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Berserker Roleplaying Notes

Berserkers are quite simple fighters - they are big strong men (ok,
sometimes women) who seek to beat the shit out of whatever they are
fighting. Grace, finesse, and weapon-tricks are not for the berserker - his
grace is about that of a cow, though they can be surprisingly quick on his
feet, his finesse is horrible and his weapon-tricks pretty much involve
swinging the weapon until it hits. Berserkers are usually found among the
less civilized races, though humans and dwarves are the exception. They
usually belong to a tribe of some sort and are the front-line warriors when
it comes to conflict. Usually the pure strength of a berserker is enough to
defeat even his more skilled opponents.

Zerkers are usually wild nomads who have no specific home, and the tribes
they belong to are usually the type that do not stay in one place for very
long. They are extremely superstitious folk and generally hate or fear
magic and mages. Berserkers are usually too stupid and dense to understand
what is going on around them, and will usually attribute things like
seasonal changes to gods or spirits. They do not appreciate the finer side
of life - their life is fighting, killing, hurting, and maiming, which
they do with glee.

A unique group of berserkers are the dwarven berserkers, often called
Battleragers. They go through intense training to harden themselves against
whatever they may face in battle - poison, hammers, swords, etc. Such
training involves running head-first and helmetless into wooden doors
(often supported on the other side by a metal plate) until they break (of
course, when the teachers demonstrate "how it's really done", the plating
is removed and the door shatters). Dwarven battleragers often use no
weapons - instead, they dress themselves in plate mail armor that is
sharpened all over, then dive head-first into the fray. It is surprisingly
a very successful tactic, as most well-trained warriors aren't expecting a
flying metallic sphere of death.

Berserkers are obviously the roughest and gruffest fighters that walk the
land. They taken strength and stupidity to new heights previously thought
unachievable. They sometimes speak in incomplete sentences, short words, or
not at all. There motto is simple - kill, rape, loot. Roleplaying a
berserker takes very little thinking (in fact, you will probably be
thinking less than normal).