I had to pivot builds a bit because the original one that I had lined up is better saved for after the Player Core 2's full release so that I can put together a proper build. In the meantime, I've had this idea for a while though this might be a rather niche character, but I've always really liked Marrow since the days of playing Marvel vs Capcom over at my friend's place. As always, this build is conceptualized entirely in a vacuum, with choices made in my best attempt to fit the character. These choice may not hold up in a campaign with different themes and should be adjusted accordingly.
Naturally, you can check out a video on the character over here on YouTube.
Let's get into the build for Marrow from Marvel Comics!
MARROW
CHARACTER Sarah Rushman
SOURCE X-Men – Marvel Comics
BUILD GOALS
o Sarah was a young mutant raised among the outcast Morlocks who was brought to a separate dimension by a mutant social Darwinist where she was taught survival of the fittest
o Her rearing and survival in this harsh realm hardened her and led to her place on a team of mutant terrorists
o She was defeated in a battle with Storm, only surviving because of her possession of a second heart, and even briefly joined the X-Men before bouncing around several shadowy government agencies
o During the events of M-Day, she was depowered and left to use knives as her primary weapons though her body retained some bone spikes
o Marrow’s core power is a hyper-accelerated metabolism that is most obviously expressed in accelerated bone growth
o She can control the growth, shape, and toughness of her bone structure, typically growing them into weapons such as blades, spikes, and claws
o She can remove and throw these bone blades
o A healing factor is also part of her power set, letting her recover from the wounds of removing her bones
o She is an expert hand-to-hand combatant, specialized in street fighting
Summary of Goals: Marrow’s unique power allows her to grow her skeletal structure into weapons, favoring blades and spikes that she can wield in melee or throw as ranged weapons. Her savagery and enhanced metabolism make her a fierce opponent that is difficult to put down.
LEVEL 1
Ancestry & Heritage: Quillcoat Shisk
o Ability Boosts & Flaws: +Strength, +Intelligence
o Ancestry Feat: Spine Stabber
Background: Insurgent
o Ability Boosts: +Strength, +Dexterity
o Skill Increase: Deception (trained), Warfare Lore (trained)
o Background Feat: Lengthy Diversion
Class & Subclass: Ruffian Rogue
o Class Ability Boost: +Strength
o Skill Increase: Acrobatics (trained), Arcana (trained), Athletics (trained), Intimidation (trained), Medicine (trained), Nature (trained), Society (trained), Stealth (trained), Survival (trained), Thievery (trained)
o Class Feat: You’re Next
o Skill Feat: Cat Fall
Details
o Ability Boosts: +Strength, +Constitution, +Wisdom, +Charisma (Str +4, Dex +1, Con +1, Int +1, Wis +1, Cha +1)
Feels weird to use the shisk twice in a single year after never using it previously, but a generous reinterpretation of the shisk’s quills as bone spikes is a great way to represent Marrow. Spine Stabber will let her make attacks with those quills, as she does with the bones jutting from her. Given her rearing and the role she’s played several times as a mutant terrorist, the insurgent background felt like a good fit for her even if she doesn’t get a lot of use out of its Deception training and skill feat. The rogue class further plays into the concept while also fitting with her more underhanded tactics. However, Marrow is a ferocious fighter, which fits a bit better with the ruffian racket over any of the other options. Since her quills from Spine Stabber are finesse, she’ll be able to sneak attack others with them even if she isn’t actually using her Dexterity to make the attack roll. When she brings a foe low, she can use You’re Next to menace the next foe, a good reference to some of her more manic melees. The Cat Fall skill feat mainly serves as a callout to the classic superhero landings even if she isn’t always the most heroic.
LEVEL 2
o Class Feat: Bone Spikes//Strong Arm
o Skill Feat: Intimidating Prowess
o Skill Increase: Intimidation (expert)
o Gear: lesser bristling spines
LEVEL 3
o General Feat: Toughness
o Skill Feat: Quick Jump
o Skill Increase: Athletics (expert)
o Gear: handwraps of mighty blows (+1), lesser bristling spines, psychopomp mask
LEVEL 4
o Class Feat: Awakened Power – Bone Spikes//Dread Striker
o Skill Feat: Powerful Leap
o Skill Increase: Acrobatics (expert)
o Gear: 3, handwraps of mighty blows (+1), necklace of knives, lesser bristling spines
LEVEL 5
o Ability Boosts: +Strength, +Constitution, +Wisdom, +Charisma (Str +4.5, Dex +1, Con +2, Int +1, Wis +2, Cha +2)
o Ancestry Feat: Renewing Quills
o Skill Feat: Streetwise
o Skill Increase: Stealth (expert)
o Gear: handwraps of mighty blows (+1 striking), moderate bristling spines, thrower’s bandolier (+1), necklace of knives, lesser bristling spines, psychopomp mask
For the first time ever, I wanted to branch out a bit, even further than an archetype, and take a deviant feat. Deviant feats are particularly great for representing the mutants – they feel almost intended to represent superpowers – and Bone Spikes in particular fit Marrow so well. However, since these are unarmed attacks that lack agile or finesse, she can’t actually sneak attack with them. They are super flavorful and become even moreso when she gains the Awakened Power to grant them reach. With that being the case, I could totally accept skipping these feats and taking Strong Arm, since Marrow is known for throwing her bone spikes, and Dread Striker, which simply greatly enhances her capabilities. She’ll increase her Intimidation and grab Intimidating Prowess so that she doesn’t have to rely on her speech to terrifying others, grab Quick Jump and Powerful Leap for some extra and alternate mobility, and then Streetwise, which will mainly reference her time spent among the Morlocks, who live beneath the streets and have their ears to the ground in the truest sense of the phrase. Marrow’s heightened metabolism makes her very difficult to put down – she even survived having one of her hearts ripped out – so Toughness felt like a must-have as her general feat. While I didn’t mention it initially, the Barbed Quills reactions becomes more usable with Renewing Quills and this can actually be used to represent her Towering Spine special attack from Marvel vs. Capcom, which is actually the first place I encountered Marrow and feel in love with her.
LEVEL 6
o Class Feat: Barbarian Dedication – Fury
o Skill Feat: Terrifying Resistance
o Skill Increase: Crafting (trained), Society (expert)
o Gear: +1 breastplate, handwraps of mighty blows (+1 striking), thrower’s bandolier (+1 striking), moderate bristling spines, goz mask, necklace of knives
LEVEL 7
o General Feat: Fast Recovery
o Skill Feat: Battle Cry
o Skill Increase: Intimidation (master)
o Gear: swallow-spike armor rune, +1 breastplate, fearsome weapon rune, handwraps of mighty blows (+1 striking), moderate bristling spines, thrower’s bandolier (+1)
LEVEL 8
o Class Feat: Basic Fury – Raging Intimidation
o Skill Feat: Terrified Retreat, Intimidating Glare
o Skill Increase: Athletics (master)
o Gear: greater bristling spines, ring of the ram, swallow-spike armor rune, +1 breastplate, handwraps of mighty blows (+1 striking), thrower’s bandolier (+1 striking)
LEVEL 9
o Ancestry Feat: Piercing Quills
o Skill Feat: Swift Sneak
o Skill Increase: Stealth (master)
o Gear: +1 resilient breastplate, greater bristling spines, boots of bounding, swallow-spike armor rune, thrower’s bandolier (+1 striking), handwraps of mighty blows (+1 striking)
LEVEL 10
o Ability Boosts: +Strength, +Constitution, +Wisdom, +Charisma (Str +5, Dex +1, Con +3, Int +1, Wis +3, Cha +3)
o Class Feat: Barbarian Resiliency
o Skill Feat: Eyes of the City
o Skill Increase: Society (master)
o Gear: bloodknuckles, +1 resilient breastplate, boots of bounding, greater bristling spines, thrower’s bandolier (+1 striking), swallow-spike armor rune
A key facet of Marrow’s character is her anger, which becomes especially apparent in the X-Force series that she was a part of. To represent this, she uses the Barbarian Dedication and follows it up with Raging Intimidation to make use of her class features. She also uses Barbarian Resiliency to increase her health, akin to Toughness helping to sell her heightened metabolism and sheer survivability with Fast Recovery also helping in that regard. Piercing Quills enhances the effectiveness of Marrow’s crits and between this and the ruffian racket, if she can get a crit, she can leave a target stunned and bleeding. She takes up a wealth of more Intimidation skill feats, and manages to slip in a Swift Sneak to help her get into position before a fight starts. She takes Eyes of the City for the same reasons that she took Streetwise, using the Morlocks and other street folk to track down others.
LEVEL 11
o General Feat: Fleet
o Skill Feat: Kip Up
o Skill Increase: Acrobatics (master)
o Gear: bloodknuckles (+2 striking), armbands of athleticism, bracers of missile deflection (greater), +1 resilient breastplate, greater bristling spines, thrower’s bandolier (+1 striking)
LEVEL 12
o Class Feat: Sly Striker
o Skill Feat: Too Angry to Die
o Skill Increase: Thievery (expert)
o Gear: +2 resilient breastplate, bloodknuckles (+2 striking), thrower’s bandolier (+2 striking), armbands of athleticism, decaying weapon rune, greater bristling spines
LEVEL 13
o Ancestry Feat: Quill Spray
o Skill Feat: Combat Climber
o Skill Increase: Thievery (master)
o Gear: bloodknuckles (+2 greater striking), +2 resilient breastplate, greater ash gown, thrower’s bandolier (+2 striking), armbands of athleticism, bracers of missile deflection (greater)
LEVEL 14
o Class Feat: Bloody Debilitation
o Skill Feat: Underground Network
o Skill Increase: Survival (expert)
o Gear: propulsive boots, bloodknuckles (+2 greater striking), thrower’s bandolier (+2 greater striking), +2 resilient breastplate, greater demon mask, warcaller’s chime of dread
LEVEL 15
o Ability Boosts: +Strength, +Constitution, +Dexterity, +Intelligence (Str +5.5, Dex +2, Con +4, Int +2, Wis +3, Cha +3)
o General Feat: Diehard
o Skill Feat: Wall Jump, Scare to Death
o Skill Increase: Intimidation (legendary)
o Gear: +2 greater resilient niyahaat, propulsive boots, greater ring of the ram, bloodknuckles (+2 greater striking), thrower’s bandolier (+2 striking), greater ash gown
Marrow can take Sly Striker so that she can dish out damage even when she can’t get an enemy properly disadvantaged as she does tend to be a bit of a loner and wild card that doesn’t always fight well alongside others. If she can get a sneak attack, she can inflict a Bloody Debilitation based on the sharpness of bones. Now this build does somewhat miss out on Marrow’s use of ranged bone weapons, which could likely be most easily represented with knives and other thrown weapons in a thrower’s bandolier. However, she has another option in this regard in the form of Quill Spray, allowing her to launch a spray of bones spikes, which may actually more closely resemble her expy from X-Men: Evolution, Spyke. Fleet lets her get in the fighter faster while Diehard will hopefully allow her to survive harrowing situations – such as having a heart torn out. I particularly like Combat Climber for her because I feel like I’ve seen her using her bone spikes to stab into a wall and use them to climb up a surface. Underground Network builds out of Streetwise and may represent her reaching out to specific Morlocks or other similar contacts. Scare to Death comes to her automatically thanks to her dip into barbarian with its Raging Intimidation and Wall Jump gives her other options to scale between walls and the like.
LEVEL 16
o Class Feat: High-Speed Regeneration//Advanced Fury – Renewed Vigor
o Skill Feat: Cloud Jump
o Skill Increase: Athletics (legendary)
o Gear: fossil fragment (triceratops frill), +2 greater resilient niyahaat, fossil fragment – petrified wood, propulsive boots, bloodknuckles (+2 greater striking), thrower’s bandolier (+2 greater striking)
LEVEL 17
o Ancestry Feat: Bristle
o Skill Feat: Underwater Marauder
o Skill Increase: Society (legendary)
o Gear: bloodknuckles (+3 greater striking), fossil fragment (triceratops frill), dragonscale amulet, +2 greater resilient niyahaat, propulsive boots, thrower’s bandolier (+2 greater striking)
LEVEL 18
o Class Feat: Juggernaut’s Fortitude
o Skill Feat: Say That Again
o Skill Increase: Acrobatics (legendary)
o Gear: bracers of hammers, bloodknuckles (+3 greater striking), thrower’s bandolier (+3 greater striking), fossil fragment (triceratops frill), +2 greater resilient niyahaat, fossil fragment – petrified wood
LEVEL 19
o General Feat: Numb to Death
o Skill Feat: Legendary Sneak
o Skill Increase: Stealth (legendary)
o Gear: +3 greater resilient niyahaat, bracers of hammers, thrower’s bandolier (+3 greater striking), bloodknuckles (+3 greater striking), fossil fragment (triceratops frill), dragonscale amulet
LEVEL 20
o Ability Boosts: +Strength, +Dexterity, +Wisdom, +Charisma (Str +6, Dex +3, Con +4, Int +2, Wis +4, Cha +4)
o Class Feat: Impossible Striker
o Skill Feat: Quick Climb
o Skill Increase: Thievery (legendary)
o Gear: bloodknuckles (+3 major striking), +3 greater resilient niyahaat, greater dread armor rune, bracers of hammers, thrower’s bandolier (+3 greater striking), quickstrike weapon rune
Representing her heightened metabolism and its healing is either High-Speed Regeneration, delving deeper into her deviant side, or going barbarian with Renewed Vigor, which does have the added benefit of increasing her Hit Points thanks to Barbarian Resiliency. Similar to this is Juggernaut’s Fortitude, making her a master in Fortitude and getting her a bit more HP from the aforementioned feat. She caps off her class feats with Impossible Striker, allowing her to dish out sneak attack damage with every single attack, entirely removing her need to rely on getting targets off-guard. Bristle isn’t particularly indicative of anything she does but it will give her a tiny damage boost on her quills when she uses it and she can also use her bones to protect herself, which makes it a decent option. Numb to Death is story-based with Marrow, reflecting the time one of her hearts was ripped from her body, but if your GM isn’t down for it or you don’t meet the prerequisites, Incredible Initiative is always a good option for rogues so that they can hopefully pull off surprise attack. She explores a number of Athletics skill feats this block to round out her build since, with Marrow’s powerset, she was more reliant on her own physicality compared to some of her companions. As a rogue, she will take up Legendary Sneak as well and also has Say That Again as Marrow can be rather abrasive and confrontational.
FREE ARCHETYPE SUGGESTIONS: In a free archetype game, by sticking with the Barbarian Dedication, Marrow can actually explore her rogue and deviant options more fully. She’s mainly looking to pick up barbarian feats with her Advanced Fury and of the options, Raging Thrower will let her play into a little bit of that throwing feature she has. Swipe would take advantage of the sweep trait from her deviant Bone Spikes, Pain Tolerance feels appropriate for her given some of her backstory, and Attack of Opportunity, which will likely be renamed to Reactive Strike with PC2, lets her savage opponents. She can use freed up feats to take High-Speed Regeneration earlier, and alongside Renewed Vigor, and potentially power it up with Awakened Power. With her rogue feats, I’d take up some of the options to enhance her ranged combat capability such as Quick Draw, Bullseye, and Far Throw. She could also take Head Stomp since she mainly uses unarmed attacks anyway.
BUILD CONCLUSION
Marrow is a quillcoat shisk ruffian rogue with the insurgent background to represent her rearing and indoctrination into a group of mutant terrorists. Diehard, Toughness, and Numb to Death all serve to sell Marrow’s sheer survivability, most prominently demonstrated when Storm tore out her heart. Her main power is her hyper-accelerated metabolism, which is at least partially represented by just her ancestry. The bone quills of the shisk stand in for the bones that she grows out of her body and she learns to weaponize them through Spine Stabber and Piercing Quills while she can throw them, as she is wont to do, with Quill Spray. Dipping into deviant abilities fantastically represents her nature as a mutant while representing this power through Bones Spikes, Awakened Power to give them reach, and High-Speed Regeneration. While she can’t sneak attack with these Bone Spikes, they are handy for representing the range of bone weapons she can create. Her healing factor is further represented by her Renewed Vigor while the barbarian archetype in general is excellent for representing her descent into savagery that was more prominent in the X-Force comic. In short, Marrow uses an arsenal of bones thanks to her Spine Stabber, Bone Spikes, and feats that enhance them while she can launch them with Quill Spray. She stays in the fight, landing underhanded blows, with help from her Toughness, Barbarian Resiliency, and High-Speed Regeneration.
Bearing blades and bolts of bone, this barbarian babe blasts into battle with ballistic bravado and bountiful belligerence.
Let me know what you think and what other builds you would like to see.
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Have a fantastic Friday!
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