“I walk in the space between here and there, and slip through the seams in reality to deliver a most timely death upon my enemies.”

Overview

The Riftstalker is a defensive specialist who bends the planes to enhance his constitution and shift in and out of the physical dimension. These highly skilled and survivable combatants keep their opponents’ focus while easily evading incoming blows.

Strengths

A Riftstalker is an incredibly mobile fighter capable of shielding himself from harm and appearing in the ideal place and time in a fight.

Weaknesses

Harnessing planar energies places Riftstalkers under tremendous strain, so while formidable in short engagements, they quickly lose ground as they exhaust their bag of tricks.

Background

It had been years since the accident, but Anan Mkhai recalled vividly the agony of having his very essence torn to shreds by his father’s experiment.

“Just one more adjustment,” the old man murmured, tinkering with the sourcestone lode he’d balanced within a crude assortment of metal rings held together with rawhide bands. As the lode clicked into place, the device erupted, shooting a bolt of wild planar power straight into Anan.

The agony returned whenever Anan detached himself from physical space. Of course, when a snarling Bomani thrusts a spear at one’s midsection, pain is a small price for vanishing into thin air before the blow lands. Anan forced himself through the shadowy realm between realities to reappear behind the Bomani, jabbing his daggers into the dog-man’s kidneys. The Bomani crumpled, and Anan wiped his blades on the leather of his leggings.

A soft crying caught his attention. Turning, Anan noticed a small girl huddled by the beset caravan. Bending the threads of space and time, Anan stood beside her in moments. The bodies of her parents lay nearby.

“Let’s get you out of here,” Anan said to the girl softly. As he leaned down to scoop her up, his ears pricked to the clink of chain against stone. Closing in fast, a spectre charged, howling and whipping the air with ghostly chains.

Anan put a finger to his lips as tears welled in the little girl’s eyes. “Shh… I will be back for you.” He studied the spot, and in his mind, a beaming mote appeared in the girl’s location, visible across the immaterial lines of reality.

Anan closed with the spectre, and knew for once the frustration of facing a foe who could wink in and out of existence. Countless times they vanished and reappeared, like warring shadow-puppets in a lightning storm. At last, Anan poised his blade where he knew the shade would materialize, and it appeared once more, impaled on his blade, and dissipated with a bloodcurdling screech.

A second scream drowned out the spectre’s, and Anan whirled to see a Bomani poised to skewer the terrified girl. He honed his mind in on the mote he had laid near the child, and in a flash, he was back beside her, burying his dagger in the heart of the beast. The girl in his arms, Anan walked from the ruins of the caravan toward the small cluster of survivors.

Transporting his mind to another time, Anan saw his father cradling his own body tenderly, muttering apologies and weeping after smashing the device—his life’s work—to spare his son from complete disintegration. For all the agony, his father’s experiment allowed Anan to spare others from pain, a gift he shared with the next generation of Riftstalkers.