Ridgebound Gunner

"A full larder, a clean barrel, and a quiet trail. That is how a family survives the wild."
— Nerrik Vaul, ridge-hunter of the Rhonadral highlands

Introduction

You learned the crack and thunder of firearms not in a parade ground, guild hall, or royal arsenal, but in the lonely places where hunger has teeth. Whether you were taught by a wandering marksman, a retired guild guard, a black-market tinkerer, a battlefield scavenger, or a patient relative with one good eye and steadier hands than sense, you became proficient with one of Aetheris’s newest and most controversial weapons.

A Ridgebound Gunner is a hunter, trail scout, homesteader, trapper, provisioner, and practical survivor. You spend long weeks beyond paved roads, guarding livestock, hunting game, mapping forgotten cuts through the wilderness, and keeping your family or settlement fed. Your firearm is not a symbol of conquest. It is a tool, dangerous and temperamental, but no more sacred than a knife, axe, snare, or cookpot. In your hands, it means meat over the fire, wolves kept from the door, and enough coin to last through winter.

This background follows the established Aetheris Background Template, including proficiencies, background features, feats, ability bonuses, equipment, characteristics, contacts, and a closing quote. It also builds naturally beside existing Aetheris firearm-focused material such as the Black Watch, whose members are noted for mastery of firearms, technomagical weaponry, covert operations, and the controlled spread of such weapons.

Description

Ridgebound Gunners are found wherever frontier life meets the new age of firearm craft. Some come from the Freeholds of Rhonadral, where independent settlements prize any tool that can keep raiders, beasts, and taxmen at a respectful distance. Others come from the March of Draeven, the Dominion of Kaltheros, the Concord of Veltrion, or isolated communities that obtained firearms through trade, salvage, military contact, or quiet dealings with guilds that prefer their ledgers unwritten.

Unlike trained soldiers or guild enforcers, you learned by necessity. Powder is expensive. Ammunition is precious. Every shot must earn its keep. You know how to wrap a lock against rain, scrape fouling from a barrel, cast or recover shot when supplies run low, and judge whether a beast is worth firing upon or better left to a snare. Your education was written in mud, blood, smoke, and hunger.

Many Ridgebound Gunners are respected by rural communities. They bring meat, hides, news, maps, and warnings from places most folk avoid. They know which hollow has clean water, which ridge catches lightning, which old road is safe in spring but deadly after the rains, and which creature tracks mean “leave now.” Yet their firearms can also draw suspicion. Guild agents, nobles, militia captains, and smugglers may all wonder where you learned to shoot, who supplied you, and whether you can be bought.

Firearm Familiarity

With DM approval, you gain proficiency with one simple or martial firearm appropriate to your region and campaign. This should usually be a hunting rifle, musket, pepperbox, pistol, revolving carbine, or similar frontier weapon.

You do not automatically begin with a firearm unless the DM allows it as part of your starting equipment. If firearms are rare or restricted in the campaign, your weapon may be old, inherited, damaged, registered, illegal, guild-marked, or tied to a dangerous obligation.

Using This Background

The Ridgebound Gunner works well for Rangers, Fighters, Rogues, Artificers, Blood Hunters, and survival-focused Clerics or Druids who have accepted firearm technology as a grim but useful tool. It is especially suited for campaigns involving frontier exploration, dangerous wilderness, firearm guild politics, rural communities, monster hunting, homestead defense, smuggling routes, or the cultural tension caused by new weapons spreading beyond official control.

This background is intentionally distinct from elite firearm organizations. A Black Watch operative uses firearms as part of doctrine, secrecy, and enforcement. A Ridgebound Gunner uses one because the goats needed guarding, the pantry was empty, and something with too many teeth was walking near the fence line.

Summary

The Ridgebound Gunner is a firearm-using wilderness survivor who learned new technology through necessity rather than formal military doctrine. They are hunters, providers, scouts, and protectors, equally at home reading tracks, mending gear, feeding a family, and defending the vulnerable from predators or raiders. Their firearm is both tool and burden: a thunderous promise that survival can be earned, but never cheaply.

"The first shot is for the wolf at the door. The second is for the thing behind it."

Ability Scores: Choose one of the following:

Dexterity +2 and Wisdom +1
For a quick-eyed hunter, scout, or careful marksman.

Wisdom +2 and Dexterity +1
For a seasoned tracker, provider, guide, or protector who survives by judgment before speed.

Constitution +1, Dexterity +1, Wisdom +1
For a hardened trail survivor shaped by cold nights, long marches, and lean seasons.

Feat: Choose the following feats, with DM approval:

Skilled
You have picked up a broad toolkit of frontier knowledge, whether from mentors, travel, trade, or hard failure.

Alert
You have survived because you wake before danger reaches the campfire.

Sharpshooter
This is especially appropriate for characters whose firearm training is a central part of the background, though it may be stronger than some tables prefer at 1st level. DM approval is recommended.

Skill Proficiencies: Skill Proficiencies: Survival and Perception.
Your life has trained you to read trails, spot danger, follow game, and notice the small wrongnesses that separate a safe camp from a grave with blankets.

Tool Proficiencies: Tool Proficiencies: Tinker’s Tools and Leatherworker’s Tools.
You know how to maintain a firearm, repair straps, patch gear, mend powder horns, and keep working equipment alive in ugly weather.

Additional Tool Proficiency Options: Choose one of the following: Navigator’s Tools, Woodcarver’s Tools, or Cook’s Utensils.

Languages: Languages: Common and one additional language of your choice.
Many Ridgebound Gunners learn the speech of neighboring peoples, trade partners, frontier communities, or those whose lands they travel.

Suggested Characteristics

d6	Personality Trait
1	I speak softly because loud things in the wild invite answers.
2	I count ammunition, meals, and daylight with the same seriousness.
3	I dislike waste of any kind, especially wasted food, wasted shots, and wasted lives.
4	I am more comfortable under trees or open sky than under a noble’s roof.
5	I clean my firearm when I am worried, angry, or thinking too hard.
6	I judge people by how they treat animals, tools, and those who depend on them.

d6	Ideal
1	Provision. A weapon’s best purpose is keeping people fed and safe.
2	Independence. No crown, guild, or lord should decide who gets to survive.
3	Restraint. Power means knowing when not to pull the trigger.
4	Family. Every trail I walk leads back to those I protect.
5	Discovery. The wild still knows paths no mapmaker has touched.
6	Pragmatism. Honor is fine, but dry powder and full bellies keep people alive.

d6	Bond
1	My family depends on what I earn, hunt, or bring home.
2	My firearm belonged to someone I loved, and I maintain it with near-religious care.
3	A remote settlement once sheltered me, and I will answer if they call for aid.
4	I know a hidden trail, spring, cave, or ruin that others would kill to find.
5	A beast, raider, or monster took someone from me, and I still follow its trail.
6	Someone dangerous taught me to shoot, and someday they will come to collect payment.

d6	Flaw
1	I trust my own judgment more than any plan, order, or law.
2	I hoard supplies even when others need them more.
3	I become reckless when my family or home is threatened.
4	I assume city folk are helpless until proven otherwise.
5	I am slow to forgive anyone who wastes food, ammunition, or mercy.
6	I fear becoming dependent on the very technology that saved me.

Contacts

Your contacts are usually practical people rather than powerful ones: a trapper who knows the back ridges, a homesteader who trades smoked meat for powder, a peddler who can acquire rare shot, a ferryman who asks no questions, a gunsmith who repairs barrels beneath a false floor, or a militia scout who warns you when officials are asking about unlicensed firearms.

You may also know someone connected to larger firearm networks, such as a guild quartermaster, a retired Black Watch operative, a Rhonadral craftsperson, a Kaltherosi machinist, or a Draevenite caravan guard. These contacts may help you, but their aid often comes braided with suspicion, favors, or the lingering smell of burnt powder.