Shinobu Kocho is a major supporting character of Demon Slayer, a Demon Slayer of the Demon Slayer Corps and the Insect Hashira. She is known for her friendly and cheerful demeanor as well as her easy-going smile but this is merely a mask that she wears. It is a mask that she created to hide the trauma of not only her older sister Kanae Kocho the previous Insect Hashira, but the deaths of her parents and countless friends that she has lost along the way as well. Her smile becomes cold when comes to her dealing with the human-killing monsters that are generally demons leaning towards the sadistic when it comes to punishing them. Of all of the Hashira’s, she spends a fair amount of time near Giyu Tomioka constantly teasing him whenever they interact. She also is close to Mitsuri Kanroji who teaches her western cooking techniques. As the Insect Hashira, her style of breathing is one of extremely quick piercing attacks coupled with poison to make up for her petite size and lack of physical strength to sever a demon’s head. As this is the style created by herself it is perfectly suited to her medical talents, extreme movement speed, and lightning-quick maneuverability. This leads to a powerful combination that can challenge any opponent in combat with the quickness of a mantis attacking its prey.
Shinobu Stats
Str 10 Dex 14 Con 13 Int 10 Wis 14 Cha 12 (27 point buy)
Str 10 Dex 16 Con 13 Int 10 Wis 14 Cha 12 (after racial and feat mod)
Class Monk 3(Way of Mercy)/Ranger 3(Swarmkeeper)
The three things that I wanted to achieve in this build are:
- Poisons to Harm or Heal.
- Faster than the Eye can Se.
- Fury of the Swarm.
Background
For Background, I chose Knight for Shinobu. She gains the Skill Proficiencies of History, Persuasion, Tool Proficiencies of Dragonchess Set, the language of Celestial, and the Background Feature of Retainers. This feature represents her being in charge of the Butterfly Mansion as this is not only her home but the base of recovery for injured Demon Slayers.
Race
For Race, I chose Custom Lineage. With this race, she gains +2 Dex, Darkvision, and the Feat: Poisoner. This feat grants her poison damage that ignores resistance to it, the ability to quickly poison her weapons as a bonus action, and the ability to create a powerful 2d8 poison with an hour’s worth of work.
Class
Shinobu’s class breakdown is a mixture of two classes, Monk 3(Way of Mercy)/Ranger 3(Swarmkeeper). It is with these classes that she gains access to increased movement options to zigzag through the battlefield, healing and medical training from her monk subclass and goodberry spell from the ranger spell list, various poison options from her training in the poison kit, herbalism kit, an alchemist’s supplies as well as hands of harm, and a swarm of both helpful retainers and her butterfly swarm that can harm her foes as well as helps her in battle. This combination of class and feats is the best attempt to consolidate his abilities and talents at this level.
Monk 1 is the starting class for Shinobu. This gives her the skills of Athletics, Acrobatics, Alchemist Supplies, Unarmored Defense, and Martial Arts.
Monk 2 is the next step in Shinobu’s development. It is with this level she gains access to Ki and Unarmored Movement. Now she has the ability to gain multiple attacks, increased movement, and defensive abilities. Her movement speed also becomes 40 feet.
Monk 3 gives her access to the Monastic Tradition of Way of Mercy and Deflect Missiles. With Implements of Mercy, she gains proficiency in Insight and Medicine, an herbalism kit, and a butterfly mask that you can just craft into a hair tie. She also gains Hand of Healing and Harm. Hand of Healing allows her to heal with a Martial Arts die + Wis in hp, while Hand of Harm ads extra necrotic damage of the same type on a successful strike. Both can be used while using a flurry of blows.
Ranger 1 is where Shinobu starts to gain the power of a Demon Slayer Corps member. She gains proficiency in Nature, Favored Enemy: Fiends with the language of Abyssal, and Natural Explorer: Forest. Favored Enemy grants her bonuses in tracking down and dealing with her demonic foes, while Natural Explorer gives her boons to travel in a forest.
Ranger 2 grants her Fighting Style: Dueling and Spellcasting. This gives her access to the spell Zephyr Strike, granting her an extreme speed with a powerful damage bonus that also allows her to break away from her foes without attacks of opportunities.
Ranger 3 is the last level for this build with the Ranger Archetype of Swamkeeper and Primeval Awareness. Primeval Awareness allows her to sense the presence of various creatures within 1 mile or 6 within a forest. With Swamkeeper she gains Gathered Swarm and Swamkeeper Magic. Gathered Swarm represents her butterfly horde that acts after you strike a foe by dealing an extra 1d6 piercing damage, moving a foe 15 feet on a failed Str save, or moving herself an extra 5 feet. Swarmkeeper Magic grants her the extra spells of faerie fire and mage hand.
With full use of Shinobu’s powers she can perform the following techniques via spells and abilities:
Insect Breathing
- Butterfly Dance: Caprice-Athletics skill jump + Poisoner + Flurry of Blows +Hand of Harm + Gathered Swarm Attack
- Dance of the Bee Sting: True Flutter-Zephyr Strike + Poisoner + Gathered Swarm Attack
- Dance of the Dragonfly: Compound Eye Hexagon- Poisoner + Flurry of Blows + Hand of Harm + Gathered Swarm Attack
- Dance of the Centipede: Hundred-Legged Zigzag- (Already have weapon poisoned) + Zephyr Strike (move in a zigzag pattern)+ Gathered Swarm Attack
This combination of feats, stats, and spells makes this DND build of Shinobu a kaleidoscope of pain against her opponents in Six levels or Less.
Spells
Ranger
Cantrip
Mage Hand
1st Level
Detect Poison and Disease
Goodberry
Zephyr Strike
Faerie Fire
Equipment
Standard Monk equipment with Darts and Shortsword. Pick up a Poisoner’s Kit, Alchemist’s Supplies, and Herbalism Kit and create potions and poultices to aid in your demon-slaying role.
Shout out to https://kimetsu-no-yaiba.fandom.com/wiki/Kimetsu_no_Yaiba_Wiki for their amazing information in making this amazing character as well as DNDBeyond for its character creation platform. My next build will continue building the Hashiras! That Hashira being Mitsuri Kanroji, The Love Hashira! Until next week Tale-Tellers!
