Barbarians and Berserkers

In the Barbarians and Berserkers campaign, most or all characters belong to a single barbarian tribe.

The Barbarians and Berserkers campaign has a couple of purposes. First, it's an opportunity for a campaign with a lot of combat, especially if the campaign revolves around clashes between two or more competing tribes. Second, it's an opportunity to showcase how decadent and corrupt the "civilized" world is, contrasted with the simple strength and rude honor of the barbarian tribes.

There are several common types of Barbarians and Berserkers campaigns.

One type is the Tribal Campaign: The PCs live with their tribe and act as its defenders and heroes. They repel invasions, hunt mighty and monstrous animals for their meat, attack rival tribes, and do whatever they can to ensure their own tribe's survival. Here's one sample adventure idea: In wastelands distant from civilization, two tribes do battle. One is an NPC tribe, and the other is represented by the player-characters and some NPCs. The two tribes can be enemies because they compete for hunting lands, because of some old grudge, for any reason or none.

Adventures involving battles between them might be simple fights to the death between small squads (made particularly interesting by rough terrain and weather), but you can complicate things, too. What if the two tribes, in the course of their mobile combat, stumble across some silent, time-lost city populated by monsters? The tribes may continue their running battle through the city, awakening the ancient, sleeping monsters, who will eventually come after the barbarians, forcing them to combine their efforts or die . . .

Another type is the Barbarians in a Civilized World Campaign: The player-character barbarians and berserkers travel through the so-called civilized world. They may be seeking a new place to settle their tribe, the old site being untenable for one reason or another; they may be mercenaries who hire themselves out to anyone with enough gold; they may be pursuing some villain who insulted them, or who sacked their village while the warriors were away adventuring.

The player-characters travel through a world where civilization equals decadence, where all men are weaker than our barbarian heroes. They encounter terrifying black magic in jungle ruins, battle enemy armies which stand in their way, stumble across hidden evil wizards and the bizarre monsters they create, and so forth.

Yet another type is the Barbarians for the Crown Campaign: This is much like the Barbarians in a Civilized World campaign, but here the barbarian heroes have a purpose. One or more of them intends to rule a civilized nation. He and his friends must gather enough power to be able to accomplish this, usually by joining the army of some great nation, rising quickly through its ranks (all the while going on many dangerous army-oriented adventures), and winning enough popular support in the army and elsewhere that they can overthrow the current despotic royal family.

A last choice for a campaign combines all three of the campaign styles above. In the early stages of the campaign, all the characters are great tribal defenders; many adventures can be run with this theme. Later, some great calamity forces the heroes to leave their native tribe. As described earlier, this could be a mission of vengeance which forces them to leave for the outer world; it could be the destruction of their entire tribe by powerful, evil forces; it could be a prophecy which says that one of the PCs will bring doom on the tribe if he stays, but glory to himself and his companions if he leaves. So for many game-years the heroes will adventure in the outer world, until something (another prophecy, their own desires, the desires or manipulations of an NPC involved with the group) point them at the crumbling throne of a great nation.

In the Barbarians and Berserkers campaign, by the way, magic use is almost always scorned. Magic is considered unclean and almost all wizards are evil enemies of the heroes. Though it would not be inappropriate for one character to be some sort of shamanistic hero (for example, a dual-class Fighter/Mage), this sort of campaign is best suited to worlds with little or no magic.

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