The World of Avlis

Following on from what I posted here

I also found out that barbarians can be neutral too! Surely they all should be chaotic, the rage is a chaotic act! Fafhyrd and the Graymouser if you please...ol' Faf wasn't neutral. You go into a rage, you froth at the maw, you chew your shield, you see red and you go on a killing spree!

edit:oops. i totally got this wrong.

just non-lawful.

i guess it's because you have to be able to not care about following the laws, either occasionally or all the time.

Dont worry Kandi, Ol Faf & the Mouser dont live on this world, so no one will be the wiser...

Though going berserk is a chaotic ~act~, it is not the only thing that defines a barbarian as a class.

Marleh wrote:Though going berserk is a chaotic ~act~, it is not the only thing that defines a barbarian as a class.

Yeah I thought about this a little bit afterwards and equated it to real life. In dire situations folks often, but not always, switch certain areas of their mind off. They then react and get on with whatever....

For example:

You're an emergency worker who sees something horrific but switches off to this horror to treat those that can be helped. A very tough thing to do, but sometimes necessary.

There are other analogies of lesser nature but the idea is essentially the same...

Neutral barbarian goes into a rage or frenzy for a good reason...blah blah.

You know that scene in The Patriot, when the dad goes into "wow, total scary no-holds barred fighter" mode to rescue his son?

Yah. That's what I think of.

Kandi_Nulein wrote:
I also found out that barbarians can be neutral too! Surely they all should be chaotic, the rage is a chaotic act! Fafhyrd and the Graymouser if you please...ol' Faf wasn't neutral. You go into a rage, you froth at the maw, you chew your shield, you see red and you go on a killing spree!

Seems that you already covered most of this but here it is anyway and it may tell you something you didn't know.
Kandi, Zelrig is a true neut. barbar.
Being able to rage is an ability they have, but I would say that it does not define their entire being. Perhaps one can call on the powers of Rha-gul and use them at a controlled rate, or perhaps use it at command. My best description of this and for the most part is who zelrig is based on is Orson from Record of the Lodoss Wars.

Zelrig, is mostly soft spoke, helpful to his friends, but if he doesn't know you he doesn't stop to ask. He trying to obtain his own personal goal and if others are around during his attempts to reach those goals then that is fine. He doesn't real desire money or things, but he cares about mostly himself and his friends. He is not going to kill a commoner, nor would he go after there bad guys unless they are bothering him. He rages in sticky situations or when a opposing character starts to annoy/anger him.

But Orson was possessed by some sort of anger spirit, and when he raged was entirely out of his control.

I love the descriptions on the TVTropes site describing this sort of thing.

The sweeter, gentler, more polite, and overall nicer a character is, especially if they're female, the worse it will be for the planet when they're subjected to one too many rounds... What was once a sweet and nice individual suddenly snaps and becomes something far worse then the Big Bad could have expected.

It's called Unstoppable Rage for a reason, you know.

Things get even worse if they're a Technical Pacifist, since outright villains will only kill you. If a sweet, gentle soul snaps, all you can do is pray for a quick death.

Yeah that is true, but when I started zel, I didn't know any DMs to ask if I could be possessed by a god or demon or whatever.

we would have said no anyhow.

spool32 wrote:we would have said no anyhow.

But as i have learned with my profession. It never hurts to ask