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PLAYER S GUIDE TO FIGHTERS AND BARBARIANS
Listen well, little one — listen closely, for your ancestors listen closely. Watch carefully, for the spirits around you watch carefully. Understand the ways of our people, my children, for in the spirits around us you have allies undreamt of by the fools who rot within their city walls. —
Ciliaja of the Frostfang, Helliann teacher
W HAT B ARBARI ANS B ELIEVE Nearly all barbarian cultures share a few key ideas about how the world works, and what is required of them within the grand scheme of things. Different cultures, and even individual tribes within each culture, have their own ideas about what’s most important — but very few would deny any of these tenets. Civilized peoples disagree, barbarians say, because they’ve turned their backs on one or more of these truths or were so poorly taught that they never learned them in the first place. But that is the weakness of the cities, and the barbarian people hardly see it as their role to educate their adversaries. • The World Is One. There is one creation. It has many parts, but they are all parts of one thing. It might be harder to ride from the Kelder Steppes to the thrones of the gods than to ride from the Kelders to Albadia, but
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both are possible. It makes sense to speak of the individual parts of creation separately, just as it does to identify each part of a bow or a saddle. But just as you put the pieces back together to actually use the bow and the saddle, so with creation: in practice, it all ties together. • Nature Makes No Mistakes. Every creature with the power of choice does err from time to time, and some have trapped themselves so thoroughly in ignorance and delusion that they err all the time. Nothing else in creation is like that. Even the most unpleasant realities belong in the world, and thus, our world needs them. You may not like death and pain and despair, but they belong there just as much as you do. Depending on what brought you together with dying, suffering and losing hope, they may belong a lot more than you do — if it’s your own foolish decisions that now threaten to overwhelm you. Never for a moment think that the world is “nice” or that it likes you and cares about your wellbeing. If you die, there are plenty more people
