101 Atypical Barbarians

[DontEvenAsk]

46. The Berserkr

Shock. Awe. Intimidation. Raw, pure carnage. The berserker is a ticking time bomb. His soul, for whatever odd reason, is not fully human, but partly bestial in nature.

Perhaps a vicious animal achieved enlightenment during its lifetime and has been reincarnated as a higher-order being to befit its exalted status. Perhaps the berserker has the faintest traces of werebeast blood, not enough to make a shifter but not so little as to have no effect. Perhaps he was born or conceived on ground sacred to the wilds and the god of the hunt, or under a star sign that carries the magic of the beast. Perhaps he himself treats with animal ghosts, embodying them as a Binder does with vestiges. Perhaps it is a power granted directly from the berserker's animal god. He may even shapeshift fully into a monstrous version of his usual form.

However he comes by this power, the berserker leads a spiritual life of scrupulous good behavior in times of peace. His wild, ferocious nature is dangerous to everyone around him - friend or foe. Berserkers have been known to fly into a rage and proceed to slay every soldier on the battlefield, no matter whose standard they were flying. A berserker is a terror weapon - a warrior so destructive that it strikes fear into the heart of the enemy merely to know that you're desperate enough to use one. A berserker is not a trained, disciplined, efficient soldier; he is a disaster waiting to happen. Point him at the enemy, then run away.

He's rather tired of this routine, but he cares for his clan and wants to do his part, so he stays. Clanless berserkers, since they have no "keepers" to restrain their fury, are reckoned as little better than thugs and dangers to society in his homeland. Perhaps if he could find a team of more level-headed people to work with, he'd stand a chance outside the clan, assuming he doesn't tarnish their names by association... but good comrades like that are hard to come by.

47. The Demigod

This Barbarian, like the berserker, is not fully human. However, this one is not bestisl in nature, but divine or fey. In some cases it is merely a part of his supernatural nature - fey caprice, perhaps, or maybe his divinity comes from a god of war. In others, it may be a curse laid on the demigod due to divine drama. Think Cuchulainn in warp spasm meets Hercules Furens. This archetype is usually atoning for something - Cuchulainn got his name by way of accidentally killing a lord's dog and swearing to faithfully serve as the animal's replacement, while Hercules was cursed to fall mad and kill his family, an unspeakable crime in general but especially to the ancient Greeks, and undertook his infamous twelve labors as penance. A more medieval variant is the malero, which is undertaken not by the person who committed the sin but by generous pilgrims who "take" the sin and go questing to purify it; a very demigod Barbarian might be adventuring to absolve his tribe rather than himself.

48. The Veteran

He used to be a soldier. He was a good soldier, too. But then came the war - he's been in multiple wars, but this one will always be the war for him, the greatest war, the worst war - and it was...

It was madness. The mages unleashed their new research, the smiths their new weapons, the king his new allies - but the tactics were the same. Why? Why follow the same drills that were developed for use against cavalry when you're facing a regimented fleet of pyromancers on nightmares? It makes no sense. No sense. It's madness, madness, and his CO doesn't like it any better than he does, and his CO up the line, but once you get any higher than that it's all officers, officers clear to the horizon, and what do officers know about mud in your teeth and dying in droves?

Come to think of it, that's probably where the rage started. Seething, simmering resentment for leaders who had no idea what they were getting their men into, and did it anyway.

He didn't realize it could get worse, until it did. Nightmares - the sleeping kind, not the demon kind - replaced his dreams. Sometimes he'd wake up screaming without having dreamed at all. He started to twitch, almost imperceptibly; it didn't impair his fighting - he's always been a melee man, himself - but it makes him more certain than ever that he'll never be an archer.

Then he started to freeze up, when it got too loud or when he was too outnumbered. At first he was able to hide it, but after a while, someone was bound to find out.

They didn't understand what was wrong with him, what had cracked his iron discipline. They thought he was just giving in to fear, those brass, may Asmodeus take 'em. Apparently that's how you get a dishonorable discharge for cowardice. How's sending good men to die to cover your own backsides look for cowardice? Stupid officers.

He's sick of it. He's sick of all of it, sick and bloody tired, and that day something snapped in him. Now, when he loses sight of where and when and even who he is, it no longer takes the form of freezing up in what looks like fear.

It amuses him, in a dark way, to know that his dishonorable discharge was what catalyzed the change in him that would've made the army want to keep him. Oh well. Mercenary work pays better anyway.

49. The Predator

Someone who's never so much as seen the sea thinks a shark's feeding frenzy is horrifying - a mad dash to devour at the mere scent of blood. A fisherman, however, who has seen the river filled more with salmon than with water, or the sea thick and alive with thrashing potential catch - he understands. He feels it too - when there are so many, he feels compelled to descend on them like the end of days and carry off as much food as he can.

Some do it with fish. Others... don't.

The clan may participate in ritual cannibalism of enemies. The Barbarian might be a policeman who can get a little (a lot) too focused on the takedown. His race might be one that naturally preys on certain others. Whatever it is, this Barbarian can't help but try to pick from the crowd when severely outnumbered by enemies... or should we say prey?

Edit:

**Disclaimer: I mean this respectfully, and this idea should not be played for laughs

46. The Autist

Living in a tribal society means survival, based on everyone specializing in a role and hunting cooperatively. Except that one guy. He hunts alone. He makes his own weapons. He knows what plants are safe. He seems to know everything, but he barely talks and in fact the tribe thought he was slow, but in his teens, he started disappearing into the wild for days and eventually weeks at a time, with no problems. Oh, and do NOT interrupt his routine.

...you found me. I don't know how, but you found me.

(I'm not offended at all, that's honestly a pretty close fit for how my, uh, eccentricities work. I'm a lot more talky - not that I'm particularly good at communicating, but I do try a lot - and my issues center more around a preferred status quo than a routine per se, but just about everything else fits. And I'm here to attest that you can totally be Chaotic-aligned and autistic. That is a thing that happens - think of it like a Chaotic rogue having a code of honor and being a "gentleman thief.")