When a single person becomes down and out they can always look to their peers for help. When an entire nation falls into misery, then individuals must come by other means of support. The solutions that each individual finds will vary depending on their background, emotional make-up and innate abilities. For some, the idea of being alone in the night imbues terror. They look around and see the birds in the sky, the rats in the gutter and other crawling creatures. In the plight of such creatures they find a metaphor for their own suffering. In these creatures they find allies who might help them in their own plight.
The beast speaker spends his lifetime learning to communicate with magical beasts. He studies what they hunt, how they live, and why they do the things they do. When he interacts with these creatures his studies give him an edge. Magical beasts stay with him longer, work harder for him and obey his commands with a precision that others cannot match. The further down the road of the beast-speaker they walk, the less and less adept he becomes at dealing with other intelligent creatures. At the beginning of his career the beast speaker may just seem a little withdrawn and edgy. At the pinnacle of his craft the beast speaker may be almost indistinguishable from a beast himself.
Adventuring
The stereotypical beast speaker is a druid who spends all of his time interacting with the various dangerous beasts the character encounters. However, beast speakers may be of any class. Whatever profession he follows the beast speaker will focus most of his efforts on making friendly relations with local predators. With such allies the beast speaker can defuse potentially dangerous (or nuisance level) encounters, allowing the party to focus on its mission goal.
Role-Playing
Beast speakers generally avoid communicating with other intelligent creatures. This makes them silent, taciturn travelling companions. They are also a very fearful folk, unable to divine what exactly is going on in the heads of those around him unlike the creatures he prefers. The complex motivations of intelligent races baffle them; they prefer the simplicity of animals and beasts.
Bonuses
A beast speaker of any class possesses a limited form of wild empathy. This ability allows the character to improve the attitude of an animal or magical beast. It functions just like a diplomacy check made to improve the attitude of a person. The beast speaker rolls 1d20 and adds his starting class level and his Charisma modifier to determine the wild empathy check result. The target must be within 30 feet and should be able to see the beast speaker. A wild empathy attempt takes 1 minute, but may take more or less depending on the circumstances. Attempts to influence magical beasts with an Intelligence score of 1 or 2 (such as a basilisk or a girallon) suffer from a –4 penalty.
A beast speaker who gains a level in a class with wild empathy as a class skill gains a +2 bonus to his check to influence an animal and a +4 bonus to his check to influence magical beasts. His wild empathy checks are rolled on a d20 plus his character level plus his Charisma modifier.
Penalties
Beast speakers gradually lose their ability to communicate with anything other than animals and beasts. The character suffers a penalty equal to his character level to all Diplomacy checks