Animal Lord

Every kind of animal has a lord of its own, from owls and foxes to horses, hundreds in all, dwelling in the plane of beasts. Each can wear a roughly 6-foot humanoid shape with subtle hints of its beast, or the beast's own shape: the tiger lord as a sleek tiger, the badger lord as a badger.

In a real sense they are gods to their creatures. Slay a lord's body and its essence simply reawakens in another animal of its kind, far away and possibly on another plane.

A lord fights as its beast would: predators attack and grazers run, so the wolf lord is far bolder than the rabbit lord. Some act as guardians, like the camel lord, who runs with a fleeing herd and turns savage to cover its escape.

Shared powers: a constant telepathy or ESP that makes the lord impossible to surprise or deceive, and a danger sense close to precognition, with a 90% chance of a bad feeling in mortal peril and a 25% chance of knowing exactly what is coming. All lords can use anti-magic shell 3 times a day, plane shift, teleport, and charm person on any one person fond of the lord's animal. Charm effects never work on them, nor do compulsions such as geas. Three times a day a lord can call 2-12 animals of its kind, always successfully, and it enjoys whatever keen senses its animal has, like the hawk lord's sharp eyes. The four lords below serve as models for the rest.

Cat Lord: As a human she is lithe and dark-haired, her green eyes slit-pupiled; as a cat, a mighty black panther with burning red eyes. Human-shaped she strikes twice per round with a long sword of wounding and throws ten darts +2 at +3 to hit for Dexterity. As a cat she claws twice for 1d4 and bites for 1d10, raking with both hind claws for 1d4 each if both forepaws hit. She guards felines across the Inner and Outer Planes, appearing when humans drive cats from their lands and seizing command of endangered prides, killing the old leader if need be. Cat lovers see a beauty of Charisma 22; the indifferent, an intriguing person of Charisma 10; cat-haters, a menacing, repellent figure, also Charisma 10. She is neither good nor evil, merely uninterested in human affairs.

Hawk Lord: A striking, noble woman or a huge white-marked hawk of immense wingspan. Human-shaped she is the weakest of the four, THAC0 20 with no weapon proficiency, but casts charm person seven times a day. As a hawk she claws for 1d6 and pecks for 1d4, but prefers a stoop from 100 feet or higher: no beak, but each claw gains +2 to hit and deals 2d6. Unusually, she likes humans and often walks the fields among them. She appears often in the Upper Planes and on the Prime Material when hawks are threatened or displaced.

Lizard Lord: A haughty man with the beaded, jewel-like hide of a gila monster, or a giant gila monster or komodo dragon. Human-shaped he relies on a hypnotic gaze rather than weapons: meeting it requires a save vs. spell at -3 or the victim falls open to his suggestions. As a lizard he bites for 2d6; a natural 20 doubles the damage and traps the victim in his jaws for normal bite damage each round until it escapes or dies, and blunt weapons cannot hurt him. The most aloof lord, he is usually torpid and ignores all but reptiles; only catastrophe wakes him, and then his vengeance is relentless.

Wolf Lord: More human-looking than most, a teenage boy with keen, wolfish features and bright, clever eyes, or a gray wolf leading vast packs. Weak in human form, he always changes to fight, though as a boy he carries a dagger whose poison never runs dry in his hand (class E, injected, immediate, death/20). As a wolf he bites twice per round for 2d6 and is immune to nonmagical weapons. Even as a boy he is sly, crafty and sometimes cruel.

Animal lords are amoral rather than wicked, tending their creatures' daily business and ignoring the wider world. A stray visitor is more often helped on its way than left to die, mostly to be rid of it, yet otherwise a lord can be savage and uncaring. There are no animal politics.

Nature rules their will. The rabbit lord hunts men for wrecking rabbit lands, but he does not mourn a rabbit taken by a fox. That is simply how nature works.