A tall human tribesman strides through a blizzard, draped in fur and
hefting his axe. He laughs as he charges toward the frost giant who
dared poach his people's elk herd.
A half-orc snarls at the latest
challenger to her authority over their savage tribe, ready to break his
neck with her bare hands as she did to the last six rivals.
Frothing
at the mouth, a dwarf slams his helmet into the face of his drow foe,
then turns to drive his armored elbow into the gut of another.
These
barbarians, different as they might be, are defined by their rage:
unbridled, unquenchable, and unthinking fury. More than a mere emotion,
their anger is the ferocity of a cornered predator, the unrelenting
assault of a storm, the churning turmoil of the sea.
For some,
their rage springs from a communion with fierce animal spirits. Others
draw from a roiling reservoir of anger at a world full of pain. For
every barbarian, rage is a power that fuels not just a battle frenzy but
also uncanny reflexes, resilience, and feats of strength.
Primal Instinct
People
of towns and cities take pride in how their civilized ways set them
apart from animals, as if denying one's own nature was a mark of
superiority. To a barbarian, though, civilization is no virtue, but a
sign of weakness. The strong embrace their animal nature—keen instincts,
primal physicality, and ferocious rage. Barbarians are uncomfortable
when hedged in by walls and crowds. They thrive in the wilds of their
homelands: the tundra, jungle, or grasslands where their tribes live and
hunt.
Barbarians come alive in the chaos of combat. They can
enter a berserk state where rage takes over, giving them superhuman
strength and resilience. A barbarian can draw on this reservoir of fury
only a few times without resting, but those few rages are usually
sufficient to defeat whatever threats arise.
A Life of Danger
Not
every member of the tribes deemed "barbarians" by scions of civilized
society has the barbarian class. A true barbarian among these people is
as uncommon as a skilled fighter in a town, and he or she plays a
similar role as a protector of the people and a leader in times of war.
Life in the wild places of the world is fraught with peril: rival
tribes, deadly weather, and terrifying monsters. Barbarians charge
headlong into that danger so that their people don't have to.
Their
courage in the face of danger makes barbarians perfectly suited for
adventuring. Wandering is often a way of life for their native tribes,
and the rootless life of the adventurer is little hardship for a
barbarian. Some barbarians miss the close-knit family structures of the
tribe, but eventually find them replaced by the bonds formed among the
members of their adventuring parties.
