“I will slay them all, each and every one. While I suffer in the depths of the earth, forced to grub like worms for food and live shoulder to shoulder with the filthy fish-folk, mind flayers, and countless other threats, they cavort in the warm sun, free of worries, free of fear. I say, no more! The fire of my hate will never be quenched as long as at least one elf breathes the clean air of the world above.”

—Dak Falshae, kinslayer

Though the ancient conflict that rent the elves and the drow asunder has long passed into antiquity, neither race has forgotten. Each side nurses old grudges and hatreds, refusing to set aside their differences. The two races exist in a state of war, with each side launching forays against the other. There are avengers aplenty on the side of the surface elves, but few compare to the ferocity of the kinslayer, a hunter whose entire existence is defined by his vows.

BECOMING A KINSLAYER

Drow despise surface elves; thus, any drow who make the solemn vow to destroy their kin can enter this class. But the life of the kinslayer is hard, and only those with incredible stamina and dedication can hope to awaken the ancient hate that drives the class. Drow rangers often take levels in kinslayer, and among the more savage groups, drow barbarians might similarly commit their lives to vengeance. Few others have the burning desire to make such an unholy pact with the Queen of Spiders.

PLAYING A KINSLAYER

You hate them—all of them. You place the blame for your people’s fate squarely on the elves’ shoulders. They are weak, decadent, and effete, and their existence is an affront to you. They are a scourge, an obstacle that prevents your people’s return to the surface. When you spoke the unspeakable vow to commit genocide, you set the course for your life. Your mission is clear: The elves must be destroyed.

Combat

When confronted with your enemies, don’t hold back. You feed off the fires of vengeance that burn within you, and abandon yourself to the beast within. Using your rage to boost your fighting attributes, you fling yourself at your foes with little regard for your own safety, interspersing your attacks with smites and shameful strikes. Should an elf manage to injure you, you merely become more inflamed with hate.

ith experience, you learn that not every elf you meet should die immediately. You come to appreciate caution. You can alter your features to match theirs, and so can slip in among them to more easily destroy them. Armed with this knowledge, you can return and paint their forests with their blood, savoring their expressions when they feel firsthand the heavy weight of Lolth’s curse.

Advancement

The only thing you need to become a kinslayer is a deep and abiding hatred of elves. This contempt could be directed at those elves on the surface, or possibly toward elves of your own kind. Your loathing for your kin drives you to speak the forbidden words, making the unforgivable promise to the Spider Queen that you will not rest until every elf is dead.

As you gain levels, you develop terrifying abilities that augment your brutal tactics, but that also tantalize you with the ability to blend in with your enemies. You do not see this power as an opportunity to understand them, but as a means to ruin them.

You should invest in feats that build upon the class features granted by your chosen path. Feats such as Extend RageCW and Extra RageCW boost your rage abilities and maximize the carnage you create, while Chosen Foe and Intimidating Strike thematically reflect your dedication to your mission. When purchasing equipment, spend your gold on weapons first, since they increase your damage potential. Everything else is secondary.

Resources

Although you prefer your own company, you’re no fool. The elves are smart, after all, and they protect themselves with a variety of defenses. Although you’re not part of an organization, you sometimes lead raids onto the surface to gather much-needed gear and resources to take back the drow cities. As you advance, you might find yourself working with a cadre of skilled murderers and warriors who share your goals, and you come to rely on these companions rather than compromising your mission with substandard allies.

KINSLAYERS IN THE WORLD

“Soulless butchers, every one. These drow . . . they have no hearts, no compassion. They are merciless killers who make no distinction between warriors and innocents. Do we descend into their communities, killing all we find? No. Though, I admit, perhaps this has been our error.”

—Elwyn, lone survivor of a kinslayer raid

The kinslayer gives life to the simmering hatred the drow have for their cousins. They have but one purpose: extermination. Most kinslayers live short, violent lives, remembered for their savagery and the bodies they left behind. The bloody evidence of their crimes emphasizes their role as brutal villains.

Organization

Kinslayers can appear anywhere in drow society, from lowly commoners and servants to zealous priestesses. Those who are part of an organization work from within, shifting its purpose to serve their needs. For instance, an entire drow house under the control of a particularly charismatic kinslayer matriarch might abandon the political intrigues of the city to funnel its resources, slaves, and soldiers into endless raids on the world above. Not content with the work of their minions, the kinslayers lead these expeditions themselves—spending their lives in an impossible pursuit, but spreading fear and death wherever they go.

NPC Reactions

Kinslayers disturb even other dark elves. Their single-mindedness, their impassioned hatred that borders on obsession, is a sign of weakness to those not caught up in the kinslayer’s fervor. All drow want their surface kin to pay for the dark elves’ misfortune, but death is too final, too complete a fate. In a sense, it’s almost merciful. Drow would rather enslave surface elves—genocide produces no opportunity to gloat. As such, drow are indifferent at best toward kinslayers, and some, especially those with a vested mission or plan for a particular surface elf community, are unfriendly.

Kinslayers sully the dark elves’ already sullied reputations. Drow are reviled already, but those who reveal themselves as kinslayers are utterly despised. Good surface-dwellers react with immediate hostility when faced with a kinslayer, and most cannot permit these characters to live.

KINSLAYER LORE

Characters who have ranks in Knowledge (history) can research kinslayers to learn more about them. When a character makes a successful skill check, the following lore is revealed, including the information from lower DCs.

DC 10: All drow are evil, but there are different degrees of wickedness. Kinslayers are among the worst.

DC 15: Kinslayers kill elves. That’s what they do. Why? Revenge is probably the best guess, though for what, who knows? History says that the drow earned their fate.

DC 20: What makes these villains so terrifying is their commitment to their purpose. They can’t be reasoned with. They can shrug off spells, slice through defenses, and even bestow their own curse onto their victims.

Kinslayers are easy to locate and require little effort to track down. These characters are drawn to elf settlements, and word of their exploits travels fast, usually spurred by the tendrils of smoke rising from the communities that fall prey to their attacks.

KINSLAYERS IN THE GAME

As long as there is strife between the drow and other elves, there will always be kinslayers. The kinslayer is a vicious opponent, a premier villain who wages a violent campaign of epic proportions. The sheer evil of his purpose makes him an outlaw that the player characters will readily hate. If there’s any reluctance to stand against him, a few decimated elf villages should make PCs realize the danger the kinslayer poses.

Adaptation

The easiest way to adapt this prestige class is to modify its thematic elements. Instead of hunting elves, the kinslayer could hunt drow instead. This would certainly be a viable choice for drow who recognize the corruption of their culture—but, since they are evil themselves, see no way other than utter annihilation to end their people’s transgressions. Kinslayer characters could also be surface elves who have succumbed to blind hatred, risking a precipitous plunge into corruption themselves. You should modify the class features to reflect these changes, swapping fey bane for vermin bane and perhaps granting kinslayers spell resistance rather than the Lolth’s curse ability