Cube Herder

You were raised as a cube herder, a hard and dangerous profession with long days and lonely nights. You’ve packed it all in to seek your fortune as an adventurer, far from the familiar acrid smells of your herd.

Why have you gotten out of the saddle? What caused you to leave the range, perhaps never to return? What did you leave behind you—and whom?

Ability Score Increases: +1 to Wisdom and one other ability score.

Skill Proficiencies: Animal Handling and Survival.

Tool Proficiencies: Gaming set, musical instrument

Suggested Equipment (Cost 27 gold): Common clothes, 5 days rations, a pair of sturdy, gloves and boots, a cube saddle, a stone paddle (use stats for a club), a playing card set, and a pan pipe or other instrument.

Feature: Jumping Jelly Rider. You are able to ride oozes of sufficient size without being immediately engulfed and dissolved (though they may still use their Engulf attack against you). Additionally, as a bonus action you may make a Grab On check against a creature that is only one size category larger than you, gaining an expertise die to your Strength or Dexterity.

Adventures and Advancement. You and your companions will be able to find hospitality and a moderate lifestyle on any ranch in the Underland in exchange for occasional wrangling duties when needed. In addition, after your name is associated with a couple of the more notorious adventures, ranchers and other denizens are eager to work with you. You can hire inexperienced followers at half the usual price.

At the Narrator’s discretion, these benefits also apply outside the Underlands as well.

Cube Herder Connections

1. The banker who foreclosed on your family’s land.
2. A local politician who runs the closest settlement.
3. A mushroom harvester who you trade with.
4. A dyer who needs your slimes’ acidic products to achieve the most vibrant colors.
5. A traveling merchant who arranges the sale of slimes from your herd.
6. A deep dwarf blacksmith who buys small oozes from you to help remove corrosion.
7. A weaver who needs acid to change mushroom fibers into usable fabrics.
8. The slaughterhouse owner who takes select specimens to ensure that butchers can be supplied.
9. A dark elf ranger who travels the Underland, keeping the peace and protecting the Smallfolk.
10. An Overlander whose life you saved and who brings you delicacies from the Land of Blinding Light in exchange for the mushroom beer which they’ve learned a taste for.

Cube Herder Mementos

1. An obsidian dagger uncovered by your herd.
2. A gold piece with one side wiped clean and the other marked with a language that no one you’ve shown it to has ever understood.
3. A small jar where you keep a tiny pet slime to which you feed the odd tidbit.
4. A bottle of unknown liquid in a wine bottle. The cork was sealed over with wax but the label has vanisheds.
5. The skull of an unusual creature with a round head and four horns: two at the front, two at the back.
6. A locket containing the fingerbones of your parents, lovingly scrimshawed with their names, birthdays, and deathdays.
7. A small book of poetry in a foreign language, carefully annotated with translations and notes in Undercommon.
8. A slate carving of a quarter-mill gelatinous cube being ridden by whooping figure.
9. An acid-proof colored ribbon that your mother made for your naming day.
10. A small pot of wax to keep your hair looking sharp. It smells strongly of vinegar and a little goes a long way.