Icons Berserker

The Berserker

[bestial shrieking]
No one knows what is is or where it comes from. The Berserker does not observe boundaries or borders, although it has never appeared within the citadels themselves. When it appears, bloodshed follows. Sometimes, goodly folk are ripped apart, for reasons no one can understand. Other times, they are saved from threats, the Berserker their gore-covered savior. Most disturbing, though, is the fact that its propensity for frenzy seems to be contagious: some of those who have encountered the Berserker later give in to furies of their own.

Usual Location

The Berserker remains in no one place, but instead appears hither and yon, disappearing for weeks and even months at a time. When it appears in an area, it often does so in a fashion that seems impossible.

Relationships with the Berserker

• Positive Relationships (1): For whatever caprice or mad reasoning, you are favored by the Berserker. You might be a wielder of primal magics, a rage-filled barbarian, or simply one whose love of bloodshed seems to find an affinity with it. You may have even had to answer some very difficult questions once before: specifically, why has the Berserker slaughtered everyone in an area except for you?
• Conflicted Relationships (1-2): Though you have reason to despise or hate the Berserker, its caprice has also benefitted you before. You can't guarantee your own safety around it in the future, but thus far, your experiences with its presence and influence have done you as much good as ill.
• Negative Relationships (1-2): You are among the many with good cause to despise the Berserker. Unlike many such, however, its forces have reasons to find you suspicious or onerous when you come into their presence. It is almost something they can smell. No rating in this equal direct enmity from the Berserker for a single reason: anything that earns its personal ire is quickly rent into gobbets of fist-sized viscera.

Allies

• The allies of the Berserker are almost exclusively entities who are steeped in the Old Magics of the forest and the land. While the Berserker terrifies civilized folk, those with connections to primal powers – specifically, the Grinnir, the Unicorn of the Frostwood, and the Speaker of Spirits understand some Mystery beneath its blood-soaked demeanor.

Enemies

• Great is the enmity between the Berserker and the Aeriemaster. Though the Berserker has not found its way to the Last Aerie very often, it is an utter slaughter each time it does, and this is not something the Aeriemaster forgets or forgives.
• While dwarves are largely safe in their citadels, and the mighty in their keeps, the common people suffer greatly at the hands of the ravening Berserker, and their champions, the Pastoral Sainted bear great hatred of the horror.