Monster Monday - Stormblade Duelist

A breeze stirred across the serene stream, lifting leaves and petals to swirl about the warrior who kneeled upon the arched bridge. His eyes were closed, his stillness so complete that one might mistake him for dead. Dressed only in simple robes, he wore a scabbard at his with a blade resting inside it. In his hands was a simple flute from which a gentle tune whispered but as he felt the hair rustle his hair, he gently placed the instrument on the surface before him. He waited a second more and than, in a motion too fast for the human eye to follow, he erupted into action. A sandaled foot stepped forward as silver flashed, his blade erupting from its scabbard. In the same motion, flowing like a stream, his sword returned to its scabbard with a soft click as he returned to his kneeling position. As his knees touched upon the bridge, the fluttering leaves suddenly split and dropped to the ground before him. The wind stilled as he picked up the flute once more, continuing the tune that he had been playing upon it.

Illustration by Agri Karuniawan. From Legend of the Five Rings

A student of the sword, this superb samurai strikes like a storm, sweeping straight through saboteurs in a startling show of speed and skill that is certain to leave such saps severely shocked.

Somewhat in-line with the Ani-May theme going on over on the Full Build Friday side of things, I’m building an NPC inspired by practitioners of iaido and iaijutsu. This is a combat style or art based around drawing and striking with a katana in a single, flowing motion, which may even include sheathing the blade. I have labeled this NPC as a ‘Stormblade’ both to make it easier to drop the concept into any setting and in reference to their blades striking like lightning. As another reference, the stormblade duelist uses level 7 almost purely as a nod to the Kurosawa classic – The Seven Samurai. It’s also because there seemed to be a lack of level 7 NPCs in the Archives of Nethys. As for the actual design, a major component of the stormblade duelist is using a high attack with its katana as well as a bit of a soldier road map.

A major part of the stormblade’s entire design is its Reactive Strike, sticking with the soldier design aspects and playing into the reflexes of the iaijutsu style – but it doesn’t quite hit the mark. To that end, it’ll need the Gathering Storm Stance. For functionality’s sake, this allows the duelist to sheath its blade without provoking reactions but more importantly, it sets up the duelist to trigger Reactive Strike when another foe attempts to attack it and also draw its blade as part of doing so. This really sells the iaijutsu aspect to the character and to really demonstrate the preparedness of the duelist to make this Strike, it gets a +2 bonus on the attack. This brings it up to an extreme attack bonus, which is handy for the deadly trait on its katana…

…as well as its Flow Like Water action. With Reactive Strike eating up its reactions, this has to be designed as a free action and reflects the stormblade managing a perfect strike, achieving the entire purpose of its martial pursuits. This allows it to complete that natural flow and resheathe its blade – which helps set it in place to potentially unleash another one. This can be dangerous, especially if the GM can start chaining critical hits, but even for this extreme attack power, the stormblade duelist can still be a bit fragile. Aiding it in this effort is another ability that is somewhat reliant upon critical hits, its Cut Through the Rain (you may have noticed a fully intentional theme in regards to the names of its abilities at this point). The temporary Hit Points this provides is meant to be in-line with what regeneration is capable of, but it is obviously much more limited as it requires an action to use in the first place and it also requires a critical hit to be recharged. I think this balances it out and increases the stormblade’s survivability by a good margin.

For some more offensive capabilities, and to help its action economy since it will typically have to spend an action every round for its Gathering Storm Stance, it has the likes of Split the Sky. I know there’s some anime scenes that resemble this, but this is also inspired by the likes of samurai films, particularly Sanjuro. Aside from adding some mobility into the stormblade’s kit, it also offers some extra attack power. After all, if it was only a Stride and Strike, it wouldn’t be worth it. However, this initial Strike leaves behind a wound so fine that it doesn’t even bleed. Or, at least, not at first. At the end of the target’s next turn, their wound finally opens up in a spray of blood represented by the two dice of weapon damage. This means that it’s entirely possible for some poor sap to take more damage on their turn than outside of it. And once the duelist has drawn the blood of a creature, it can use Cleansing Rain. I was wondering about using this ability in the first place because while I liked it conceptually, a high DC ability that can make it harder for creatures to attack it but provokes Reactive Strike to clear it, it felt a little dishonorable, which didn’t quite mesh with my concept of the stormblade. However, my test subjects convinced me to keep it in as they felt it was a fun ability. Its design is based off of the rumor that samurais couldn’t sheath a dirtied blade, so this is the duelist cleaning their blade while taking advantage of the circumstances.

This is another one of those designs that I might return to someday – it’s a shame that I couldn’t build a stormblade with a shocking or thundering weapon. Aside from that, it might be cool to see what ideas I can explore with this archetype at a higher level. I’m not sure too much would change, but I think it’d be fun to make a ‘Stormblade Tempest’ or something of the sort.

Pathfinder 2e:

Blue's D&D 5e:

ENCOUNTER HOOKS

A Passing Storm: A bandit leader that has run afoul of the heroes, or is being hunted by them, has managed to recruit a stormblade duelist as a bodyguard. Whether a ronin sworn to a disgraced noble or a loyal but mercenary bodyguard, the duelist stands between the heroes and their quarry. This means that the heroes will have to go through or somehow get around the stormblade to get to their target. In the case that the stormblade is an older warrior, his fight with promising adventurers might awaken a fresh fervor in him.

Crossing Blades and Paths: In a more friendly and slightly more easily implantable encounter, a stormblade duelist might block the heroes path. Still in training, he seeks to pit himself against capable opponents and recognizes the heroes as such. He might request an actual, proper duel or simply seek to face the heroes in open combat to test and improve himself. Regardless of the result of the encounter, he might provide the heroes with healing items or offer them lodging for the evening.

If you have the opportunity, I'd appreciate you checking out the video on the stormblade or even the fight against it, which had some interesting characters. If you're interested in joining the discussion on what creatures/builds I'm working on or just discussing your own homebrew works, check out our Discord! If you want to get some teasers or help us get to our yet unlisted milestones for extra content, check out the Twitter.

Have a monstrous Monday!