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Bartleby the badger

Large Awakened dire badger, Neutral (Good tendencies)

Type: Magical Beast

Str 24 Con 24 Dex 15 Int 11 Wis 12 Cha 12

Initiative : +2

Hit points : 113 (10d10+63)

Armor class ; 19 (+5 natural, +2 Dex, +3 magic, -1 size) or

24 (with chainmail barding and helmet)

Feats : Armor Proficiency (medium), Gape of the Serpent, Improved Grapple, Improved Disarm, Iron Will, Track

Saves : Fort +16, Reflex +11, Will +10

Skills :, Listen +15, Survival +11 (+15*), Intimidate +12, Spot +10, Swim +10, Climb +7, Jump +3

Bart's keen nose and badgery ears give him a +4 racial bonus to Listen and to any Survival check that involve his nose. This includes tracking by scent and sniffing out contraband or people hiding in wagons. Years of bodyguard and bouncer work has given him a lot of practice scaring off (intimidating) people. Bart's extra set of legs make him an unexpectedly good swimmer and let him climb reasonably well despite his short limbs, but he's particularly bad at jumping. Bart is a trained riding animal and knows how to carry and obey riders, though it's a skill he doesn't use much these days.

Special properties : Scent, Low-light vision (60')

Special attacks : Swallow Whole

Movement rate : 40' (all sixes), 20' (walking on hindpaws)

Attack : 1 claw +18 melee (1d6+9) or 1 bite +18 melee (1d8+9) or 1 grapple +26 melee

Full attack : 4 claws +18 melee (1d6+9), 1 bite +12 melee (1d8+5) or grapple at +26 melee

Magic items : Bracers of Attack +2 (+2 hit/damage with all natural attacks and protects him from touch-related effects when he hits undead or whatnot – does not protect him when he is hit), Earring of protection +3, Earring of Minor Energy Resistance (Fire), Brooch of Adaptation (counts as a necklace) clipped to his harness

Description: Bartleby is a dire badger who happens to be able to think and talk. He stands roughly three feet tall at his highest point, is about seven feet nose to rump not counting his tail, and weighs 600 pounds. Long fur on his flanks gives him an almost turtle-like appearance, but he is powerfully muscled under the fur. The claws on his forepaws are as long as a man's hand and his sharp-fanged muzzle can deliver a powerful bite. Bartleby almost always wears steel bracers on his forelegs and a leather harness with several pouches on the belly side. The harness serves as an attachment point to which his guard armor buckles. Recently a magical accident caused him to grow a middle set of legs, and he wears bracers on these too.

Bartleby speaks Common with a growling accent and despite grumpy badger stereotypes he is quite even tempered and friendly. Bartleby can speak and read at least two languages - Common and Hestan, plus some gnoll and some praka chitter-speak. He is an avid reader of smutty romances, mostly ones involving interspecies sex, and is fond of limericks, the dirtier the better.

Bartleby was originally a rent-a-mount owned by an exotic mount vendor. The animals were often rented by people who wanted to do more than ride them and so it was so surprise when he was eventually purchased by a hestan cat-woman who wanted him as both a bodyguard and a lover.

The wealthy hestan arranged for him to be Awakened and once he adjusted to his new intellect convinced him to undergo some further minor modifications that included opposable thumbs. Bartleby's long claws give him -2 on checks to manipulate objects but otherwise he can be assumed to have proper hands on his front four legs. He can stand up if he needs two or more hands, or use one paw while on all fours/sixes.

Eventually the hestan woman fell in love with a properly feline male, who did not want to share his wife with a feral badger whether it talked or not. They parted amicably and Bartleby went his own way, taking two magic items she'd given him when he served as her bodyguard.

Well known due to his travels with his owner, he served as a caravan guard for a time before settling in Verbobonc, where he spends his days working in the city guard. His steady personality and excellent sense of smell makes him a desirable person to have around during Guard investigations or stationed at a gate to sniff for smuggled items or persons. He is also sometimes called by the city fire watch since a strong, low slung badger with fire resistance is ideally suited to going into burning buildings and dragging people out. He works as a bouncer in a local bar on his off hours.

While working for the Guard he wears a custom fitted chainmail barding that protects his topside (since most attacks come from there when you are a short legged badger) without slowing him down and a steel helmet shaped to fit his badgery head. He also has a metal reenforced set of thick leather armor he wears when working as a fireman. He has been issued a Ring Of Fire Resistance by the fire watch and has recently acquired a Necklace of Adaptation in brooch form.

In his off time he works as a bouncer at a local bar, where he sleeps in a padded basket in a storeroom. He has enough money to easily rent a room but he has few possessions and no real need for one. Most disputes in the bar are settled simply by having the big badger growl at offenders.

He learned quite a lot from his hestan lover and after following a curious woman or two to her room developed a reputation as someone to seek out if you want a good time. In the absence of a she-badger he has developed a taste for the humanoid ladies - thankfully, not literally. Bart prefers female lovers but has been known to dally with the occasional male.

Combat:

Bartleby has spent years learning how to pull humanoids off their feet. While he can attack for serious damage with his claws and bite, his usual habit is to Grapple by biting into clothes or armor. The bite-grapple requires only a touch attack hit, ignoring most armor, and does not provoke an attack of opportunity due to his Improved Grapple feat. Once he does so he is assumed to have latched on with his bite (doing no damage or normal bite damage at his discretion) and has his four forepaws free to claw. On this first round of attack his bite is primary and his claws attack at -5, but after that, so long as he maintains the grapple, his claw attacks are considered primary. (Each successful round of grappling can cause bite damage if he chooses.)

Bartleby can use his claws to either attack his opponent while grappled, or use Improved Disarm to strip away anything dangerous they might have. Most opponents grabbed and disarmed by a giant badger promptly surrender and are taken into custody. If necessary he can claw someone to death but that is rarely needed. Given time (and up to four attempts per round) he can strip away weapons, armor and even clothing - carefully - with his claws. Once he has his prey disarmed he may consider eating them.

During his time as a rent-a-mount Bartleby was magically modified to neatly dispose of bodies and he is perfectly capable of swallowing an entire human whole. While grappling he can elect to make a further Grapple attack at the beginning of a round to begin swallowing someone. It takes one success to swallow a Tiny or smaller foe, two (over two rounds) to swallow a Small one and three (and three rounds) to swallow a Medium opponent. Losing an opposed Grapple check moves the swallowing process back one step or releases an opponent from his grasp if he hasn't started swallowing. More than one opponent has known the horror of going helpless and whole into his stomach.

Bartleby can eat two or even three human sized meals in succession and thanks to his Gape of the Serpent is capable of swallowing prey his own size, but this would take six successes using the method above. Even one person is quite a meal and he would fight at -4 to all attack rolls and AC when fed, -8 with two human meals and -12 with three or a same size meal. He can eat so much he can barely reach the ground with his paws, about which he jokes that he has “Stupid short legs.”

Naturally, Bartleby does not eat people unless they are disarmed and he is in a safe environment. One of his duties for the city is to dispose of troublemakers who are considered a resurrection risk. It's much easier to Raise an intact body than a digested one and he is kept in a guarded cell until the convict is too digested to easily recover.

Swallowed victims take 1d6+7 crushing damage and 8 points of acid damage a round until dead. It takes him about a day to digest and pass a human-sized meal, or longer for multiple or larger ones. He regurgitates any swallowed indigestible such as armor, and if attacked from within will also regurgitate his meal in just one round. (It's easier to get them out then get them in.)

Due to his fireman duties, during which he sometimes rescues people by swallowing them feetfirst and carrying them out with their face in his mouth, and due to his occasional service as the city body disposal, it is common knowledge that he can swallow a human sized creature whole. More than one person with that particular fetish has traded some flavor of sex for being partially swallowed, as Bart is well known to be trustworthy. It's the sort of activity you really want a trustworthy partner for, after all.

Bartleby is not an evil beast and the average person he eats (and digests) is a prisoner turned over to him by the Guard to be "badgered". The same term is used as a joke to describe a different activity. "Bart's off badgering that fox woman. I can hear her through the door."

Bartleby never seems to fly into a rage as normal dire badgers (or barbarians) do, but he can have a short temper when provoked in certain ways. The other way people tend to get eaten is if they do something like try to kick him in the balls while being grappled. Trying to head butt or punch his nose also tends to make him snap his jaws wide open, and once part of you is in his mouth there's nothing between you and a trip through his digestive tract but the hoped-for good nature of the badger.