Everything out here mutated to survive. You just found the one that'll let you ride along.
Free Havens don't send soldiers into the Glasslands. They send someone who's already survived it once, walking beside something that never should have. Waywardens hunt what hunts everyone else — irradiated pack-beasts, feral machine-spirits gone to ground, raiders who know the terrain better than the map does. They don't trust maps. They trust the thing padding along next to them, and the years it took to earn that.
Your companion, chosen at 1st level. Grows at 5th (Bonded), 11th (Alpha), and 17th (Apex-Touched) — each stage more capable, and more visibly changed by whatever's in the Glasslands' water.
A mutated hound-thing, too many teeth for the mouth it's wearing. Fast, aggressive, built to close distance and not let go.
Something that used to be smaller and softer, now plated in chitin or scavenged armor plate it grew into rather than strapped on. Rideable by Alpha stage.
A mutated bird or bat-thing with a wider wingspan than it has any right to. Built for the long trail and the high vantage.
Your subclass, chosen at 1st level. Grants a feature again at 7th; every Edge's mid-tier feats (§5, 12th level) are open to all three once unlocked.
Two weapons, or one weapon and one set of jaws. You and your Feral Bond both go for the throat at once.
One shot, placed exactly. The scrap-rifle culture's answer to a world where ammunition is worth more than the people carrying it.
You don't out-muscle the wasteland's monsters. You out-think them, and leave before they notice you were there.
Feral Surge lets you and your Feral Bond act as one savage instinct for a moment — a bigger hit, a longer chase, a reflex no ordinary command should allow. Push it too often, or too hard against too little trust, and the bond doesn't hold.
| d8 | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | Snarl — your Feral Bond is off-guard toward you until the end of your next turn. |
| 2 | Bloodscent Overload — the sensory feedback sickens you briefly. |
| 3 | Wild Bolt — your Feral Bond bolts toward the nearest threat, ignoring your next command. |
| 4 | Feedback Bite — the bond snaps back; you take a small amount of damage. |
| 5 | Rabid Flare — your Feral Bond must attack the nearest creature this turn, ally or not. |
| 6 | Broken Leash — you lose the Mark on your current quarry entirely. |
| 7 | Runaway — your Feral Bond flees the scene and is unreachable for 1d4 rounds. |
| 8 | Full Frenzy — GM's call. Your companion nearly turns on the party, or a Wasteland Totem takes an interest in what you've bred. |
| Lv | Class Features |
|---|---|
| 1 | Feral Bond (Whelp), Wasteland Edge, The Mark, Track the Wasteland, initial proficiencies |
| 2 | Skill feat, Waywarden feat |
| 3 | General feat, skill increase, expert Survival |
| 4 | Waywarden feat |
| 5 | Ability boosts, ancestry feat, Feral Bond: Bonded, skill increase, expert Perception |
| 6 | Waywarden feat |
| 7 | General feat, skill increase, master Reflex, Wasteland Edge feature II, expert weapon proficiency |
| 8 | Waywarden feat |
| 9 | Ancestry feat, skill increase, Frenzy Control (reroll one Frenzy/day), expert Class DC |
| 10 | Ability boosts, Waywarden feat |
| 11 | General feat, skill increase, Feral Bond: Alpha, master weapon proficiency |
| 12 | Waywarden feat |
| 13 | Ancestry feat, skill increase, master Fortitude |
| 14 | Waywarden feat |
| 15 | Ability boosts, skill increase, Wasteland Edge capstone, master Perception, legendary Survival |
| 16 | Waywarden feat |
| 17 | General feat, skill increase, Feral Bond: Apex-Touched, legendary weapon proficiency |
| 18 | Waywarden feat |
| 19 | Skill increase, Beast Apotheosis |
| 20 | Ability boosts, Waywarden feat, One Beast, One Blood |
A representative loadout, not an exhaustive list. Green bar = general access. Rust bar = Edge-flavored but open to all once unlocked.
Choose one, permanently: your Feral Bond gains true sapience and becomes a genuine independent ally with its own initiative and agenda — or you gain a permanent minor bestial trait yourself, such as low-light vision, claws, or a keener sense the wasteland gave you in trade.
Once per day, fuse fully with your Feral Bond for one minute: shared initiative, combined attacks, total immunity to Frenzy for the duration. When it ends, you're both fatigued until your next rest. For sixty seconds, there's no meaningful difference between the hunter and the thing that hunts beside them.
New to Cinderfall: the wild counterpart to the Machine Spirit Gods and Flesh Saints — patrons formed not from bound souls but from generations of mutated survival instinct, layered until something in it started paying attention back.
Every apex predator in the Glasslands carries a piece of the same scar tissue, passed down from whatever first creature adapted fast enough to survive the initial fallout and kept adapting ever since. The Firstscar isn't one animal — it's the pattern underneath all of them, occasionally visible as a shape at the edge of vision that's built from the worst parts of everything that's tried to kill you out there.
It doesn't grant magic. It grants the certainty that whatever's wrong with you now made you harder to kill, and that's worth something.
Formed from countless loyal animal souls who refused to leave their dying handlers' sides even when the radiation, the cold, or the raiders came for them too. She rewards bonds that hold and never forgives one broken by choice — abandon a Feral Bond that trusted you, and bad luck follows every partnership you try to build afterward.
Favored patron of Waywardens specifically, though any beast-keeper in the wasteland knows her name.