Shamelessly STOLEN and PLAGIARIZED (Literally. I didn't bother the change the text that I kept) from Arnold's tables for barbarian tribes.
Life out here is tough. It is fucked up. Almost everyone and everything is trying to kill you. (To be fair, you are also trying to kill almost anything you come across on top of the Break).
The Xan'dun savages upon the Break aren't just barbarians, they are neolithic killing machines. Metal isn't a luxury they have, but killing other things using stone and bone can still be quite effective.
Each PC is considered a hero in their respective tribe. Each was respected even before they descended into the dungeon of the last King to retrieve his crown.
- PCs start the game as lvl 3 barbarians
- When rolling for stats, roll Str, Con, and Cha as ((4d6)+1)/2. (if charisma is rolled lower than 7, increase it to 7)
- Roll other stats as normal
- HP calculation:
- lvl 1 = con
- lvl 2 = con+2
- lvl 3 = con+4
- lvl 4 = con+6
- Each level of barbarian also gives +2 HP. lvl 3 = con+10
- Inventory: str+(whatever bag you carry), backpacks are +7, sacks are +4
- Also, if you can describe how you attach something to your body without putting it into your sack or backpack, you may carry it without adding it to the bag
- Each PC has 1d6 stories of loss. You may keep these in reserve and spend them to gain information. For example, when you encounter a creature in the Veins of the Earth and do not know what it is, you may use a story of loss to recall tales of how your ancestors and family members died that relate to the current scenario
- Each PC has 1d4 reports of peril. For each report of peril, roll a 1d6 to determine the theme of what almost killed you. DM will determine specific details. Each report of peril can either give your PC +1 max hp and lethal damage cap OR +4 to saves of a relatively specific nature. Example: You lost your grip while climbing, fell, almost died, but recovered. You could take the hp and lethal damage bonus or get a +4 save to either losing grip or falling.
- Geography
- Flaura
- Fauna
- Other Tribes
- Roll Again
- The Veins
- Each PC starts with 1 scar and 1 scar slot. To get more scar slots, take 100 damage. (Note: you should be recording the damage you take in your "history of violence"). The first scar is for Xan'dun tribesmen. All PCs have this scar and any Xan tribesman worth their salt will also have one of these. For reference on scar functions, read the prime ability for barbarians.
- The PCs will likely have several skills that will not be clarified until they are relevant but, notably, the climbing, pole falling, and pole vaulting skills start at 5 for all PCs.
- Xan'dun tribesmen may partake in cannibalisms without becoming ghouls so long as the proper rituals and acknowledgements of sacrifice are given.
Boring Tribe Shit: Have 1d6 tame mammoths. The largest mammoth will have an enchantment braided into its hair. This enchantment give them either (a) the gaze of the vor-mammut 1/day, save or suffer broken limb, or (b) weaponized birth, a half-demon baby mammoth with HD 4, tusks for 1d8 + save pain 1 rnd, damage cannot be healed except by magic. Shamans walk around on stilts, wear deer skulls adorned with women's scalps. They vomit smoke that induces fear.
Hero perk: Wears a backwards mammoth skull on their head like a helmet. Gives +4 defense and very good head protection (fucks up your movement, vision, and coordination for anyone else, would also take up 2 inventory slots). Understands the body language of beasts and is very adept at animal handling.
Deathblow
Boring Tribe Shit: Half of the warriors are elderly. Half HP, but unless you coup-de-grace them, or drop them to -5, they will spend their dying turn cursing the player. (Curse of Ill Omen: next critical hit turns into a critical miss.) Shamans are instructed by a troll, who spends most of its time slumbering in the center of the village, covered in flags, rags, and offerings. They sing to make the earth eat their enemies.
Hero perk: Wields a giant 12 foot sword covered in prayer flags. Increase damage by one die size. Weapon also counts as a magical +2 nimbus iron greatsword with reach. The sword will always find its way back to the Heir. Takes up 2 inv slot in the hands of the Heir but takes up 6 for anyone else. Speaks fluent giantish. (PC does not have to be a half HP old dude unless the player desires, but they will be able to curse someone with their dying breath).
Giantish: Scrawled and graffitied across the Mountain. Spoken by Trolls, who sing to the earth in this tongue. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Hum with your stomach, the soft resonant language of the Mountain's firstborn, who once heard these tones deep inside the womb of the earth. Put your ear against a boulder, hug it gently. You will hear it in your bones, the whisper in the rock.
Golden Psychic Evisceration
Boring Tribe Shit: The greatest warriors are castrated, and their remaining genitalia stuffed into elaborate cod-pieces: scrimshaw mammoth tusks or narwhal horns. Their severed gonads are used in a fertility ritual by a chosen girl to conceive a hero-child. Tribe has +1d3-1 heroes. Shamans only wear things produced by the human body. They can be damaged, but not killed, by manufactured weapons. They scream to heat metal.
Hero perk: Naked and wielding a sharp rock (as a handaxe). Blessed by the spirits of wild places and immune to damage from all crafted weapons. Loses this power if they ever wear clothing or any crafted thing. Covered in lice, but possesses a statuesque physique and kingly demeanor.
Nocturnal Brutalism
Boring Tribe Shit: Women have each amputated a well-tattooed breast and turned it into jerky. If eaten, they cannot be reduced below 1 HP by non-magical weapons. Lasts 2 hours. Over ½ of fighters will be female, and 1/3 of female fighters will still have their jerkied breast in their inventory. Shamans are all little girls, wearing hair shirts and lizard scale bangles. They are all identical twins, and share a pseudo-hivemind (empathy, local telepathy only), and are products of an intergenerational witch. The first one to get pregnant will give birth to the next generation of the witch sister hivemind. They are found to be universally charming/friendly, and if at least four of them surround someone, they ensorcle someone as “dominate person” (maintained by one of the girls).
Hero perk: Capable of absolutely insane jumps. Like 50' horizontal. Always jumps into combat with a +4 spear attack, dealing double damage. Covered in red body paint with dozens of bird skulls woven into their hair.
Frostbitten Bastard
Boring Tribe Shit: Blinded at birth with a sharp rock and a burning stick. Navigate the world through fine tuned tongue clicks and the taste of the air on their burnt sockets. +2 to attack and defense rolls against them if you can see them, but -4 to both rolls in the dark. Shamans are permanently invisible. They have invisible gems in their eye sockets. If extracted, these gems can be used to make lenses for an invisible lantern (the lantern is invisible, not the indirect light it produces).
Hero perk: Wears the fur of a calcinated cancer bear. Nightmare Skull belt buckle. Possesses strength equivalent to a hill giant (double str score), as well as a hill giant's ability to throw big rocks: -4 to hit, 2d8 damage, up to 30 feet range. (For the PC this translates to -2 to attack and defense or +4)
Note on bastard strength: You can imagine this as having "the strength of ten men". Mostly applies to brute strength and less so to generation of power (which influences acceleration of movement and ultimately force of impact). Your hands probably do count for 1d6 damage though.
She-wolf's Malevolent Entrails
Boring Tribe Shit: Half of the warriors are children. Children have half HP, but if they drug themselves before combat, they get two attacks. The drug is the insufflated, pulverized liver of a raven that has been fed increasing amounts of poisonous lichen its whole life. Shamans are constantly snorting hallucinogenic lichens from turtle shell snuff boxes. They are wrapped in their own hallucinations, and appear to be male, female, young, old, cheerful, depressed. . . sometimes all at the same time. Their ancestors sometimes stand behind them, whispering in their ears. They make the air swim with illusions.
Hero perk: Carries an enormous wineskin full of fermented goat's milk. Wears a stupid hat (ironically) taken from some milklander they killed. Will drink booze while they fight, getting drunker and drunker. Drunkenness: in addition to +1 crit fumble range, attacks deal +2 damage. Drunkenness stacks everytime you drink/use firewater. (PCs do not have to be half HP children unless they would like to be)
Raven liver powder: Can be taken at the same time PC rages. After rage ends, PC gains 1 level of exhaustion (-4 to all rolls until sleep). If drunk, roll a 1d6 after rage ends. Drunkenness points are equal to the "snooze range". Rolling in the snooze range causes the pc to pass out for a number of hours equal to what you rolled. 3 points of drunkenness: 1-3 snooze range. After 6 points of drunkenness, the PC will automatically pass out until tomorrow in 1d6+3 rounds or until rage ends.
The liver powder does not work on anyone outside the tribe. The tribe members have been fed drug cocktails since they were born to tolerate it. Anyone else gets a pounding headache, pulsing veins, and sometimes dies of a heart attack.
(Unintelligible growling) best translated as "Skintakers"
Boring Tribe Shit: Fight alongside a pack of 3d6 wolves. The chieftain is actually a worg, and the wolves are higher ranked than the human barbarians. Shamans are all wolves, or perhaps the spirits of ancestors reincarnated into wolves. They are shaved and tattooed with colorful screed. They walk around on two legs, but drop to all four legs when they need to run at full speed. Speak in mewling growls that almost sound like words. They run like the wind.
Hero perk: Raised by wolves. Wears wolf head over their own head. Fights with a pair of jawbone kukris. Is accompanied by their pack sibling, another wolf. If both attack the same target in unison (as they usually do), they both get +2 to hit.
Decapitation
Boring Tribe Shit: Made a deal with a demon in a hole. Half the tribesmen are missing an arm or a leg. Unless dismembered or turned to paste, tribe members return to life in 1d6 turns. Shamans are small quadruple amputees. Rolling eyes, echolalia. They are carried on the backs of their (full-sized) siblings inside wicker cages. They can rip the water from living things.
Hero perk: Stone-eyed exemplar of barbarian fighting techniques. Perfused with feathered piercings and has a face covered with tattoos. Eagle feathers braided into hair and eagle claws hanging from belt. Fights with a pair of obsidian daggers. Whenever someone attacks in melee and misses, the barbarian gets a free attack against them. If the PC dies, they may start every turn rolling Xd4-lethal damage (X=barbarian lvl). They recover that many HP that round and get up. If lethal damage is too high, PC will need to recover lethal damage over time (while dead) before returning to life is possible. This works as long as the "full" body is in "one piece". (PC does not have to be missing an arm unless it is desired).
Organ Apocalypse
Boring Tribe Shit: Know how to revive those who have frozen to death. They will have 1d3-1 additional heroes frozen in a secret basement in their village, and if needed, they will thaw them in a 12 hour ritual to defend their village. 2-in-6 chance to also have a foreign scholar, linguist, or wizard on cold storage as well. Shamans crawl on all four and have long hair. They wear masks of knotted wood-whorls, painted purple, white, and blue. They speak backwards and can command others.
Hero perk: Tremendously fat. Has +10 HP. Carries an infinite bandolier of 1 HD, 1 HP, DEF plate, bite 1d4 rabid weasels, which they will throw at people before closing into melee. If they trip or fall over, 2d6 rabid weasels will escape, half of which will run away, and the other half will join combat. (Practically, after making the weasel attack roll, roll a 1d6. This is the number of rounds the target will be scrambling with the weasel, which will do 1 damage every turn).
Reminiscence of Slaughter
Boring Tribe Shit: Brained a druid in his sleep, stole his secrets from his shattered head, threw their children into small holes with polar bear cubs and starved them. Tribesmen grow big, mean, and are covered in white hairs. 2 HD. Always ambush their enemies and surprise them in the wilderness but are rather stupid and fight like animals. Easily manipulated with food and goodies. Shamans are enveloped in long, thick white fur and can gangstalk intelligent beings in their dreams.
Hero perk: Is an intelligent polar bear. Counts as large and has double HP (HP from all sources is doubled). Has low light vision and an excellent sense of smell. Can make two 1d6 claw attacks per turn. Bite deals 1d10 damage. Can pin smaller creatures if both claw attacks strike the same target; +4 attack against pinned targets.
- Age: 18+2d6
- Sex:
- Nocturnal Brutalism: 25% male, 75% female
- Golden Psychic Evisceration: 25% female, 75% male
- All Others: half and half male and female
- If you want to add some extra variation, intersex options can be used for a 1 or 20 on a die roll.
- If you can't decide on a personality and appearance, use the pic below from Lair of the Lamb.
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