Drenkai

“The good ones don’t talk during the fight. They talk before, or after. During — they’re somewhere you can’t follow.”

Drenkai, like all warriors, stand in the teeth of danger. They share the same brutal schooling in steel, armor, and pain — trained to hold a line, break a charge, and make their bodies the wall between their allies and whatever wants them dead. A Drenkai takes that training and turns it inward. They sharpen themselves the way a smith sharpens steel: with focus, with repetition, with a refusal to be anything less than exact.

Where other warriors lead or anchor, a Drenkai fights alone — even when surrounded. Their craft is the act itself: the read of an enemy’s stance, the half-step that turns a killing strike into a missed one, the cut that arrives a beat before the parry. Some are sworn to lords. Some are sellswords. Some walk the road with no companion but the blade on their back. None of that defines them. What defines a Drenkai is what happens when the violence starts — everything outside the fight falls away, and what remains is years of practice condensed into seconds of motion. The best of them aren’t terrifying because they’re strong. They’re terrifying because they’re correct.

Role & Identity

A front-line martial striker who fights as a discipline unto itself. The Drenkai is the singular combatant in a profession of versatile warriors — equally at home with a longsword, a polearm, a bow, or an empty hand, because their mastery isn’t in the weapon, it’s in themselves. As combat develops, they build Fervor through landed strikes, fueling Arts that bend the moment of a swing to their will. When Fervor peaks they enter Inner Power, a relentless state where their training surges to the surface and Arts come without cost. Outside the fight, the same hardness shows in the body and the bearing — a Drenkai does not break easily, and others can feel it.

Arts and the Drenkai’s design philosophy. Unlike other professions that select abilities from a catalog, every Drenkai learns the same Arts at the same levels. This is intentional — the Drenkai is meant to be the simplest of the warriors to play, focused on tactical decisions in the moment rather than character-building from menus. Customization comes through Perks, Paths, and the choices the player makes at the table.

Choose a Drenkai if you want to be the singular fighter at the table — building tempo, choosing the moment, and ending it in a few well-placed strikes.

Profession Table

Profession Group: Warrior · Hit Die: 1d8 · Trained DR: Guard (Ward added at level 10) · Skills: 3 · Profession Resource: Fervor

Linked Paths: Outrider, Deadeye, Nightmark, Bloodbound, Spellbreaker — all currently concept-stage only (name + theme, see /paths/), but confirmed as the intended Path options for this profession.

Arts

“Every line a master draws, she’s drawn ten thousand times. The line you see is the one that survived.”

You have refined your combat into a small set of techniques learned through repetition and tested in blood. These are your Arts — Fervor-fueled expressions of trained violence that bend the moment of a strike to your will.

You begin play knowing three Arts: Severing Cut, Flowing Step, and Iron Bearing. As you advance, you learn additional Arts at specific levels: Reading Strike at level 5, Cleaving Form at level 8, and Pressing Form at level 11. Arts are fixed — every Drenkai learns the same Arts at the same levels.

Invoking an Art. Whenever you take an Attack Action with a weapon, you may declare an Art before resolving the attack and spend its Fervor cost. The Art’s effect is part of that attack. You may invoke only one Art per attack. If the Attack Action does not result in a roll being made, the Fervor is not spent.

See /professions/warriors/drenkai/arts/ for the full description of each Art.

Veteran’s Bearing (Level 1)

“You walk far enough, sleep cold enough, eat thin enough — and after a while none of it touches you. That’s the trade.”

The training of a Drenkai isn’t only with the blade. The marches, the standing watches, the long nights in places no one should sleep, the duels that didn’t end clean — all of it leaves the body harder and the bearing steadier than it was. Others can feel it when you walk into a room.

• Hardened Frame. You gain Edge on Trials to resist exhaustion, harsh weather, sleep deprivation, forced marches, and similar physical privation.
• Steady Composure. You gain Edge on Trials to remain composed under pressure — to hold your word against threats, to face down intimidation, and to keep your head in tense confrontations.
• Felt Threat. You gain Edge on Menace Trials. The way you stand, the scars you carry, the calm in your eyes when violence is in the air — others recognize it without needing to be told.

Inner Power (Level 4)

“The first time you see one of them go quiet in the middle of a fight, you understand. It isn’t restraint. It’s everything else they were holding back.”

When your Fervor reaches the threshold, your training surges to the surface. The state is recognizable to anyone who has seen it: a stillness, a precision, an absence of wasted motion. Opponents who have seen it before do not forget. Those who haven’t, learn quickly.

Activating. When you take an Attack Action and have at least 2 Fervor, you may declare Inner Power as part of that attack. There is no AP or Fervor cost to activate.

Duration. At the end of each of your turns while Inner Power is active, lose 1 Fervor. Inner Power ends when your Fervor reaches 0. You may activate Inner Power again later in the same Moment if you reach the threshold a second time.

While Active:

• Free Arts. Arts cost no Fervor.
• Hardened Mind. You are considered trained in Mind DR. Add your Prowess to your Mind DR while Inner Power is active.
• Heroic Strikes. You may spend Hero Dice on weapon damage rolls, adding the result to the damage total. A Hero Die spent on a single attack’s Trial cannot also be spent on that same attack’s damage roll — each Hero Die contributes to one or the other, not both.

You do not gain Fervor from any source while Inner Power is active. Once Inner Power ends, Fervor begins building again at the usual rate.

Veteran’s Counter (Level 4)

“You teach yourself to read the miss. After enough fights, the body just answers it.”

When an enemy misses you with a weapon attack, you may spend 1 Hero Die to make a single weapon attack against them. This attack occurs immediately, before the missed attack’s turn resumes, and does not cost AP. You may use Veteran’s Counter no more than once per round.

The counter-attack uses whatever weapon you currently have ready — a melee strike against an attacker in reach, or a ranged shot against an attacker at distance.

Battle Flow (Level 7)

“You stop deciding which strike to make. You’re already inside the one that mattered.”

Your Inner Power has deepened into something less like a state and more like a current. While Inner Power is active, the first Attack Action you take each turn costs 1 less AP (minimum 0). This applies to any Attack Action — a basic attack, an attack invoking an Art, or any other — provided you were already in Inner Power at the start of that action. Activating Inner Power itself does not benefit from Battle Flow.

Master’s Reflex (Level 10)

“She reads magic in the air the way she reads steel in a swing — and answers it the same way.”

Your training has honed your ability to react to threats that exceed the conventional. Spells that should consume you find you stepping outside their reach; effects that should overwhelm you slide past without taking hold.

You are now considered trained in Ward DR. Add your Prowess to your Ward DR.

Design note, preserved: Master’s Counter is held as an alternative for future testing if Ward training feels too passive at this level — “Once per Moment, when a creature damages you with a weapon attack, you may spend 1 Hero Die to immediately make a single weapon attack against them. This attack automatically hits, and you roll for Success Bands normally.”

Hidden Form (Level 12, Capstone)

“There are songs about her. Most are wrong. The ones that are right don’t get sung.”

Beneath the Arts that every Drenkai learns lie deeper techniques — forms passed in fragments between masters, written nowhere, taught only after years of proving worth. A Drenkai who has reached the height of their craft has mastered two: the Fury for a single enemy who must not survive the strike, and the Storm for a circle of enemies who must not survive the moment.

Once per session, as your Attack Action, you may unleash a Hidden Form of your choice. A Hidden Form refreshes when you complete a Recovery.

Swallow’s Fury. “The first time you see it, you think she’s drawing the blade. By the time you look again, the swordwork is finished.” Make a single weapon attack against one creature within your weapon’s range. The attack automatically hits and is treated as a Devastating Success for damage purposes, dealing 4 additional weapon damage dice (5 total).

Swallow’s Storm. “She walks into the circle and the circle is no longer there.” Make one weapon attack against each creature within your weapon’s reach (melee) or within 30 feet (ranged), up to your Prowess in total targets. Each attack automatically hits and is treated as a Strong Success, dealing 1 additional weapon damage die (2 total) per attack.

Design Notes for Future Work

Preserved from the source rather than resolved here — none of these are settled:

1. Profession name. Drenkai is confirmed current everywhere else in this migration, but the source document itself still lists alternates held for testing: Veshken, Verith, Harkai.
2. Re-sim needed against current numbers — Master’s Reflex’s survivability impact and the capstone’s burst profile haven’t been validated.
3. Master’s Counter held as an L10 alternative if Master’s Reflex feels thin in play.
4. Pressing Form + Battle Flow + Hidden Form interaction at L12 during Inner Power needs a sim check for whether it overshoots the intended “once-per-session burst” range.
5. Naming consistency between working-name Arts (Severing Cut) and mythologized Hidden Forms (Swallow’s Fury) is intentional per the source — worth tracking whether it reads as intentional or inconsistent in play.
6. Veteran’s Bearing as a possible Warrior group baseline — Hardened Frame and Steady Composure might belong on a shared Warriors trait rather than Drenkai specifically, leaving Felt Threat as the differentiator. Worth revisiting once Harrower and Marshal are both fully migrated.
7. Swallow’s Storm’s target cap (Prowess, max 4 at L12) may need to uncap or scale up if playtesting shows it’s too tight against larger groups.