Playing A Barbarian (Patreon)

This story was commissioned in April 2020 by Southern Celt, who wanted a story involving somebody being transformed into a barbarian-type individual. Hope you all enjoy!

Joseph had been a little wary when his adventuring group’s Dungeon Master announced that for their next campaign the players would all be randomly assigned their race and class, rather than picking their own as they had previously. He had felt comfortable playing his Halfling Bard and while he understood the need for them to move onto something new since they’d slain the whole Council of Dragons, starting over again only with more restrictions felt like a daunting task. He’d relished the opportunity of getting into the headspace of his first character and worried that he wouldn’t manage to do such a thing with a character he’d been strong-armed into making rather than developing from his own subconscious.

His worries were even somewhat justified when the DM assigned him his new character: a Human Barbarian. The character’s human status would obviously be fine, even if it was a little dull compared to some of the fantasy races the lore of Dungeons & Dragons offered, but it was the Barbarian part that left you feeling a little nervous. You’d always enjoyed playing spellcasters and, failing that, characters who fought at range. Melee characters were never really in his wheelhouse and a Barbarian was about as melee as it got! He’d be expected to play the tank role, soaking up the damage and delivering heavy hits with a greatsword in return - how was he going to manage that and establish a believable character while struggling with his own confidence?

Apparently his DM had thought of everything though because the next message he sent read “Before you start freaking out about whether you can be a Barbarian, watch this!” Attached to the message was a video file and Joseph clicked into it, still dubious towards his DM’s choices. Rather than playing a video though, the front camera of his cell phone let out a blinding flash, prompting the young man to drop it in surprise and stagger several steps back, his vision completely clouded by a sea of white.

As soon as his vision started returning to him, Joseph knew that something was very wrong. He was no longer in his apartment’s gaming room but rather in the middle of a green field full of strange purple flowers. 

“What the fuck?” he muttered as he dropped to his knees to start searching around for his cell phone but finding nothing in the weeds around him. Where did it go? Losing his phone while he was in the middle of absolutely nowhere was definitely not a good sign. He didn’t give up though, continuing his search for several minutes until his slender fingers finally brushed over something cold and sharp. Yanking his hand back and sucking at the small cut on the top of his index finger, Joseph moved to better see what he had discovered among the flowers and was stunned to discover a sword with a long silver blade and a leather grip around the hilt. Of all the things he had anticipated finding, a sword had perhaps been near the very bottom of the list.

Taking the sword by the leather grip and lifting it, Joseph was surprised by the weight but absolutely fascinated by it nonetheless. It was heavy enough that he had to grip it with both hands, although considering his slender arms he supposed that shouldn’t have been a surprise at all. He’d never been one for heavy lifting or strenuous exercise - another reason he felt so ill-suited to playing a melee character! That reminder jolted his brain out of its amazed haze and he spun around, casting a long look in every direction. There wasn’t another soul to be seen anywhere, but a forest to the west caught his attention. It’s not as if I’ve got anywhere else to go, he figured, deciding to give up on his fruitless search for the missing cell phone and instead head in that direction, his new sword in tow.

Joseph might have supposed that he was in some sort of new virtual reality system if it hadn’t been for the sharpness of the sword’s blade piercing his finger, or the fact that he had walked for ten whole minutes in one direction without walking into an invisible wall. There was nothing on his head either, although he did notice that a thin layer of stubble had grown in across his jawline, even though he’d only shaved the night before. It was unusually quick but not all that impossible so he bore it little thought as he continued his walk towards the trees. 

After he had been walking for twenty minutes and was only just approaching the threshold of what appeared to be a forest, Joseph felt ready to collapse. His feet weren’t used to walking on uneven ground for such long periods of time but what other choice did he have? Hold it together, he mentally told his feet, I’ve got a bad feeling there’s a whole lot of walking ahead of us. His silent pep talk seemed to do the trick too, as the aching in his feet had lessened by the time he stepped between the trees and began his journey deeper into the forest. 

As he stepped up and over a protruding tree root some five minutes later though, he was caught by surprise when he discovered that the sneakers he had been wearing had been replaced by old-fashioned brown leather sandals. That’s weird. Not only that but his feet seemed disproportionately large compared to his skinny legs and certainly larger than his feet were supposed to be. There were even thick strands of hair protruding from the follicles on his toes and the top of his feet where he was certain there hadn’t been before.

“That’s an issue for later,” he told himself with false confidence, although the sight had certainly shaken his nerves. “Find civilization first, then worry about that.” He was a city boy through and through, so finding himself completely isolated in a creepy dark forest wasn’t exactly within the realms of his comfort zone to say the very least. His grip on the sight unconsciously tightened and his ears trained on the sounds of the nature around him - the birds chirping, wind whistling past leaves, the old tree branches creaking. Everything was so foreign to him and yet there was also a strange familiarity to it too, although he couldn’t quite work out why.

Continuing on with his journey for another hour, Joseph soon began noticing things that couldn’t possibly be explained: plants that turned to watch him as he walked past, birds with three eyes, he was even certain that he had seen a unicorn in the distance, although it had been mostly obscured between trees. 

Needless to say, the weirdness factor was quickly ramping up and Joseph’s heart began beating a little faster, pumping himself up for danger at any moment. The sword no longer felt heavy in his hands but inspection seemed to credit that to how his arms had thickened out. Previously he would have only described his arms as twigs at best but they had somehow begun growing until there was a subtle but undeniable shaping to his upper arm, his biceps and triceps forming complimentary muscular curves.

Doing his best to ignore the inexplicable changes to his body, Joseph marched deeper into the woods until he finally came across the first sign of civilization: a wooden hut in the middle of a small forest clearing! 

Ecstatic at the thought of being able to get an explanation about where he was or, hell, even just to rest his aching bones for a few hours, he hurried for and thundered down several heavy fists against the door. He hadn’t quite anticipated for it to actually be slightly ajar and his knocking to actually cause the door to swing open. He froze on the doorstep for a moment, peering into the darkness inside. “Anyone home?” he asked meekly, his voice emerging as little more than a croak from his uncomfortably dry throat.

When there was no response for thirty seconds, Joseph carefully entered and pushed the door closed behind him. Light poured in from a pair of windows at the back of the cabin and there was a small log fire burning in the fireplace keeping the place warm. The cabin wasn’t so much decorated as thrown together: fur cloaks lay about the floor, various axes were piled up in a corner and there was even a half-eaten meal on a small table. As soon as Joseph’s eyes located the food - a simple bread roll and some sort of soup, accompanied by a tall mug of a frothy liquid - his stomach roared to life and he quickly sunk down into the available chair, leaning the sword up against the wall behind him. Manners be damned, he was having the food - he was simply starving!

Taking several quick bites from the roll, Joseph then washed them down with a swig from the mug and was met by the sweet taste of ale, a flavour he surprised himself by recognising. Not just that but some of the liquid ended up in the thick hair on his upper lip and he had to use his tongue to clear it up before wiping it clean with the back of his hand. In the process his hand brushed against a bushy beard and he froze momentarily. Wait, how has my facial hair grown that much? He’d never allowed himself to have anything more than light stubble and now he had a full beard that hid the whole lower half of his face and neck! No, no, no! This is bad...

Even as panic began to grip at the edges of Joseph’s mind his stomach reminded him of its urgent needs and he continued with his meal, dipping chunks of bread into the soup and savouring the taste. With each bite of the bread and each spoonful of soup, his body began to slowly expand and sculpt into a vision of male muscular beauty. 

His body fat percentage had already been relatively low but as the muscles began to swell under his skin the veins along his arms became more pronounced and his torso produced a full set of neatly defined cobblestone abs, as well as two meaty slabs to make up his pectorals. The nerd culture tee he had been wearing was pushed to its limits and even began splitting apart at the seams as his torso pulsated and grew even further, irritating the hulking man as he continued to devour the food. With a single swipe he managed to tear the garment from his chest and threw it aside as little more than a pile of rags, a deep grunt escaping his lips in the process.

Once the loaf had been entirely consumed and both the bowl and mug were empty, Joseph was left in a dazed state as he stared down at his body. He had been vaguely aware of his changing nature but had failed to realize just how extreme it was until he was able to move his calloused palms down the rippling abs he had developed. 

“No, no, this isn’t me,” he muttered in a voice several octaves lower than it should have been, even as his mind was caught in a battle between anxiety and arousal. He knew that he shouldn’t be as big as he was and yet those muscles felt so darn good to touch and when he tensed them up he could feel the immense strength he now possessed, something he’d never thought possible before.

Rising to his feet he noticed that the world had shrunk around him - or more accurately he now stood several inches taller, over six-foot-five at least! His pants had suffered a similar fate to his shirt and as he tugged at them, applying a little of his newfound strength, they easily tore away to reveal huge quad muscles the size of overinflated grapefruits leading down to pronounced calves and the big hairy feet he had developed on his marathon walk to find the cabin. His body was perfectly proportioned but those proportions belonged to a hulking giant of a man, not the skinny short twenty-something nerd he really was!

Standing fully in the nude in the middle of the cabin - where the hell did my briefs go? - Joseph quickly located a loin cloth and wrapped the leather belt around his slender waist. He did his best to avoid looking at the other part of his body that had experienced a serious amount of growth (at least three extra inches, from what his brief glance had been able to catch), although no amount of avoidance could stop it from making its needy presence known! Reaching down, he cupped his low-hanging balls and took an experimental tug on his shaft before a sharp voice cut across to remind him what he was doing. Focus, Joseph! You’re not some meathead wild man living in the forest, you’re a goddamn city boy with a tech job!

Irritated by the internal war in his head, Joseph busied himself by collecting the sword from where it was precariously balanced against the wooden panels of the walls and placing it in its proper scabbard that was hanging from a hook next to the door. As he did so, patterns of ink danced their way up his right arm and settled in place as a series of tribal symbols from just below his elbow all the way up over his broad shoulder and across his right pec. 

Tracing along the tattoo with his left hand, Joseph was no longer surprised by the fact the art didn’t seem or feel fresh at all. When so much craziness happened in a short space of time the effect of the surprises soon began to wear off. In fact, as he plodded around the cabin with his heavy feet, carrying such mass around felt less and less strange. Indeed it was almost beginning to feel natural to be such a hulking load of masculinity, as absurd as that thought was…

Looking for anything to set his embattled mind at ease, he quickly located a pipe filled with tobacco and a pack of matches. Even though the idea of smoking had always revolted him, desperate times called for desperate measures. Exiting the cabin, he lit up the pipe and took a deep inhale, allowing the smoke to gather in his mouth before releasing it in a calm controlled fashion as if he had been doing it for his whole life. 

With each inhale and exhale Joseph’s powerfully built body began to produce more and more hair all across his pecs, his legs and particularly his armpits, as wild as the forests that surrounded the cabin. A distinctively masculine smell came from those pits, a deep musk of sweat, smoke and strength.

Looking out at the forest that surrounded him and then the body of water behind the cabin, Joseph took a moment to truly sink it all in. He knew what he had become and, as much as he hadn’t wanted to admit it, he enjoyed the fact that he was now a strong hairy barbarian who felt most comfortable swinging his sword and using his physical power to his advantage. 

This isn’t really as bad as I thought, he confessed to himself, half expecting whatever experiment or fever dream or hallucination he was currently enduring to come to an end at that realization. 

As much as he anticipated it, there was no sudden snap back to reality though. The bright afternoon sun continued to beam down on his tanned body and those strange three-eyed birds soared far above him. What a strange new world. If he wasn’t going to be returning home, Joseph supposed he could have some fun as a barbarian of the woods!