Beast Hunter

Among the gnomes of Kinetika, no guild is spoken of with greater respect or held in higher regard than the Beasthunters. Unlike solitary trackers seeking trophies beneath the trees or wandering rangers selling their skill for coin, they are the spearhead of a small race living beneath the shadow of the oldest forest in Therasya. In Lienmar, where redwoods rise like towers, where the ground itself may tremble beneath a charging Therium, and where Bloodraptors, Bergins, Wyverns, Vengs and stranger horrors stalk the canopies, no single warrior survives for long. The Beasthunters exist because Kinetika learned an ancient truth: when the beast is greater than any one of them, the hunting party must become greater than the beast.

Origins in Lienmar

Their roots reach back to the Fifth Spire, when the ancestors of Kinetika first came into Lienmar under the guidance of the Great Planner. The forest did not welcome them. Its beasts were huge, its paths cruel, and its hidden ruins older than their race. From those first years of terror arose the earliest hunters, led by Ermak, who taught his people that courage without tactics was merely a faster road to death. Since then, every Beasthunter has been raised to think as part of a living formation. They move in teams, mark trees, read flares, follow hidden signals, build shelters beneath the forest, and know that a single delayed moment can doom an entire company. They personally craft their instruments of survival: crossbows, traps, alchemical mixtures, climbing and mechanical gear, nets and the strongest rope on this side of the Spine.

Courage without tactics was merely a faster road to death.

A Life Given to the Hunt

To become a Beasthunter is to surrender the ordinary life of a gnome. Most leave behind family, property, comfort, and the safety of the city while still young. Their team becomes their kin, Lienmar their home, and the Hunt their lifelong duty. They sleep on trees and hidden shelters, descend through the canopies, map deadly regions, recover lost knowledge, defend Kinetika’s approaches, and prepare for the Great Hunt proclaimed every ten years. Hunter-mages walk a related path, first studying arcane discipline before bringing magic into the tactics of the team, yet even they are taught the same law: no spell, blade, or bolt matters more than the group.

Greater Than the Beast

The glory of the Beasthunters is not found in the slaying of monsters alone. It is found in the miracle that a band of small folk can bring down creatures large enough to crush fortresses, outwit predators born before the southern kingdoms, and return from forests where proud adventurers vanish without a trace. Their names are carved upon the Stone of Memories because they chose to face danger together. In every trap set, every wounded comrade carried from the canopy, every beast turned away from Kinetika, the Beasthunters prove that unity is one of Harmony’s oldest weapons.

“Never hunt alone.”

— Nuren of Elden