Random Barbarian Tribes of Uldrac

Barbarians live way down south by the Revanwall mountains, down where it's as cold as a witch's teats.  They usually live in insular tribes, but they also share their territory with tribes that have begun to modernize, as well as at least one Nothic colony and one Meltherian colony.  

They call it Uldrac, or the Land of the Big Sky.  All of the cities (and there are a few) have ridiculous names like Iron Eternity or Deathblow, and are shared among multiple tribes.

This generator is for small tribes.  Big tribes are on the map, so to speak, and get their own custom set of details.  I won't go into the big tribes, but one is really into brewing, one is really into mammoths, one rides pterodactyls, one is allied with Oshregaal, etc.

by Mike Mignola

HD 1d8+2  AC leather  Axe 1d8  Javelin 1d6

Mov 12  Int 10  Morale 7

Most barbarians only carry a single javelin.

Barbarians with the minimum amount of HP are shamans.  Barbarians with the maximum amount of HP are heroes.

What Is This Tribe's Gimmick? [d10]

1. Women have each amputated a well-tattooed breast and turned it into jerky. If eaten, they cannot be reduced below 1 HP by non-magical weapons. Lasts 2 hours. ½ of fighters will be female, and 1/3 of female fighters will still have their jerkied breast in their inventory.

2. The greatest warriors are castrated, and their remaining genitalia stuffed into elaborate cod-pieces: scrimshaw mammoth tusks or narwhal horns. Their severed gonads are used in a fertility ritual by a chosen girl to conceive a hero-child. Tribe has +1d3-1 heroes.

3. Half of the warriors are children. Children have half HP, but if they drug themselves before combat, they get two attacks. The drug is the insufflated, pulverized liver of a raven that has been fed increasing amounts of poisonous lichen its whole life.

4. Half of the warriors are elderly. Half HP, but unless you coup-de-grace them, or drop them to -5, they will spend their dying turn cursing the player. (Curse of Ill Omen: next critical hit turns into a critical miss.)

5. Half of the warriors are undead ghouls (who alternate between traditional axes and paralytic claws). These ghouls are indistinguishable from the living barbarians (who look especially decrepit and unhealthy).

6. Know how to revive those who have frozen to death. They will have 1d3-1 additional heroes frozen in a secret basement in their village, and if needed, they will thaw them in a 12 hour ritual to defend their village. 2-in-6 chance to also have a foreign scholar, linguist, or wizard on cold storage as well.

7. Have 1d6 tame mammoths. The largest mammoth will have an enchantment braided into its hair. This enchantment give them either (a) the gaze of the vor-mammut 1/day, save or suffer broken limb, or (b) weaponized birth, a half-demon baby mammoth with HD 4, tusks for 1d8 + save pain 1 rnd, damage cannot be healed except by magic.

8. Fight alongside a pack of 3d6 wolves. 2-in-6 chance that the chieftain is actually a worg, and the wolves are higher ranked than the human barbarians.

9. Foreign clan. They are the next-generational remnants of a foreign army. Most of the people you are fighting are the children of an army sent to fight the barbarians, but became captured, abandoned, or converted. They look like foreigners (not barbarians), speak a strange patois, and some still wield foreign weapons or armor. 1d4 of them will fight in plate armor, retrofitted with warm fur on the inside and outside.

10. Doomed. Their witches have cursed and abandoned them. They have no shamans (use disease-ridden lepers instead).  All crits against them cause death (think vorpal) and they are desperate, desperate for a way to break the curse. Morale 12.

Shamans [d10]

1. Shamans only wear things produced by the human body. They can be damaged, but not killed, by manufactured weapons. They know heat metal.

2. Shamans are all little girls, wearing hair shirts and lizard scale bangles. They are all identical twins, and share a pseudo-hivemind (empathy, local telepathy only), and are products of an intergenerational witch. The first one to get pregnant will give birth to the next generation of the witch sister hivemind. They know charm, and if at least four of them cast it in unison, it works as dominate person (maintained by one of the girls).

3. Shamans are instructed by a rock troll, who spends most of its time slumbering in the center of the village, covered in flags, rags, and offerings. They know anklecrusher.

4. Shamans are cannibals, and gain the knowledge of those they eat. They know clairvoyance.

5. Shamans are small quadruple amputees. Rolling eyes, echolalia. They are carried on the backs of their (full-sized) siblings inside wicker cages. They know shrivel.

6. Shamans walk around on stilts, wear deer skulls adorned with women's scalps. They know fear.

7. Shamans are all actually dogs, or perhaps the spirits of ancestors reincarnated into dogs. They are shaved and tattooed with colorful screed. They walk around on two legs, but drop to all four legs when they need to run at full speed. Speak in mewling growls that almost sound like words. They know haste.

8. Shamans are permanently invisible. They have invisible gems in their eye sockets. If extracted, these gems can be used to make lenses for an invisible lantern (the lantern is invisible, not the indirect light it produces). They know invisibility.

9. Shamans crawl on all four and have long hair. They wear masks of knotted wood-whorls, painted purple, white, and blue. They speak backwards and know command.

10. Shamans are constantly snorting hallucinogenic lichens from turtle shell snuff boxes. They are wrapped in their own hallucinations, and appear to be male, female, young, old, cheerful, depressed. . . sometimes all at the same time. Their ancestors sometimes stand behind them, whispering in their ears. They know illusion.

Heroes [d10]

1. Wears a mammoth skull backwards over their own head. Ridiculously bulky and heavy. +2 AC but moves at dwarven speed.

2. Wields a giant-sized sword or hammer covered in prayer flags. Increase damage by one die size.  Speaks fluent giantish.  If they are killed in a dishonorable way, there is a 50% chance that their giantish relative will hear about it and seek revenge.

3. Naked and wielding a sharp rock (as a handaxe). Blessed by the spirits of wild places and immune to damage from all crafted weapons. Loses this power if they ever wear clothing or any crafted thing. Covered in lice, but possesses a statuesque physique and kingly demeanor.

4. Capable of absolutely insane jumps. Like 50' horizontal. Always jumps into combat with a spear, dealing double damage. Covered in red body paint with dozens of bird skulls woven into their hair.

5. Wears the fur of a cave bear. Skull belt buckle. Possesses strength equivalent to a hill giant, as well as a hill giant's ability to throw stones, which they will do from a distance before melee.

6. Carries an enormous wineskin full of fermented goat's milk. Wears a stupid hat (ironically) taken from some milklander they killed. Will drink booze while they fight, getting drunker and drunker. Each round they will get -1 to hit and +2 damage. After 1d3+3 rounds of drinking, they will pass out and begin snoring loudly.

7. Raised by wolves. Wears wolf head over their own head. Fights with a pair of kukris. Only speaks in howls and other wolf noises, even to other barbarians, who must also treat this elite as if they were a wolf. Is accompanied by their loyal mate, another wolf. If both attack the same target in unison (as they usually do), they both get +2 to hit.

8. Possessed by a demon. Wears a mask painted to look like a tusked red demon face. Actual face is much more terrifying, the result of decades of demonic possession. If there is any roleplaying going on, they attempt to intimidate the party through self-mutilation. Is especially vicious and cruel. Wounds inflicted by their battleaxe are cursed, and cannot heal normally until the curse is lifted. Will always coup-de-grace injured characters.

9. Axemaster. Steely-eyed exemplar of barbarian fighting techniques. Wears a dark green cloak and has a face covered with tattoos. Eagle feathers braided into hair and eagle claws hanging from belt. Fights with a pair of handaxes. Whenever someone attacks the axemaster In melee and misses, the axemaster gets a free attack against them.

10. Tremendously fat. Has +10 HP. Carries a bandolier full of rabid weasels, which they will throw at people before closing into melee. If they trip or fall over, 2d6 rabid weasels will escape, half of which will run away, and the other half will join combat. Speed as dwarf.