Barbarian General

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But still less common than the "civilized nations" no?

I'm just gonna dump a bunch of sweet barbarian pics now.

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As a whole yes given the lack of industry in the dark forest/frozen north/open grassland that barbarians inhabit. There is a good chance that what you did find though would be of higher quality since it isn't mass produced.

Oh for sure. I just don't think that wearing some armor should disqualify somebody from barbarism.

As for trying to get the feel right, consider this: the ancient Norse believed that their time of death was chosen by the Norns, and nothing they did was able to change that, therefore they were able to fight fearlessly and with a fury the civilized are unable to match. The barbarian has grown up in a society where warfare is a constant, expecting to, hoping to die in battle. The civilized man fears death, hoping the war will soon be over so he can return to his peaceful life.

So the guy on the left here is clearly a barbarian. The lady on the right though...

>What makes a barbarian a barbarian Veeky Forums?

Am I Roman?
Yes: I'm not a barbarian.
No: I'm a barbarian.

Whoops

I think some armor is acceptable, but full armor is not. Like you can have a helmet and and a breastplate but you don't get any greaves or gauntlets or vice versa.

What about magic? Is it ever ok for a barbarian to practice magic?

Of course it is. I mean druids are barbarian casters.

>Their ways may be simple, but not stupid. Sure, most crimes are punished with throwing the criminal off a cliff, but the druids deliberate it most carefully. And survivors are seen as forgiven by the gods.

>Tribes are the most important social unit, but youths may join warbands for glory and loot.

>Violence and blood aren't wrong answers, but be careful or you'll be hunted as a beast by your peers.

>Animals and plants provide solutions and means, not books or magic.

>Finally, the most awesome depiction of the D&D barbarian is pic related. He even got the murderhobo aspect.

Required reading for any barbarian

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I think it depends on the type of armor also, they should be wearing something a barbarian tribe could make, not like articulated plate.

As for magic, I think that really depends on what type of magic. Stuffy wizard magic that you learn from books? Absolutely not. Carving magic runes on your weapon, stuff like that is totally fine. "Primitive" natural magic type stuff is okay I think. Don't forget that the Norse Berserks were Odin worshipers (Odin having powerful magic) who performed rituals and droves themselves into supernatural states of berserk.

you got a jpg?

Take some ideas from real life here. Armor is made of hides, bone and modified stuff ffrom civilized peoples as often as it is made of iron. Got a dwarven cuirass? Paint it blue and add animal motifs.

Berserkers may be a tradition as old as the Bronze Age.

I love cool looking bone armor.
>Paint it blue and add animal motifs.
I think this is an important part of make a barbarian look barbarian. A civilized soldier probably was issued their weapons from an armory, they are probably fairly uniform and look like the other guys in his unit. A barbarian owns his own gear, and will probably want to make them look cool. Add some cool warpaint while you are at it.

I like this idea. Barbarians have a more casual relationship with death and dying than civilized troops. They're far more concerned with being a coward than being killed in battle. Why wear massive armor when death is nothing to fear?

>I love cool looking bone armor.
It's a shame real bone armor is quite different from fantasy, but what you think of this?
siberiantimes.com/upload/information_system_38/1/6/2/item_1628/information_items_1628.jpg

And I agree with what you said. Their panoply isn't defined by logistics, but personal and perhaps made by them. The composite bow with its mixture of horn, sinew and wood is a good barbarian weapon.

Another aspect is prospering in environments that are hostile or simply unknown to civilized peoples.

Romans are barbarians tho.

t.greece

Got a link?

You're all barbarians tho.
t.Qin

Shut up you debased barbarians.

t.babylonian

Who let you damn apes on the computers again?

t.AYY LMAO

You did when you gave all that saucer tech to Eisenhower.

>Barbarians
>Reading
Why tho

Trophies. All barbarians of note have trophies of their defeated enemies

Explain yourself, I honestly have no idea what you mean.

I think that looks pretty damn cool.

An angry monk is like a roaring river, you can't stop it (easily), but you know where it's going. A raging barbarian is more like a maddened wolf or bear, he doesn't care that he's hurt he's going to hurt you more.
long story short:
Monk = Directed force of nature
Barbarian = animal made man

Latin&Greek=civilized
Celtic=barbarian
Druids =Briton = celtic

savagery does not preclude cunning; ferocity does not preclude intelligence.

Greeks and Romans were about as civilized as Celts. One could stand to reason that Romans were even more barbaric than Celts, as Celts didn't hold weekly gladiatorial combat to placate it's population from it's corrupt governance. However a Celt's superstitious nature would seem backwards and uncivilized to a Greek or Roman.

>Samson was a PC
confirmed.

that's gay, no

>However a Celt's superstitious nature would seem backwards and uncivilized to a Greek or Roman.

Only because of the specific "Celt-ness" of it. The Romans and Greeks were incredibly superstitious by modern standards but were pretty much par for the course in the ancient world.

The Greeks literally made up the concept of barbarism as well as the word. They can't be barbaric because barbarism is people that aren't them.

That being said, fuck the Greeks and Romans, the barbarians were way cooler.

Could extend that metaphor into the angry fighter too?

The Celts didn't hold gladiator games, they just had regular human sacrifices and headhunting.
Also gladiatorial games have a pretty interesting history. They originated as a form of human sacrifice at funerals evolving into the games and a place to show Roman men how to die a good death with dignity. Also humans are pretty fucked as a hole and can grow to enjoy the pain of others.

A surgeon who hates you.

>The Celts didn't hold gladiator games, they just had regular human sacrifices and headhunting.
Both Greeks and Romans had regular human sacrifice for centuries before the religious aspect of it was outlawed a century before the rise of Christianity. However gladiatorial combat becomes an easy, legal substitute since it had the same goal of appeasement, just of mortals instead of gods.
Now here's the question: European or Asian barbarians? Attila and Genghis always come to mind when I see the word barbarian.

I suppose when I hear barbarian I usually think Germanic or Celtic, but the steppe nomads were pretty cool too. Non-Europeans definitely shouldn't be left out of the barbarian discussion, Mongols can be great barbarians.

I default to European barbarians but that's mostly because it's hard to mechanically represent the strengths of the Asian steppe barbarians in standard p&p RPGs.

>What separates the civilized from the savage Veeky Forums?
Pants.

Wrong answer.

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Exactly, the barbarians wear pants, while the decadent "civilized" Romans wear togas (basically a dress)

Rooted in clannish, tribal cultures that emphasize kinship and personal interactions, as opposed to civility's emphasis on complex, large scale social organization and depersonalized interactions.

Tyr was literally the god of law. He was several grades above Mars, the god of chaotic warfare, in terms of civility

Rome, greece etc were in a constant state of war though. Rome brought large scale warfare to the surrounding barbarians, who were content with just raids and skirmishes.

Barbarians live like people, civilized folk live like ants

Requesting pictures of smallfolk barbarians. I'll dump other barbarian pictures in the meantime.

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So, Persians are barbarians in this case?

Notice the pants in the picture.

>The Greeks literally made up the concept of barbarism as well as the word. They can't be barbaric because barbarism is people that aren't them.

why does everyone think they are clever knowing the etymology of "barbarian"?

"barbarian" is an english word, not a greek word. "βάρβαρος" might mean "non-greek" but "barbarian" does not. being distantly related doesn't make them the same word any more than humans and our small shrew-like ancestors are the same species. i don't understand why, of all words, barbarian is always the one that sets people off, when you could name any number of words that no longer mean the same thing as their distant ancestor.

Bump.

The "feel" of a barbarian is hard to pin down but I'd say they are defined as people in opposition to civilization. The rest is aesthetic.

Then the question becomes what is civilization and in what ways do people oppose it?

That's the interesting question. Barbarians can't be defined without first defining what civilization is but unfortunately I don't have a good answer here. Granted this isn't about facts and data, it's about how barbarians FEEL when you're playing as one or with one.

Civilization is big and impersonal. People are more specialized, but consequentially less all around competent. Class division is more drastic and apparent, and personal wealth is more critical to one's place in it. Rulers are more distant from common folk and wield more authority.

So a barbarian culture would be one hostile to these concepts. They would dislike the scale of civilization, the complicated social structure, the materialistic values and being ruled absolutely by a person they've never met.

There's a barbarian tribe that obsesses over strength. They're ruled by the strongest among them and the title of chieftain is only won by killing the previous chieftain in a duel. Anyone in the tribe is allowed to challenge the chieftain but if you lose you will be killed. They revere strength and if you're stronger than the current leader they're willing to follow your lead so long as you don't display obvious weakness.

The question is: Would this tribe allow outsiders to challenge the chieftain for the leadership of the tribe? Would they allow magic in such duels? What about magical items?

People really have to understand that the prototypical 'barbarian' really doesn't have anything to do with the real material culture or beliefs or 'real' barbarian groups like the the Gauls or the Germanics. They didn't hate civilization, it was a part of life. They traded with civilized folk, they worked for them and joined there armies, and they raided them when they thought they could better deal. They bought Roman swords and pottery and village chiefs tried to emulate Roman fashion, even building Roman styles villas and sending their sons to Roman schools. Hell, Harridan's wall - the stereotypical border between the civilized world and the barbarian world - was pretty much a customs border, with cities spanning both sides and regular gates to regulate trade and migration.

Ironically, it was Roman writers who perpetuated this myth, because they wanted something to contrast to the supposed decadence of Rome. In truth, the barbarians and the civilized folk were more similar than either imagined.

The nomadic stepp peoples are ones you want to watch out for. They don't understand civilized society the same way settled barbarians do, and have a much more stereotypical view of civilized life.

Pic related. Its the Visigoths. You know, they guys who sacked Rome. Not really your stereotypical raving barbarians.

Sorry, that's actually from Visigoth kingdom in Spain a century or two latter. Here's a better example of Germanic 'barbarians' in the 4th century.

Strength can mean a lot of things, and depending on what they consider strength they may or may not allow magical interference.

Having outsiders waltz in and take over seems like a bad way for a culture to preserve itself. I'd say these duels would be highly ritualized with a bunch of rules an outsider would have no clue about, barring them from participation. Maybe they'd make exceptions for those who perform all the right observances, thus showing they respect their culture enough to be a decent ruler.

Also I'd say give them certain times when duels are allowed, just so the king isn't beaten to death every other month.

I'll give an example for what I did with orcs: They hold annual tournaments to decide who is eligible for rulership. The participants can only be "named" individuals, basically warriors who have distinguished themselves well enough to earn a title like skullcleaver or ironblood or some tough guy shit like that. Any past winners of the tournament can challenge the king, and while the challenger must fight in person, the king can choose a champion to represent him from any named soldier willing to fight for him, the idea being that the king already proved his strength of skill to become king, and now wields the strength of loyalty his men have for him. Shamanistic/arcane magic, alchemical potions, etc are banned, but divine magic is allowed, as such a boon shows the favor of the gods, and would be heresy to deny. The loser forfeits their life to the winner, and execution is usually expected but not mandatory, though the people tend to view mercy in such things as a weakness.

They also have a marriage ceremony based around strength, where a husband has to defeat his wife in a duel to claim her. This one is generally just a mock duel for show and the woman is expected to lose, though if she does win for some reason she can call off the marriage. The whole thing is based on the mythology of how their chief god took his wife.

>unshaven
>wearing pants
Seems pretty barbaric to me

Terrifying. Perfect.

I love this idea, I'm stealing it

How do you translate that to your typical barbarian tribe in an RPG setting? I mean when players hear "barbarians" they expect more stereotypical barbarians with axes and skulls and other badass stuff. If the "barbarians" are just another kingdom I've lost out on an interesting narrative element.

How would you combine the stereotypical barbarian with the historical barbarian to create something interesting but something that still feels barbarous or savage?

Strong traditional elements, clannish societal structure and swift, harsh ideas of justice can lend well to a barbaric feeling culture.

>somebody liked my homebrew

I'd say play up the differences in institutions and society. Some examples:

- Everything is based on villages and families. Unlike civilized society, with codified laws and civil agency like the courts or the army, everything is focused around strongmen and their posses, which is deeply connected to both military leadership and family ties. The chief and his friends and family run the village, meet out law and order according to custom,, but could easily become replaced if they do poorly in battle or someone can offer a better deal.

- This leads to another point. Violence is life. Without a advanced law system or economic institutions, violence is how you keep society functioning. Blood feuds are common, and murder is a solution to most problems. Look up wereguild - essentially frankish legal codes about how much you had to pay if you killed someone.

-Similarly, raiding is a fact of life - sometimes you trade with your neighbors (civilized or not), sometimes you raid them, but the next year you might team up to fight someone else. That's just how life goes, and most don't hold grudges.

- larger political polities are fractious, usually amalgamations of different ethnic groups with multiple leaders and goals. Even within ethnic groups there is rarely political unity: in one battle, the Romans defeated no less than 8 "Kings of the Franks", and they were probably just the strongest warlords in a certain region. Larger, more tightly bound structures may appear, but only in times of crisis.

The essentially point as that although these societies had similar material cultures to the civilized world, they were still fractious, violent, and less sophisticated institutionally and politically. Play up those angles and throw in some culture clashes ("My gods, these savages let mages rule them?") and you can have the best of both worlds.

The D&D definition of barbarian in respect to armor really seems to contradict how much evidence there is for chain mail being a celtic invention.

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bump

My go-to example for this is that the word "Terrific" used to mean roughly the same as "Terrible"

Just because it was invented by them does not mean it was in common use by them.
There's also the matter of the entire period of time from before it started to see use.

Also, aren't there historical accounts of celts fighting completely unarmored - practically naked?

There damn sure are, however it makes sense that someone would point this out in the ancient world since it was so rare. Selection bias.