Zarnak
Zarnak was working the door at the Blue Moon Alehouse the night everything started — hired muscle for a venue that occasionally needed someone large and unpleasant standing near the entrance. He is not a subtle thief. He is the kind of rogue who operates through intimidation, opportunism, and the practical application of force when subtler options have already failed.
He fights with maces rather than daggers. The Bloodfury Savage style he has developed over years of brutal work channels pure Strength through club and mace strikes, and his Sneak Attack hits harder for it. In a crowd, in an alley, or in a dungeon corridor, Zarnak creates problems for enemies before they can create them for him — moving first, hitting hard, and making sure the first blow carries the full weight of what he is.
He wants money, power, and the kind of respect that comes from people understanding what he is capable of. He is not a villain, but he is ethically flexible in ways that occasionally make the rest of the party uncomfortable. He is also, consistently, one of the most effective members of the group when things go sideways — which they do often enough that this matters.
His primary weapon is the Rimebite Mace +4, a cold iron mace forged around a heart of elemental frost. Pale vapor rolls off the nail-studded head at all times, freezing water and frosting stone on contact. It deals cold damage instead of its normal type, and a critical hit immobilizes its target until the end of Zarnak’s next turn. The catch is that a natural 1 immobilizes him instead — and without the right protection, the mace bleeds cold back into anyone who holds it, dealing ongoing damage to its own wielder and reducing their defenses. The mace does not care who it hurts.
The Frostbinder’s Brisk Glove solves that problem. A black suede glove lined with alchemical insulation and rune-bound silver thread, it was built specifically for this kind of weapon — something that kills you if you hold it wrong. When worn with the mace, every self-inflicted penalty disappears. Zarnak takes none of the cold bleedback, keeps his AC intact, and gains resist 10 cold and fire on top of it. Together the two items function as a matched set: individually the mace is reckless, the glove is defensive, but paired they create a fighter who can hold something most people would drop and make it do exactly what it was designed to do.
- Bloodfury Savage — Paragon path that marks targets with debilitating wounds, making enemies easier to hit and harder for them to retaliate
- Ruthless Ruffian — Uses Strength for attack and damage with clubs and maces, turning every Sneak Attack into bone-crushing devastation
- Sneak Attack 5d6 — Extra damage once per round whenever combat advantage is in play, which for Zarnak is almost always
- First Strike — Gains combat advantage against all enemies who have not yet acted at the start of each encounter
- Half-Orc Furious Assault — Once per encounter, adds 1d8 bonus damage to any attack that hits
- Rimebite Mace +4 / Frostbinder's Brisk Glove — a matched paragon-tier set: the mace deals cold instead of its normal damage type, immobilizes on a natural 20, and punishes its wielder with cold damage and an AC penalty unless the glove is worn. The glove neutralizes every penalty and turns the pair into something significantly more dangerous.
- Languages: Common, Giant