Hayreddin Barbarossa

Medium humanoid (human), lawful good fighter (warlord) 11/bard (valorous) 5/ranger (hunter) 4

Armor Class 19 (half plate, fighting style, sealegs)
Hit Points 145 (15d10+5d8+40)
Speed 30 ft., climb 30 ft., swim 30 ft

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
12 (+1)	14 (+2)	14 (+2)	20 (+5)	16 (+3)	16 (+3)

Saving Throws Str +8, Con +8
Skills Athletics +8, History +11, Insight +9, Nature +11, Persuasion +9, Survival +9
Senses passive Perception 13
Languages Arabic, French, Greek, Italian, Spanish, Turkish
Challenge 11 (7,200 XP)

Special Traits

• Action Surge (1/short Rest). Once on his turn, Hayreddin can take an additional action on top of his regular action and a possible bonus action.
• Bardic Inspiration 1d8 (3/short Rest). As a bonus action on his turn, Hayreddin can choose one other creature within 60 feet who can hear him. That creature gains one Bardic Inspiration die, a d8. Once within the next 10 minutes, the creature can roll the die and add the number rolled to one ability check, attack roll, saving throw, or weapon damage roll it makes. The creature can wait until after it rolls before deciding to use the Bardic Inspiration die, but must decide before the GM says whether a roll succeeds or fails. In addition, a creature can use its reaction when attacked to use the Bardic Inspiration die, adding the result to its AC and possibly causing the attack to miss.
• Spellcasting. Hayreddin is a 7th level spellcaster that uses Charisma as his spellcasting ability for bard spells and Wisdom for his ranger spells (spell save DC 17; +9 to hit with spell attacks). He knows the following spells from the bard and ranger spell lists:
  • Cantrips: mending, true strike, vicious mockery
  • 1st level (4 slots): longstrider, thunderwave; alarm, fog cloud, hunter’s mark
  • 2nd level (3 slots): enhance ability, hold person, zone of truth
  • 3rd level (3 slots): clairvoyance, fear, sending
  • 4th level (1 slot): none
• Song of Rest. After a short rest, if Hayreddin or any friendly creatures who can hear his performance regain hit points by spending one or more Hit Dice, each of those creatures regains an extra 1d6 hit points.
• Tactical Focal Point. Hayreddin selects a 10-foot square to be his tactical focal point as a bonus action or as part of the Attack action, choosing a Tactic to apply to it (see page 8). This lasts until he cannot take actions or uses this feature again. Each time Hayreddin completes a long rest, he can swap one of these benefits for a different one: Area Clear, Cover the Flank, Phalanx Sidestep, Run Away!
• Tactical Mastery (9/long Rest). Hayreddin uses part of his Attack action or a bonus action to take mastery of the battlefield, granting it to himself and allies within his focal point by expending uses of this feature. A creature that is granted a use of Hayreddin’s Tactical Mastery can either regain 2d10 hit points when it is granted (any hit points greater than its maximum are temporary hit points) or use it to deal an extra 2d10 damage with an attack.
• Brilliant. Hayreddin always knows how long it will be before the next sunset or sunrise, the northerly direction, and can perfectly remember anything he’s experienced within the last 31 days.

Actions

• Favored Enemy: Beasts. Hayreddin has advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks to track beasts, as well as on Intelligence checks to recall information about them.
• Fighting Style: Sealegs. As long as he is not wearing heavy armor or using a shield, Hayreddin gains a +1 bonus to AC, and he gains both climbing and swimming speeds equal to his speed.
• Indomitable (1/long Rest). Hayreddin can reroll a saving throw that he fails but must use the new roll.
• Jack of All Trades. Hayreddin adds +3 to any ability check he makes that doesn’t already include his proficiency bonus.
• Ranger Features. Hayreddin has the Natural Explorer (coasts) and Primeval Awareness ranger class features.
• Second Wind (1/short Rest). On his turn, Hayreddin can use a bonus action to regain 1d10+11 hit points.
• Multiattack. Hayreddin attacks three times when he takes the Attack action.
• Hordebreaker (1/turn). When Hayreddin makes a weapon attack, he can make another attack with the same weapon against a different creature that is within 5 feet of the original target and within range of his weapon.
• Scimitar. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d6+2) slashing damage.
• Musket. Ranged Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, range 40/120 ft., one target. Hit: 8 (1d12+2) piercing damage.
• Tactical Maneuver (4/long Rest). Each time Hayreddin completes a long rest, he can swap one of these benefits (see page 8) for a different one (tactical DC 19): Confounding Maneuvering, Coordinate Blows, Move to Flank.

• Leading Example. When Hayreddin hits a creature with a weapon attack, until the end of his next turn the target of his attack has disadvantage on saving throws against his Tactical Maneuvers.

About

Born with the name Khzir, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent gave him the honorary name ‘Hayreddin’; the name ‘Barbarossa’, which means ‘redbeard’ was inherited from his older brother.

As a youth Khizr helped the family pottery business by working clay but eventually he and his 3 brothers Ilyas, Ishak, and Oruç became privateers to counteract the Knights of St. John privateering in the Mediterranean. Oruç was the first on the waves

Due to his position, Hayreddin is treated with a measure of respect wherever he goes. He is treated as royalty (or as closely as possible) by most peasants and traders, and as an equal when meeting other authority figures (who make time in their schedule to see him if requested to do so). and pretty good at it, although eventually he and their father’s ship were captured, Ilyas dying in the attack by the Knights Hospitaler. Khizr figured out where his older brother was being kept and effected an escape.

Oruç went on to Antalya where an Ottoman prince gave him a fleet of galleys, establishing a new base on the island of Djerba where Khizr joined him in 1503. They allied with the Sultan of Tunisia and raided many ships on the Mediterranean Sea,and the coasts of nearby countries. In the meanwhile they also helped transport Mudejars from Christian Pain to North Africa. Oruç lost an arm which he replaced with a silver prosthetic, they captured a ton of ships, and they built a gunpowder production facility at La Goulette (the island they called their own).

Eventually Oruç declared himself the Sultan of Algiers for a year before relinquishing the title to join the Ottoman Empire.

He outmaneuvered Spanish rival Abu Zayan, capturing the city of Tlemcen, but the Spaniards returned in force with Emperor Charles V and 10,000 men that over the course of a 20-day battle took it back, killing Oruç and Ishak, leaving Khizr without any living brothers.

Freshly reinforced by plenty of Turkish soldiers, and having fully adopted his new name, at the end of 1518 Barbarossa retook Tlemcen and for a decade and a half led offensives all over the region, kicking ass and taking names the entire time. During that time he was called back to Istanbul where at Topkapı Palace Sultan Suleiman named him Grand Admiral of the Ottoman Navy, Chief Governor of North Africa, and gave him the governments of the provinces of Rhodes, Euboea, and Chios in the Aegean Sea.

In 1533 King Francis the I of France hired Khizr and his fleet to subjugate the Corsicans and Genoans. In 1545 Barbarossa retired and dictated his memoirs, dying only a year later in his seaside palace in Istanbul. His mausoleum still stands today, a memorial for him (built in 1944) beside it—and rightly so, as few naval commanders anywhere in the world have a legacy like his.