Character ideas - the crazed barbarian

[Ricky]

Hi folks

I'm going to start running a 3.5 Iron kingdoms game this week, and we began character creation a few days ago. We've got two PCs sorted so far - a Llaelese gun mage and a Berserker. We're starting at level 3.

Now, 'tis the Berserker character about which I'd like to chat. The player - an old friend of mine - prefers a much grittier, almost pulp-style of gaming, and his characters tend to have a bit of Conan flavour - strong, dangerous, but also flawed. We were talking about a potential background for him, and he came up with this:

* Character is a Khador local lad - not aggressive, by nature, he doesn't choose to become an adventurer.
* He gets drafted when he hits adulthood, and joins the Winterguard
* He is falsely accused of some crime - we haven't fleshed that out yet. The accuser will probably be a nemesis character to bring back later.
* He is consigned to the Doom reavers, and chained to a fellblade
* The voices in his head drive him into rage (of course!), but in his first battle, a ringing blow shatters his blade and he is knocked unconscious
* He awakens some time later, his head clearing - but he sees that the fellblade is in pieces - one of those pieces is embedded in his chest!
* He runs - and now finds himself occasionally overwhelmed by whispers from the thing in his chest - hence the Berserker "rage" ability, since he really doesn't want to be a warrior and would much rather settle in peace.

I don't know the setting all that well yet (YET!) so I'm going to start with the Witchfire trilogy. I'd really like to incorporate this blade-shard idea but would love some additional inspiration for how an embedded Orgoth blade would mess with a character.

What do you guys think?

[FrankJaeger]

Wow, awesome character concept.

I would make him, in situation of high stress, roll a Will test. Something very easy, you don't actually want him to fail this test most of the time. But, if he fail, he enters in a berserker rage (that doesn't consume his daily Rage), attacking everybody that threatens him. This can be good or bad for him, depending in the situation. And would make good roleplaying situations.

[jdripley]

Just gotta figure out why a Llaelese gunmage would pal around with an ex Doom Reaver Khadoran national. Those two countries don't really see eye to eye, and with all of the warfare going on between them I would imagine there would be a fair bit of animosity between the citizenry.

Perhaps your berserker guy could be a Llaelese citizen who was captured, imprisoned, and then chained to the fellblade? That way his gentler side has a Llaelese bent, and the gunmage would see the berserker as a countryman who was tragically wronged by a common enemy, instead of being a dangerous and unwieldy byproduct of the enemy's over aggressive military machine.

[HerrDeux]

Just gotta figure out why a Llaelese gunmage would pal around with an ex Doom Reaver Khadoran national. Those two countries don't really see eye to eye, and with all of the warfare going on between them I would imagine there would be a fair bit of animosity between the citizenry.

Perhaps your berserker guy could be a Llaelese citizen who was captured, imprisoned, and then chained to the fellblade? That way his gentler side has a Llaelese bent, and the gunmage would see the berserker as a countryman who was tragically wronged by a common enemy, instead of being a dangerous and unwieldy byproduct of the enemy's over aggressive military machine.

Well, if he's running the WFT, at least Khador hasn't invaded Llael, yet. That helps with the plausibility some.

[Lord of ???]

Honestly as long as they aren't working for their respective Governments there is nothing to stop them running together.


It's not like the people's of China, America and Russia will automatically cold shoulder each other just because the Governments in power in their countries do.