Warden Beast

Each warden beast stands for one broad group of ordinary animals found on the plane of beasts, such as bears, wolves, deer, birds, lizards or insects, leading, protecting and multiplying its kind, and every group has many wardens. Creatures with magical powers, or anything else that would not belong on that plane, have none, so basilisks, chimeras and dragons have no wardens.

A warden looks like a slightly larger, flawless specimen of its animal, graceful and strong, and one look into its eyes reveals its intelligence and wisdom. It can talk with any creature and always senses the true feelings of those around it.

Wardens shun battle unless their group is predatory, in which case they hunt to eat just as their charges do. They fight with the same claws, fangs, kicks and blows as their animals but add +2 to every damage roll, and their attacks can harm creatures that need magic weapons of up to +2 to hit. A warden has at least 6 HD; if its animal, or the largest member of its group, already has 6 or more, the warden has 3 HD beyond that. So a bear warden, topping the polar bear by three, has 11+8 HD, and an elephant warden has 14.

Once per round, at will and at 10th level, a warden can use entangle, protection from evil, animal friendship, detect snares and pits, or animal summoning I. It also has plant growth three times a day, animal growth and commune with nature once a day each, and cure light wounds once a day on any one creature.

Bound to all of nature, a warden is 90% likely to notice any major event within 5 miles of its home, and it can reach every animal in that radius at a primal level to make them flee, swarm, calm down or take some other simple action. It saves this for real disasters such as a forest fire, never to save its own skin, and never endangers its charges for its own ends. Once a day, a cry in true extremity has a 35% chance of bringing the animal lord of its group to help.

One noted naturalist placed wardens midway along nature's spectrum, between the animal lords and plain animals, and guessed they are an outgrowth of the plane's own power: independent of the powers who dwell there, both humble beasts and pure planar energy, divine and animal at once. Unless their charges are threatened, wardens simply behave like the animals they represent. They seldom deal with one another and rarely need to coordinate, but no warden ever hunts another.

Wardens embody their ecosystems. Though they live on a good plane, they are neutral, acting for their animals' welfare rather than any greater good, and they greet outsiders as their animals would, shyly or fiercely. Never evil, they still show little mercy or compassion. They eat what their animals eat and can breed with other wardens, animal lords or ordinary animals, always producing wardens. Time does not touch them, and they live until slain.