Daylight Publications Mentorship Program Presents...: The Battle Dancer - A New Fighter Archetype

The Battle Dancer

To the Battle Dancer, combat is a beautiful thing. The interplay between combatants, the rhythm of weapons crashing, and the movements of bodies through space follow subtle patterns that allow the Battle Dancer to read and respond to their surroundings with the practiced grace and style of a performer. The Battle Dancer is a highly mobile fighter with a dancer’s flair, who is also able to support allies in both social and combat situations.

This archetype has room for a variety of styles, involving formal training or improvisation. Their abilities may be based on various weapon dance traditions, or be a personal mix of interests, talents, and backgrounds: a courtier practiced in both ballroom dancing and swordplay, a circus acrobat armed with whatever prop is closest at hand, or a reveling worshiper of a deity of music and swordplay, could all be well suited to this subclass.

What is the Daylight Publications Mentorship Program?

This book is part of the Daylight Publications Mentorship Program, in which we coached fresh artists, writers, editors, and layout designers in how to build and create fun content to publish on the Dungeon Master's Guild. Given that this was our first time around with it, there were plenty of hoops and hurdles to jump over or slide under, but in the end, we are happy to finally share these subclasses with you.

Our prompt for the first session was to take one of the following words: Trench, Tundra, Tiger, Timber, or Trumpet and use it as inspiration to create a fighter subclass. The final products that our amazing mentees came up with run the gamut of these five words, so I will let YOU figure out which is which! Thanks so much folks, and enjoy the books!