The Quintessential Barbarian
The Quintessential Barbarian cover
| Author | Robert Schwalb |
| Series | Quintessential Series |
| Publisher | Mongoose Publishing |
| Publish date | 2003 |
| Pages | 128 |
| ISBN | 1-903980-92-5 |
| OGL Section 15 | qbbn |
The material below is considered Open Game Content
The Shape-Journey
A shape-journey is the mystical practise of separating a soul from the body to manifest an incarnation of a —spiritual ancestor’s will. These spiritual creations allow the barbarian to fight when otherwise wounded as a last ditch effort, the special abilities of the totemic form translate over into the barbarian’s normal form and finally the shape-journey itself allows for many utilitarian uses such as combat, scouting and increasing a party’s combat abilities. The ability to shape-journey is available to a small number of barbarians who have a close kinship with the spirit world. These few souls are in fact incarnations of some great animal spirits of antiquity, which have been reborn in a humanoid guise. By qualifying and taking the Shape-Journey feat, barbarian characters are able to separate their
spirits from their bodies similarly to astral projection except the spiritual form is corporeal and fully capable of affecting other material objects. The form that the spirit takes is entirely up to the barbarian as long as his choice is one of the following totems: raven, eagle,
wolf, bear or bull. Each totem has specific abilities tied directly to it.
To take the shape-journey, the barbarian must enter into a meditative trance, which requires a Concentration check against a DC 12. He must hold this trance for 1 minute. A successful Concentration check allows the barbarian to ignore any nearby interruptions. If the check fails, the barbarian must begin anew. He may only enter the trance a number of times per week equal to his Charisma modifier to a minimum of 1 time per week.
Once the barbarian has successfully entered the shapejourney, his animal spirit separates from his corporeal form and manifests about 200+10d10 feet from the barbarian. Regardless of the spirit’s type, whether raven or bull, it always appears as an unusually large and powerful version of the creature. The colouring of the feathers or hair is always more vivid than their physical counterparts. They appear as creatures of legend. Once the spirit form appears, there is no limit to the spirit’s movement away from the barbarian’s body.
The manifestation of the animal spirit appears real and substantial. The only viable way of determining the truth of the change is through a true seeing spell. Barbarians with this ability can maintain the shape-journey for a number of rounds equal to 3 + the character’s level + the character’s Constitution modifier.
Entering into a shape-journey has a number of effects on the barbarian. First, it uses up a rage ability for the day. Second, it is more fatiguing than a rage. The act of the shape-journey is so intense that the barbarian returns exhausted. Exhausted characters are only able to move at half speed and suffer an effective penalty of -6 to Strength and Dexterity. They must rest for 1 hour to reach the fatigued state. Afterwards, the barbarian is additionally fatigued for the number of rounds that he spent in the shape-journey.
Animal Totems
Whenever a barbarian selects the Shape-Journey feat, he must choose an archetype from the following list: Dire Bear spirit, Great Bull spirit, Giant Eagle spirit, Giant Raven spirit or Dire Wolf spirit. Once chosen, the animal becomes the barbarian’s totem. He assumes the chosen form, garnering all extraordinary and super-natural abilities, but no spell-like abilities. The barbarian assumes all physical attributes, but retains his own skills, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma scores. If the barbarian has spellcasting ability, these abilities transfer over to the spirit and the barbarian may cast spells provided that he can meet any spell requirements such as material and somatic. The barbarian retains his own hit points, feats and class abilities such as rage (although if the spirit form of the shape-journey rages, the exhaustion lasts twice as long), uncanny dodge and so on. If his physical body takes damage, the spirit form of the shape-journey also takes damage. Destroying the barbarian’s physical body destroys the animal totem. If the spirit form takes damage, the barbarian takes physical damage. At higher levels, the barbarian’s normal hit points will eclipse the hit points of the spirit form. Destroying the spirit form inflicts all of the damage taken thus far on the barbarian’s spirit
form and stuns him for 1d10 rounds.
