What separates the civilized from the savage Veeky Forums? What makes a barbarian a barbarian Veeky Forums?
I'm not asking about the mechanics of the barbarian class. I want to know what makes a barbarian FEEL like a barbarian instead of some other martial class.
I see two things that define barbarians regardless of world: lack of armor and rage-fueled powers. But that doesn't seem to be everything because an angry monk can fit that same description. What do you think?
>I want to know what makes a barbarian FEEL like a barbarian instead of some other martial class. Not being a martial class, for one.
Juan Diaz
>Not being a martial class, for one. What?
Gavin Sullivan
Maybe having tactics that are made available literally by pure strength and speed. Like realistically being able to accurately and powerfully hurl a table at somebody, or being about to really on his ability to just straight catch arrows. Tremendous speed and strength, is my two cents.
Christian Gonzalez
He's referencing 4e. Barbarians were "primal" rather than "martial", meaning they got their power from nature, spirits or whatever, a bit like the totem barbarians of 5e.
Jack Gomez
>What makes a barbarian a barbarian Veeky Forums?
What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft, the lie? I who was born in a naked land beneath a starry sky? The subtle tongue, the sophists' guile, they fail when broadswords swing - Rush in and die, dogs! I was a man before I was king!
Colton Kelly
What about supernatural abilities like the ability to summon an ancestral bear spirit?
Anthony Davis
"Crom!...Give me a clean sword and a clean foe to flesh it in. Damnation! What would I not give for a flagon of wine!"
Jaxon Turner
>lack of armor I'm going to have to disagree with that one. The real world cultures that inspired fantasy barbarians, like the Germanic tribes, Gauls, etc. wore armor, at least those who could afford do (like a noble's retinue) did. In addition, probably the most famous fictional barbarian, Conan, wears armor pretty frequently. The stories where he is a thief or w/e he usually doesn't, but when he is expecting combat, he does.
Jaxon Brown
>other martial class >martial class >martial >mar >Mars
There is your problem. Find a war god who isn't so civilized.
Parker White
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Charles Butler
But still less common than the "civilized nations" no?
Josiah Cooper
I'm just gonna dump a bunch of sweet barbarian pics now.
Ryder Lewis
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Gabriel Cruz
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Jaxson Torres
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.
Josiah Davis
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.
Aiden Gonzalez
So the guy on the left here is clearly a barbarian. The lady on the right though...
Brandon Evans
>What makes a barbarian a barbarian Veeky Forums?
Am I Roman? Yes: I'm not a barbarian. No: I'm a barbarian.
Michael Stewart
Whoops
Jordan Morgan
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?
Caleb Reed
Of course it is. I mean druids are barbarian casters.
Anthony Hughes
>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.
Matthew Lopez
Required reading for any barbarian
David Phillips
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Isaiah Lopez
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.
Hudson Thomas
you got a jpg?
Austin Harris
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.
Oliver Perez
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.
Ian Jackson
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?
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.
Cooper Wright
Romans are barbarians tho.
t.greece
Anthony Miller
Got a link?
Joseph Evans
You're all barbarians tho. t.Qin
Kevin Perez
Shut up you debased barbarians.
t.babylonian
Aaron Howard
Who let you damn apes on the computers again?
t.AYY LMAO
Mason Diaz
You did when you gave all that saucer tech to Eisenhower.
Bentley Cooper
>Barbarians >Reading Why tho
Easton Jenkins
Trophies. All barbarians of note have trophies of their defeated enemies
Kevin Stewart
Explain yourself, I honestly have no idea what you mean.
Brayden Reed
I think that looks pretty damn cool.
Asher Morgan
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
savagery does not preclude cunning; ferocity does not preclude intelligence.
Aiden Scott
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.
Dominic Robinson
>Samson was a PC confirmed.
Jace Richardson
that's gay, no
Luke Nguyen
>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.
Adam Green
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.
Dylan Carter
Could extend that metaphor into the angry fighter too?
Hunter Ramirez
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.
Brody Williams
A surgeon who hates you.
Carson Morgan
>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.
Jayden Perry
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.
Jose Scott
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.
Lincoln Clark
>What separates the civilized from the savage Veeky Forums? Pants.
Zachary Lee
Wrong answer.
Hudson Bennett
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Nolan Sanchez
Exactly, the barbarians wear pants, while the decadent "civilized" Romans wear togas (basically a dress)
Luis Wood
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.
Andrew Hall
Tyr was literally the god of law. He was several grades above Mars, the god of chaotic warfare, in terms of civility
Connor Davis
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.
Daniel Morales
Barbarians live like people, civilized folk live like ants
Tyler Carter
Requesting pictures of smallfolk barbarians. I'll dump other barbarian pictures in the meantime.
Hunter Morris
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David Morales
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Landon Thomas
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Jace Lee
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Ryan Jones
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Dylan Torres
So, Persians are barbarians in this case?
Jack Robinson
Notice the pants in the picture.
Jaxson Scott
>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.
Cooper Walker
Bump.
Connor Campbell
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.
Cameron White
Then the question becomes what is civilization and in what ways do people oppose it?
Ryan Richardson
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.
Dylan Butler
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.
Grayson Wilson
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?
Connor King
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.
Logan Miller
Pic related. Its the Visigoths. You know, they guys who sacked Rome. Not really your stereotypical raving barbarians.
Caleb Cook
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.
Jaxson Perry
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.
James Ward
>unshaven >wearing pants Seems pretty barbaric to me
Joshua Miller
Terrifying. Perfect.
Owen Robinson
I love this idea, I'm stealing it
Jayden Diaz
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?
Chase Sanders
Strong traditional elements, clannish societal structure and swift, harsh ideas of justice can lend well to a barbaric feeling culture.
Kayden Moore
>somebody liked my homebrew
Angel Johnson
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.
Colton Carter
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.
Wyatt Torres
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Christopher Morales
bump
Jeremiah Hall
My go-to example for this is that the word "Terrific" used to mean roughly the same as "Terrible"
Joseph Robinson
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?
Jackson Green
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.