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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).

