Player's Guide to the Aegean Bonus Feature - Jocasta the Blade Barrier!

With the release of the Player's Guide to the Aegean for BASH Fantasy, BASH players have just about everything they need to play in the awesome Swords of Kos Fantasy Campaign Setting!

Men and Monsters of the Aegean gave you about 50 new monsters tooled for BASH, along with adventure hooks and full color maps of the Island of Kos, the Aegean Sea, and of the Mediterranean Sea, all keyed to the aforementioned Adventure Hooks.

But you want more! Don't you, BASHer?

I am here to help. I worked out a whole bunch of characters for the Swords of Kos Fantasy Campaign setting using the BASH Fantasy rules. Here is the first of them, who also happens to be the iconic character mentioned in the Antaean section of the Player's Guide.

What are Antaeans? Read on for an abbreviated version of the Antaean from The Player's Guide to the Aegean:

Antaeans are giantish humanoids seven to eight feet in height, with powerful bodies weighing 400 to 600 lbs. They are descended from Antaeus, an exceptional earth giant from the land of Gintu, a Hill Giant Kingdom south of the Kingdom of Tyre, who wrestled Heracles and lost.

Mainly found in Libya, there are Antaeans In Aigyptos and elsewhere, though they are fewer on islands or at sea. Antaeans prefer to maintain their connection to Gaia by remaining in contact with the earth, and few take to sailing. Antaeans tend to be bronze or grey of skin with dark-hair and eyes of bronze, silver, or copper. The size and musculature of most Antaeans make them adept at martial pursuits, but they are just as good as farmers, employing a subtle earth magic to increase the fecundity of the land under their care. Antaean towns on the North African coast are common stops for grain ships bold enough to brave a region known for Titanic domination. The Antaean town militia here drill regularly, and are a match for the majority of incursions by disorganized titanspawn.

The Player's Guide to the Aegean has more about Antaeans, their culture, religious beliefs, personality traits, etc. along with some new weapon stats for Staff Sliings, incendiary pots to throw from them.

On to Jocasta the Blade Barrier, whose BASH Fantasy character sheet you can download by clicking on the link just under the image for this post):

The child who would grow up to become Jocasta the Blade-Barrier was taken captive by raiding gnoll slavers. Because of her demeanor and size even as a youngling, she was sold to Roman procuritores, and trained to fight in the arena.

Though far from her native soil, she felt the power of the earth waiting for her. In a desperate fight in the arena she called upon that power, and an Earth Spirit, Darra, answered, warning her against the attacks of her foes, helping her foresee his weakness. Channeling Darra and her rage, she became a legendary combatant, and bought her own freedom.

Returning to her home village in Libya, she found it in ruins, wiped out a decade previous. After tracking down the gnolls responsible, she left and has wandered since. She cannot stand the notion of slavery, and spends much of her time and money freeing slaves, especially those who suffer most in their servitude.

Jocasta stands well over 7 feet tall, and cuts an imposing figure skin as bronzed as the scales of her armor. She moves with preternatural grace for one so large, almost as if she knows what will happen before it occurs. Indeed, she has an equally eldritch ability to be in the right, or wrong, place at precisely the correct moment, whether it is to save an ally with an timely parry, to deliver the killing blow in a  fight, or to encounter precisely the person that will advance her agenda – freeing her own or other folk from slavery, or to protect them from it.

Jocasta is at her best in the center of a fight, slashing about with her greatsword, but she can also deal significant damage with her staff sling. She also makes a fine bodyguard for a rescuee or someone who cannot withstand the rigors of combat – like a mage.

Some say she is a mage herself, or one who speaks with spirits. In truth, she has been seen more than once whispering to herself in Terran, but only a shaman could tell that it was to her friend and guardian spirit, Darra, that she truly spoke.

As written, Jocasta is well suited to being a Player Character, a champion of her people, or anyone who is being maltreated, enslave, what have you. But she could easily have been hardened by her experience in the arena, and become a wanton slayer, who cared only for the adulation of the crowd and her own cruel pleasures and comforts.

Enter: Jocasta the Blade Breaker, an vicious NPC villain, with which to torment your own PCs in the Swords of Kos setting.

Stay tuned for more Bonus Content!

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