Bennos Moonclaw

Bennos Moonclaw is a longtooth shifter barbarian. He is one of the original members of the current adventuring party employed by J&W Enterprise to explore the Western Isola.

## History

### Background

Bennos' mother, Eseka, was a member of the Ukuziqhenya shifter tribe. When her tribe was slaughtered during the inquisition led by the Church of the Silver Flame to purge lycanthropes, she escaped and eventually took refuge with the Moonclaw shifter clan - a shifter enclave that formed after the inquisition.

The Ukuziqhenya had a tradition of having to earn their own names through great deeds, and when a baby was born, the tribe would gather and give them a name that expressed their wishes for the child. When he was born, Eseka asked the Moonclaw to give her child a name and the clan chose "Bennos" as a combination of the names of two shifter heroes: Bennin Silverclaw and Karmos Render.

Welcomed, and even liked, by the clan, Bennos nevertheless felt as if he was always slightly out of place. His discomfort was only exacerbated by an innate wanderlust as well as the discovery that he possessed not the Ranger talents of the Moonclaw, but the berserker fury of the Ukuziqhenya.

Bennos continued to live with the Moonclaw until Eseka's death. Bidding farewell to the Moonclaw, Bennos set out of their woods in search of a pack of his own and to, quite literally, make a name for himself. In his travels, Bennos came upon a J&W recruitment flyer, and excited at the prospect of finding kindred souls, or even survivors of the Ukuziqhenya, he immediately joined.

### The West Marches

When the party encountered a pack of gnolls, they noted that while Bennos himself had never encountered the creatures before, he had learned enough about them to know that they were vicious and unlikely to be receptive to diplomacy. After the party fought and defeated the pack - wherein Bennos proved himself remarkably adept at dodging magic - and looted the castle that the gnolls had been residing in, the party decided to return to Mercy's End. It was in this journey back that Bennos was ambushed, and almost fatally stabbed, by a gnoll assassin. Surviving his wounds thanks to Roland, he took the assassins' dagger as a trophy.

The day that the party reached the forest of the West Marches, Bennos took the last night watch. During his watch, he heard the cries of what sounded to be a shifter child of the Ukuziqhenya in distress. Plunging into the forest alone, Bennos discovered that the cries of distress were made by a Pseudodragon defending a statue of a dwarf from a horde of forest creatures - particularly a gorgon. With the help of a pair of owlbears, Bennos was able to kill the gorgon, however he had been hit by the gorgon's petrifying breath. While he eventually resisted its effects, his toes remained petrified.

Befriending the pseudodragon, Bennos learned that the statue was actually a petrified dwarf, and the pseudo dragon wanted him to "bring the dwarf home" to Mercy's End. With great effort, Bennos was able to push the statue back to the party's campsite where he promptly collapsed after greeting Roland, Ren, and Cedarspickle.

## Personality

Raised by the Moonclaw, fellow Longtooth shifters, as well as his mother, Bennos has traits commonly found among his people. While he highly values independence and self-reliance, he also treasures bonds with "packmates." He also inherited his tribes' appreciation of humor, frequently letting out a hyena laugh at his party's antics, particularly Cedarspickle's.

Bennos has an intense dislike for people who take familial bonds and trust lightly - particularly if a person regularly makes decisions to the detriment of the group. This was why he had an intense dislike for Bin while the latter was still in his Jack Hunter persona. To a lesser degree, he also has a dislike for those who cannot fend for themselves. Conversely, the more able someone is able to care for themselves and others, the more that Bennos likes them - which explains his attachment to Cedarspickle and Roland.

## Items

Typical of shifters, Bennos prefers to travel as light as possible, keeping only the bare necessities with him, eschewing even torches in favor of his innate darkvision. The only things that Bennos always has with him that are not directly necessary for survival are the totem braid that his mother gave to him and a small holy symbol of Balinor: a pin carved from deer horn in the shape of a pair of antlers.

### Equipment

While preferring to fight with fangs and claws as much as possible, Bennos does use weapons when he either cannot, or must save his rage and shifting abilities. He currently wields a shortsword and draining dagger in battle; the latter of which he found after a gnoll assasin almost murdered him with it.

Relying on his dexterity and toughness as a barbarian for defense, Bennos prefers to wear no armor, only a rugged ranger's hood (a gift from the Moonclaw) and clothes that allow him to move freely in battle and in the wild.

Upon returning to the party after his brief solo excursion into the woods, Bennos was seen to be wearing some sort of belt that seemed to improve his constitution, make his beard bushier, and allow him to understand Dwarvish.