Wulfolk Whitewood

Hello everyone! It's high time to break down the pie-loving, snoring and jolly cleric that is Wulfolk Whitewood. Strap in, 'cause it's a long one!

Wulfolk Whitewood grew up in one of the sixteen Taralu clans in the jungles of the Mwangi. As a young dwarf, he made the long pilgrimage to Taninshroud to see the burial site of the Dragon That Fell, Tanin. Awestricken by the beauty and majesty of the dragon, he returned home, dedicated to spreading the word of another majestic dragon, namely the Waybringer, Apsu, the goodly God of Dragons.

When he returned to clan Dukembe, he immediately started setting up a temple and gathering followers, but it did not turn out to be a simple task, as the majority of the clan were dedicated followers of Ranginori, the Duke of Thunder. He continued this work for over 200 years, before fate saw him separated from the only other dwarf in the clan as dedicated to Apsu as himself, his wife Hildegarde.

He spent almost 6 months searching for her, before turning to the Magaambya to further his craft and learn what he needs to to find her again.

Build:

Now we get to the fun stuff. As most people who know me would attest to, I’m an over-analyzer. Since these first choices could shape a lot of what he would become by the end (if he survives) I suffered from a pretty severe case of analysis paralysis. As Jeremy mentioned min-maxing in his post, I'll weigh in with what my view is. On the scale of min-maxiness, I would put myself at a 7 or 8, with a 10 being someone who plays a fighter dual-wielding flickmaces on a large mount every time, so I'm still pretty high on the scale. I like getting the vibe of a character and what is important to that character, but then getting as much out of that character as I can, or just making that character as effective as possible. Now, the actual build.

Wulfolk is, of course, a warpriest, which is the perfect choice for anyone that wants to spread out their stats as much as possible. I always imagined Wully as a mix between Happy and Doc in Snow White, so I wanted a high wisdom, even though the spellcasting of warpriests suffer at higher levels compared to other spellcasters, since it helps with the medicine skill. Charisma was the natural second choice, sadly ending up at only a 14 because of the inherent charisma-flaw in dwarves. Then came strength, and then a split between con and dex, with int being the dump stat at 10.

Just like all other casters, Clerics don't get a class feat at first level, but the warpriest doctrine gives me shield block, which will be very useful.

Most of the stuff for level 2 was pretty easy. Since his wisdom is pretty high and his intelligence is tanked as a cleric, the natural choice for the free archetype was druid over wizard, and thanks to his connections with the chicken Gunnar, his order is Animal. This grants him training in Athletics and Nature and he learns the Druidic language and is bound by the anathema of being a druid as well as his order. For a time I thought I could use a steel shield, but turns out I can't. Just imagine it's a wooden shield until I realize I'm wrong. He also gets two Primal cantrips, but the beautiful thing about Clerics and Druids is they have access to the entire spell list, so he can change those every day.

The branches he picked were also pretty straight-forward. He would prefer the Uzunjati thanks to his love of storytelling and woodworking, but he will protect his new friends with everything he can, so the Tempest-Sun Mages was the natural choice for the primary branch, slotting the Uzunjati as the secondary.

The skill feat was also an easy one! He is first and foremost a healer, so seeing as how clutch battle medicine can be, that was his pick.

Now we come to the hard choice. The one feat I had my eye on from the very beginning was Rapid Response. It would give Wully a reaction to use if one of his allies is brought down to 0 hit points to stride once with a +10-foot bonus to his speed. I wanted to keep this choice a secret to have this big reveal if someone ever went down that Wully, this slow-moving, deliberate person, just sprints across the battlefield, faster than you’ve ever seen him, towards this ally. But, since we do not have a dedicated tank in this party, Wully also sees it as his duty to wade into the fray so he can put himself between the party and the enemies, and in order to do that, a shield is very important. And a crappy little buckler just won’t do the trick at that point. A lot can be said about the shield cantrip, but one damage block, and it’s gone for the encounter, losing out on the AC buff, which is more important in my mind. The other thing about using a shield is the fact that you cannot use battle medicine or cast three-action spells without a free hand for the material component. The emblazon armament feat would take care of this for the cleric spells, but not for the druid spells or the battle medicine, and dropping/sheathing either the staff or the shield all the time is just not wise, as far as action-economy goes. So even though I will be missing out on two cleric feats I was really excited about, I cannot choose anything else than the Bastion Dedication for my level 2 class feat, because at level 6 it gives him access to Nimble Shield hand, which will make the shield hand count as a free hand for basically everything except holding a weapon.

And then we get to level 3. A lot can be said for the even levels with class, archetype AND skill feat, but the odd levels are just so glorious with all the class specific things you get. The second warpriest doctrine gives me proficiency with martial weapons, which isn't really important since he is pretty set with his new animal staff, ka-ching! The skill increase goes into medicine, and since his base speed is only 20 feet as a dwarf, I'm also picking up fleet as my general feat. Then, lastly, there's the second-level spells! Not only does this boost my daily heal spells, the animal staff also gets another charge for free each day. The tricky part is going to be choosing which spells to prepare each day...

So, that was a lot of words for just a few choices, but it’s one of the things I really enjoy about this game! If you have any tips, questions or feedback, please email us at gmbreakoutpod@gmail.com!