Barbarian

A tall jotnar 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.

An orc snarls at the latest challenger to her authority over their 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.

The Art of The Barbarian

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. What exactly it is that fuels this berserker mode varies from individual to invidiual. In the case of spellcasters where the strength of the class is largely known through their application of mana, barbarians are a lot more tricky to classify, and in some cases where their power stems from; is largely unknown. What is similar to all barbarians however, is that they use their feelings, often of rage or extreme passion, to fuel their abilities.
Some draw on their own inner strength where the only thing that fuels them is their own adrenaline and overwhelming determination and anger. Subclasses that excell at this technique are the Berserker and the Battlerager. These barbarians care little for the boons of gods or their own connection to nature or the elements, they simply use their own feelings as ammunition, and rely on their own strength in battle to overwhelm event he mightiest of foes. The berserker go into a trance of sort, where they totally disregard their own safety in a mindless rage. The battlerager is very similar, but is a special dwarven variety of the berserker, known as Kuldjargh (literally "axe idiot") in dwarvish, with their own traditions unique to the dwarven culture.
Other barbarians, like the Zealots, the Ancestral Guardian and the Totem Warrior acquire and fuel their skills through the help of an external force. The zealot are often in service to a powerful god, Ymir or Vathyre being the prime examples, and through their relationship with their god they gain powerful magical boons akin to a cleric or a paladin. Those who call themselves ancestral guardians, on the other hand, have a unique relationship with their, or others, ancestral spirits. These spirits of long dead warriors assist and fight alongside the ancestral guardian, and are protected by them. The last subclass in this category is the totem warrior, who's power mainly comes from one of the Spirits of The Wild. These spirits, representing different animals like the bear, the eagle, the wolf or the tiger, gifts their chosen warriors a totem which grants the user the supernatural abilities of their spirit. The spirits of the wild are neither gods, fey nor fiends, but rather a mysterious force of the material plane, often worshipped by the jotnar.
Others barbarians are fueled by some manner of magick. Among these are the Beast, the Storm Herald and the Wild Magic barbarian. These are the most diverse of all the barbarians in their origin. The beast barbarian might be inhabited by a primal fey-spirit or be descended from shape-shifters, and they are akin to druids in their ability to change their form. Barbarians who follow the path of the storm herald learn to transform their rage into a mantle of elemental magic that swirls around them, and they are often born with a rare attunement to the elements. What makes them different from a mage however, is their ability to make their feelings the catalyst for their magick, tapping into the weave by sheer force of will rather than through controlled manipulation, as such, when they lose control they are extremely volatile and destructive. The last subclass of the barbarian is those who are blessed by, and learn to harness Wild Magic. These barbarians are often, like the wild magic sorcerer, born with a special, but unstable, connection to the weave which makes them conduits for uncontrolled magicks. Others spend time where mortals are not supposed to, and are changed through their exposure to vast amounts of aether and thuse become magic-suffused.

Learned Through:

Where, how and when a typical barbarian learns the tricks of their class varies greatly from community to community, subclass to subclass and race to race. Some races like the jotnar, the dwarves, the orcs and the kath'rakhi have traditions of teaching techniques similar to those the barbarians use, to their young warriors-in-training, while other races like the humans, the elves and the smallfolk tend to have less knowledge about the barbarian's abilities. Many barbarians also learn their class on their own, by channeling their fury or the magick that they have been blessed (or cursed) with, traveling the world and fighting stronger and stronger foes to honor the gods or their own personal set of morals. Some might be lucky enough to find a teacher willing to pass down their knowledge, but there are no official colleges, academies or schools in the north or the south who teaches you how to become a barbarian.

History

Barbarians have existed since the dawn of this world. Those who fight simply to fight, those who protect their loved ones and their communities by fighting with total disregard for their own safety, and those who worship the gods in their own; more violent, way, are as old as mortal communities themselves.
The northern tribes of humans of old had traditions dating back to their emergence on Antreia, where barbarians were honored heroes known to give their all to those they were loyal to. The jotnar has the oldest and mest well-preserved tradition of training barbarians of all the races, and these barbarians are well known even today for their battle frenzies and their close connection to the spirits of the wild. The orcs of Antreia too eventually adopted barbarian traditions, and they innovated the disciplines through their focus on ancestor spirits. The dwarves have their own flavour of berserkers called the Kuldjargh, and they have their own underground societies and traditions that they follow closely. Lastly, the kath'rakhi have always had their own flavour of the class that focuses on unrelenting violence and a ruthless determination to take down their enemies, and many Kath'Rakhi warriors of other classes have experience also as barbarians.
With the rise of technology, cities and kingdoms however, barbarians have become far more sparse in number than they used to be, especially among the majority humans on the continent. Barbarians are more common in the north than in the south, which they have always partly been, the discipline originally stemming from the jotnar, but still there are tribes and individuals in the south who keep the discipline alive. In the northern kingdoms barbarians are accepted, but are generally viewed as savages from fringe tribes, which is sometimes, but definitely not always, true. Everyone knows that barbarians make excellent mercenaries and hired-soldiers however, and they tend to earn good money fighting for a living.

Demography

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.
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.

Appearance

Barbarians tend to wear armour of hides, furs and leathers, with accessories made from bones, feathers or other natural materials. These warriors are not afraid to get hurt, and such they tend to shy away from bulkier, heavier armour, instead accepting the innate dangers of combat, and embracing them. Barbarians tend to be strong, bulky, and fit due to their hands-on approach to combat, but due to the large variety of ways a barbarian can fight and harness their abilities, this is not always the case. Those from tribal comunities oftern wear war-paint and are adorned with tattoos that make them stand out from the crowd, at least in more "civilized" areas.

Creating a Barbarian

When creating a barbarian character, think about where your character comes from and his or her place in the world. Talk with your DM about an appropriate origin for your barbarian. Did you come from a distant land, making you a stranger in the area of the campaign? Or is the campaign set in a rough-and-tumble frontier where barbarians are common?
What led you to take up the adventuring life? Were you lured to settled lands by the promise of riches? Did you join forces with soldiers of those lands to face a shared threat? Did monsters or an invading horde drive you out of your homeland, making you a rootless refugee? Perhaps you were a prisoner of war, brought in chains to “civilized” lands and only now able to win your freedom. Or you might have been cast out from your people because of a crime you committed, a taboo you violated, or a coup that removed you from a position of authority.