Furyborn

The gate-watch told him to put on a mail shirt if he meant to stand with us. He laughed once, not at them, but at the thought. Then he set the shirt down very carefully, as if it were a sleeping child, and stepped into the breach bare to the waist with a round shield and a hand-axe. When the surge opened in him the air around his ribs turned grainy, like heat above black stone. The first crawler struck him hard enough to bend the shield. He struck back harder. By the end his skin was cut in seven places and none of the cuts were bleeding the way cuts should bleed. I heard the old guard say, very quietly, let the conduit breathe.

-- recovered fragment, wall-watch account, Northwater breach, thaw season

What a Furyborn is

A Furyborn opens their own body to the miasma and survives the opening. The surge is not anger, though anger can call it. It is not courage, though courage helps carry it. It is a controlled breach in the living conduit: tissue, breath, blood, and nerve accepting more Wind pressure than ordinary bodies can bear.

This is why armor matters. Heavy covering smothers the conduit. A shield is a tool; it moves with the arm and leaves the body breathing. A breastplate is a lid. Settlement-folk who do not understand Furyborn custom sometimes mistake the bare torso for pride or savagery. Veteran gate-captains know better. They leave the body open because the body is the engine.

Many Furyborn live on the road because the road gives them work. They break charges, stand in breaches, escort caravans, settle blood-debts, and carry the kind of danger a settlement wants pointed away from its own walls. The best of them are not wild. They are disciplined around a dangerous internal weather.

The surge also behaves differently in a body that is partly augmented. Cybernetic components interrupt the conduit; the substrate routes around them, through the seams between organic and mechanical tissue. Some augmented Furyborn describe the surge as more localized, others as sharper in the unaugmented sections. None have reported the augmentation as an obstacle that sealed the conduit. It changes the shape of the opening; it does not close it.

Chassis

Class features

The Furyborn's class features are the load-bearing infrastructure of every Furyborn, regardless of subclass. They are the mechanics of channeling through open tissue: the miasm surge that runs from L1, the unarmored body that makes the conduit possible, the weapon mastery that gives the open body something to spend its pressure on. All of this is present before the subclass arrives at L3. The subclass sharpens what the conduit has already built. The miasm surge is a Substrate-powered effect -- it shuts off in dead zones and in Antimagic Field.

Feature ladder

Major class features

• Miasm Surge (L1). As a bonus action, open the conduit -- provided you are not wearing heavy armor or medium armor. While the surge is active: you have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage; Strength-based weapon attacks and unarmed strikes deal bonus damage equal to the Surge Dmg column; you have advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws; you cannot maintain concentration on any psionic effect and cannot channel protocols. The surge lasts until the end of your next turn. Extend it each round by making an attack roll against an enemy, forcing an enemy to make a saving throw, or taking a bonus action. Maximum duration: 10 minutes. The surge ends early if you don heavy or medium armor or gain the Incapacitated condition. Uses per day as shown in the Surges column; regain one use on a short rest, all uses on a long rest. The surge is a Substrate-powered effect -- it stops in dead zones and is suppressed by Antimagic Field.
• Unarmored Defense (L1). While wearing no armor at all, your base Armor Class equals 10 + your DEX modifier + your CON modifier. Shields are permitted. The conduit runs best through unobstructed tissue; the body has learned to carry the Miasm density as a kind of standing defense.
• Weapon Mastery (L1). Two melee weapons begin trained in their mastery property (Cleave, Graze, Nick, Push, Sap, Slow, Topple, Vex). Gain mastery with one additional weapon at L4, and one more at L9 (four total). After each long rest you may exchange one mastery choice for another. A Furyborn in surge does not merely swing harder; the conduit reads the weight and edge of the weapon and delivers pressure at the instant the weapon is already asking for it.
• Danger Sense (L2). You have advantage on Dexterity saving throws while not Incapacitated. The tissue that has been opened by the surge, once opened and closed enough times, begins to register threat before the conscious mind does. This reads like heightened sensitivity in the conduit-tissue: the body flinches before the reasoning self knows there is anything to flinch from.
• Reckless Attack (L2). On your first attack roll of your turn, you may commit fully to the surge's momentum. Doing so grants advantage on Strength-based attack rolls until the start of your next turn, but attack rolls against you also have advantage until then. The conduit pushes; the defense opens. The calculus is even only if the target goes down first.
• Surge Sense (L3). You gain proficiency in one additional skill from the Furyborn skill list. In addition, while your surge is active, you can route the conduit's pressure through whatever the task demands: whenever you make an ability check using Acrobatics, Intimidation, Perception, Stealth, or Survival, you may make it as a Strength check instead. The Miasm does not only amplify force; it amplifies every physical and instinctive act the body turns it toward.
• Extra Attack (L5). When you take the Attack action, you can attack twice. A Furyborn in surge does not slow down between exchanges; the conduit makes the second attack feel as natural as the first.
• Fast Movement (L5). Your speed increases by 10 feet while you are not wearing heavy or medium armor. The open conduit carries more than damage: the tissue is alive at a level that keeps the body moving faster than the legs alone would manage.
• Feral Read (L7). Your instincts are so conditioned by exposure to surge-density Miasm that you have advantage on Initiative rolls. The local Miasm shifts when violence is about to happen; a Furyborn long enough in the work reads the shift as naturally as they read weather.
• Surge-Pounce (L7). As part of the bonus action you take to open the surge, you can move up to half your speed. The conduit does not wait. It arrives at the target.
• Brutal Strike (L9). If you use Reckless Attack, you can forgo any advantage on one Strength-based attack roll of your choice on your turn. The chosen attack roll must not have disadvantage. If it hits, the target takes an extra 1d10 damage of the weapon's type, and you can apply one Brutal Strike effect: Forceful Blow (push the target 15 feet away; you may then move up to half your speed toward it without provoking opportunity attacks) or Hamstring Blow (reduce the target's speed by 15 feet until the start of your next turn; only the most recent Hamstring Blow applies to a given target). At L13, two additional effects become available: Staggering Blow (the target has disadvantage on its next saving throw and cannot make opportunity attacks until the start of your next turn) and Sundering Blow (the next attack roll against the target before the start of your next turn gains a +5 bonus; a target can benefit from only one Sundering Blow at a time). At L17, the extra damage of Brutal Strike increases to 2d10, and you may apply two different Brutal Strike effects on the same strike.
• Relentless Surge (L11). If you drop to 0 hit points while your surge is active and do not die outright, you may make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw. On a success your hit points change to a number equal to twice your Furyborn level. Each use of this feature after the first increases the DC by 5; a short or long rest resets it to 10. The surge refuses to release. The body is not finished.
• Persistent Surge (L15). When you roll Initiative you may regain all expended surge uses. Once you regain uses this way you cannot do so again until you finish a long rest. In addition, the surge now runs for 10 minutes without needing to be extended round by round. It ends early only if you fall Unconscious (not merely Incapacitated) or don heavy or medium armor. The channel runs deeper now. It does not check whether you are still fighting. It knows.
• Indomitable Might (L18). If your total for a Strength check or Strength saving throw is less than your Strength score, you can use your Strength score in place of the total. The body's conduit has been worked long enough that the biological fact of the muscle outpaces whatever the dice suggest.
• Epic Boon (L19). Choose one Epic Boon from Book 4. Boon of Irresistible Offense is recommended.
• Conduit Apex (L20). Your Strength and Constitution each increase by 4, to a maximum of 25. In addition, your surge uses are now unlimited. The conduit does not close. The body has become the instrument the years of opening and carrying the surge were always building toward.

Subclasses

At L3 a Furyborn's surge takes a practiced shape: the Reaver who spends the surge in motion and ruin, the Tempest who turns the open conduit against anyone who reaches for the Wind, or the Outlander who survives by letting the road teach the body what the walls never could.

Reaver

He did not charge first. That was the part the songs get wrong. He waited until the raiders had already committed themselves to the ditch, until their front rank had lost the ground under them and the second rank could not see why. Then he went through them sideways. I saw three shields turn at once and none turn far enough. He was gone by the time the bodies understood they had fallen.

-- recovered fragment, ditch-line survivor, Redgrass Road

Identity

The Reaver is the Furyborn who treats the surge as forward motion. They do not merely endure pressure; they return it. A Reaver enters the moment when a line buckles, a door gives, a beast overextends, or a frightened band forgets its spacing. Then they make the moment permanent.

Most communities know Reavers by reputation before they see one. The stories are usually louder than the person. A practiced Reaver is often quiet before violence and exhausted after it. During the surge they are not larger than life. They are life overpressurized until everything nearby must make room.

The Reaver's full-channel frenzy is the defining commitment: the conduit opened all the way, every exchange, until the field is clear or the body has nothing left to spend. The cost is real. A Reaver who frenzies does not walk away fresh. They walk away. That is the measure they use.

Subclass features

L3: Full-Channel Frenzy. When you open the surge, you may choose to enter a full-channel frenzy. For the duration of the surge you can make one additional melee weapon attack as a bonus action on each of your turns. When the surge ends, you suffer one level of Exhaustion. The Reaver in frenzy does not stop counting until there is nothing left to count.

L6: Channel Overwhelms Cognition. While your surge is active, you have immunity to the Charmed and Frightened conditions. If you are Charmed or Frightened when you open the surge, the condition ends on you immediately. The open conduit does not give a hostile signal anywhere to land. There is too much Miasm moving through the tissue for a foreign pattern to settle.

L10: Reflex-Strike. When a creature within 5 feet of you deals damage to you, you can use your reaction to make one melee weapon attack against that creature using a weapon or unarmed strike. The Reaver accounts for things immediately. The body's response is faster than the decision to respond.

L14: Surge Radiates Outward. As a bonus action, the surge's pressure projects outward in a 30-foot emanation. Each creature of your choice in that area must make a Wisdom saving throw (DC = 8 + your Strength modifier + your proficiency bonus). On a failed save, a creature has the Frightened condition for 1 minute. At the end of each of the Frightened creature's turns, it repeats the saving throw, ending the effect on itself on a success. Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest -- unless you expend one surge use (no action required) to restore it. The open conduit is not quiet even when the Reaver is still. The Miasm around them carries the pressure. Most living things recognize the density and want to be elsewhere.

Tempest

The Changed had his hands raised and the pattern was forming above them -- the Blue kind of thickening, like water going heavy before it boils. We all saw it. I had seen what that kind of thickening could do and I was already moving for the wall. She was at the far edge of the hall and she had not moved. Then she opened the surge. The air between them went grainy and the thickening collapsed inward through his own hands. He made a sound I had not heard from a person before and sat down where he stood. She crossed the distance before he could begin again. Later I asked the gate-captain what she was called. Wind-born the wrong way, he said. I did not understand this for another year.

-- recovered fragment, a clerk's account, Eastgate crossing, thaw season

Identity

The Tempest is the Furyborn who noticed what the open conduit does to nearby channeling -- and made it the center of their practice.

When the surge opens, the body becomes a pressure differential in the surrounding Miasm. More miasma moves through one surging body in a second than most channelers shape in an hour. That volume bleeds outward into the Miasm as turbulence. A shaped protocol running through the nearby Miasm hits this turbulence and destabilizes: the pattern fails, backlashes, or exits through the caster's own channel as something sharp and unwelcome.

A Tempest accumulates tricks -- small workings that survive the turbulence or function in the relative quiet outside the surge. They learn to hold a Wind slot ready when a channeler begins opening a pattern, and to discharge that slot into the existing disturbance at the right moment. The caster either holds through the feedback and pays for it, or does not hold and loses the protocol entirely. Outside the surge, the interference is precise. Inside it, the interference is a hammer.

At L6, a Tempest who strikes during the surge can drive a Wind slot through the open conduit into the blow. The formed pattern does not survive the pressure -- but the energy does, translated into the color of whatever Wind is highest in the surrounding Miasm. The Tempest does not choose the color. The region does.

At L14, after a career spent treating the Wind as an adversary, the Tempest chooses a color. One spectrum, one direction, one deliberate channel shaped through the open conduit. The storm does not stop. They have learned to work in its eye.

Subclass features

L3: Tricks. You learn two tricks of your choice. You learn one additional trick at L6, L10, and L14.

L3: Wind Slots. You carry Wind slots from L3 forward. Until you gain Eye of the Storm at L14, these slots cannot be used to cast protocols -- they fuel Tempestuous Extremes, Conduit Burst, and The Turn only. When a Tempest feature requires expending a Wind slot, you may not expend a slot of higher tier than the maximum your Furyborn level grants, regardless of slots available from other classes. You recover all expended Wind slots on a long rest.

L3: Tempestuous Extremes. When a creature you can see within 60 feet of you expends a Wind slot to begin a protocol, you can use your reaction to expend a Wind slot of your own. The creature takes damage equal to a number of d6 equal to the expended slot's tier, and must make a Constitution saving throw (DC = 10 + twice the expended slot's tier). If you are not surging, the creature makes this save at advantage. If you are surging, the creature makes this save at disadvantage. On a failed save the protocol is cancelled and the creature takes full damage. On a successful save the protocol completes and the creature takes half damage. Outside the surge, the counter is controlled and deliberate. Inside it, the open conduit floods the surrounding Miasm with enough pressure that any shaped channel nearby hits the turbulence whether the Tempest intends it or not.

L6: Conduit Burst. When you are surging and hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you can expend a Wind slot to drive additional force through the open conduit. The attack deals extra damage equal to 1d6 per tier of the slot expended, typed to the highest Wind color currently dominant in your region. You do not choose the color; the Miasm does. This is the Tempest's first spectrum output -- not a protocol, not a channel, but the raw pressure of the open conduit taking the color of what surrounds it.

L10: The Turn. Once per short rest, when a creature you can see within 60 feet of you expends a Wind slot to begin a protocol, you can use your reaction to expend a Wind slot of your own. The creature must succeed on a Constitution saving throw (DC = 10 + twice the expended slot's tier). If you are not surging, the creature makes this save at advantage. If you are surging, the creature makes this save at disadvantage. On a failed save, you choose the target or targets of the protocol as if you were the caster; the creature takes no damage. On a successful save, the protocol completes as intended. The Turn does not cancel the protocol. It steers it. The caster watches what they opened go somewhere they did not point it.

L14: Eye of the Storm. Choose one spectrum color. You can now use your Wind slots to cast protocols of that color. You learn two protocols of your choice from your chosen color, both of 1st or 2nd tier. Whenever you gain a Furyborn level after 14th, you may replace one known protocol with another from your chosen color of any tier you can currently access. You can access protocols up to 3rd tier as soon as you hold 3rd-tier Wind slots; up to 4th tier once you hold 4th-tier slots (L19). Your Wind save DC for these protocols is 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Constitution modifier, and Constitution is your channeling stat for Eye of the Storm protocols. This is the first protocol you have ever shaped deliberately through an open conduit. The color you choose is the thing you spent your career fighting. The surge is still there. The channel runs inside it.

Outlander

She came back after thirty-two days beyond the west markers with no pack, one boot, and a strip of crawler hide tied around her ribs. The children asked what she had eaten. She said: what I found. The elders asked what she had learned. She said: where not to sleep. Then she lay down beside the cook-fire and woke two days later asking who had watered her knife.

-- recovered fragment, hearth-tally, Low Cairn Freehold

Identity

The Outlander is the Furyborn shaped by exposure. Not every Furyborn belongs to a warband or wall. Some spend years crossing bad ground, sleeping where the Wind is wrong, drinking from sources that make other travelers sick, and learning which pain means stop and which pain means continue.

An Outlander survives the world by letting the surge answer more than combat. Cold, hunger, poison, pursuit, bad weather, and the long fear between settlements all become problems the body can meet. Other Furyborn are breach weapons. The Outlander is the one who reaches the breach alive.

Subclass features

Outlander subclass mechanics are pending design. The identity and vignette above are authoritative.