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Special Episode: Barbarians and Berserkers (Patreon)

Published:
2022-12-05 22:40:40
Imported:
2023-12
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Patreon backer Seb brings you this special episode all about the beard-and-big-axe set.

Get your copies of A Folklore Bestiary here!

Thanks to Ray Otus for our thumbnail image. The intro music is a clip from "Solve the Damn Mystery" by Jesse Spillane, used under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Comments

Luke Slater

It's almost certainly a testament to your influence that my homebrew setting has a cultural context for many different classes. In the specific case of barbarians, these roles are usually religio-spiritual and closely tied to the different subclasses of barbarian, so minotaurs - whose creators deities are the Storm Gods - have a long tradition of storm herald barbarians, while the orcs, who revere their ancestors in place of the gods they killed, have a caste of Ancestral Guardian 'barbarians' as their equivalent of the priesthood and one of the cornerstones of their post-Dark Legion civilisation. The berserk subclass harks back to the rise of the Ophidian Empire, and specifically the resistance against the serpent cults that eventually became the Yuan-ti. They have roots in the same culture of psychoactive botanicals as the serpent cults.

Anonymous

Another cultural reference that may represent the spirit of the berserk by a different name would be Cu Chulainn from the Ulster cycle. He is known to enter into what they call a warp spasm, becoming a raging killing machine, even distorting his features and form in the process. I one spasm he is said to twist right around in his skin. I’m not quite clear if the spasm is meant to be something the other Ulster warriors can do or if it is unique to Cu Chulainn. The berserk warp spasm would also be familiar to any readers of Slaine from the pages of 2000AD.

monsterman
>>97214625

Definitely -- I talked about Cu Chulainn's frenzy in the Irish season of Patron Deities, and I think it's a good example. It even has the idea that he might be dangerous to his own side. It's interesting that this fury occurs in someone who is explicitly a very civilised and refined person. In fact, the way that you get Cu Chulainn out of his warp spasm is to take advantage of his good manners!