kraken).

They will know the spells of Detect Enemies, Disruption, Healing II and Protection II.

Beavermen will usually have a suit of clothes for surface use and like brightly coloured checked and striped shirts. They generally swim naked, no starting character will have any armour, but their thick fur counts as one point of armour. No Beaver can improve the skills of Evaluate Treasure, R/W, Climbing, Lock Picking and Riding above basic plus bonuses due to physiological and mental limitations caused by their bodies' shape and backwoods nature.