Base Requirements

• Races: Any
• Sub-Classes: Any
• Ability Requirements: none
• Alignments: Any
• Starting Cash: by class

Weapon Proficiencies

• Weapon Slots: By class
• Bonus Weapon Proficiencies: none
• Required Weapon Proficiencies: none
• Allowed Weapons: By class
• Allowed Armors: By class

Non-Weapon Proficiencies:

• Non-weapon Slots: By class
• Available Categories: By Class, plus Pastoral
• Bonus Non-weapon Proficiencies: Fire-building, Local History, Agriculture, Animal Lore
• Required Proficiencies: none
• Recommended Proficiencies: Any Pastoral Proficiencies.
• Forbidden Proficiencies: All Academic Proficiencies, All Social Proficiencies, and All Sorcerous Proficiencies.

Overview: The Peasant Hero is the “local boy done good,” the home-town warrior who fights and adventures to the delight of the people in his home area. The Peasant Hero is the most common sort of adventurer found wandering the land; every village has one or has had one within living memory.

Description: A Peasant Hero typically wears dirty but durable clothing, often supplemented by cloth wrappings in place of gloves and shoes. He is constantly filthy, has poor hygiene, and works with callused, weather-beaten hands. He never wears armor while working unless he knows of a local threat: giant beetles, giant ants, ankhegs, wild dogs, or other predators. Any armor he has is roughly made from leather or hides. Weapons often double as tools. In short, a peasant hero looks the same as a normal peasant, though he is usually larger, faster, or stronger than the norm, making great deeds easier.

Role-Playing: In the campaign, the Peasant Hero is the fellow who won’t forget that his roots are in the country and in the soil. He can be a rebel against the crown in lands where the peasants are especially oppressed; he can be the farmboy who becomes a mighty general; he can be the noble’s child (secretly raised by peasants) who grows up to fulfill an ancient prophecy; but in every case, he remembers his origins and strives to make things better for his family and home community.

A peasant hero could be a farmer, shepherd, hunter, fisher, or minor craftsman. Until he became a hero, his main priority in life was to get through it day by day. Everyone can claim to be his master except for beggars or convicts, and the peasant hero has no polite skills such as etiquette, heraldry, or foreign languages. The episode leading a peasant to become a hero can be played out at the start of the campaign, or else assumed to have occurred in the recent past.

The Peasant Hero devotes himself to the needs of the common man. If he’s part of an adventuring party, he won’t support any plans which endanger or exploit the peasants or serfs, and will try to recommend plans which advantage them. He’ll insist that treasures be shared with the locals of the area where the treasure was found. In a greedy or tight-fisted party, the party might refuse his requests, which doesn’t mean the peasant has to attack them or steal from them…but this will inevitably result in the peasant hero becoming disillusioned with the party.

Special Abilities:

• When in his homeland, the Peasant Hero will always be given food and shelter at no charge from his fellow commoners. This courtesy extends to the Peasant Hero’s companions, as long as he vouches for them. The Peasant Hero does not receive this benefit in lands other than his own, but he always receives a +2 reaction modifier from peasants in any culture.
• Unless it is known that the Peasant Hero has hurt people from his own community, he’ll always find people to put him up, hide him and companions from the law, supply them with food and drink and what little weaponry can be scraped together (usually daggers and farm implements), and even provide them with helpers—a number of earnest 1st-level youths¹ equal to his level who want to grow up to be like their hero.

Special Disadvantages:

• When purchasing items at the start of the game, the peasant hero may buy one item costing a maximum of 15 gp, and the rest of the items purchased must cost 10 gp or less. Any unspent money over 3gp is lost.
• Since the Peasant Hero is looked upon as a patron and hero by the people from his home, they will frequently come to him for help. Whenever the village is losing people to nocturnal predators, whenever a village overlord turns out to be a dangerous tyrant, whenever a local citizen is jailed and tried for something he didn’t do, the citizens turn to the Peasant Hero for help. And if he turns them away, he loses their respect and earns a –2 reaction from all of the peasants in the land until he is once again in his home community’s good graces.
• If the peasant strikes it rich while adventuring, many of his friends and neighbors may be after him to share the wealth. Some may bring false (or true!) charges against him, asking payment for past misdeeds. Others plead blood ties for loans or gifts. Beggars are after him at all hours.

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Notes:

¹ These youths may be of any class (decided by the DM), but are typically Fighters, Thieves, or an NPC class such as Blacksmith or Guide.

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