Essence of the Barbarian
By drinking this blood-red essence that tastes of strong but favourable ale suited to your palate, with faint undertones of sweat and tears, you gain:
- Superhuman strength, speed, and stamina that will grow with time, training and combat, but that starts at a point where you can easily lift modestly sized boulders and shatter them, outpace a sprinting horse, and have the endurance to do both for a week straight without rest.
- Superhuman dexterity and coordination, enough to snatch an arrow out of the air even when loosed from a multi-hundred-pound bow while writing with your toes that will grow along a similar curve to your other physical capabilities.
- Extreme vitality that will allow you to shrug off and fight through mortal injuries and dozens of bleeding wounds unhindered while giving you a fair shot at surviving them afterwards. This also grants you resistance to most poisons and diseases, allowing you to survive things that might slay lesser humans and an extended lifespan during which you age slower.
- The ability to bounce back from even crippling injuries in short order, provided you survive, not quite on the level of regeneration. With this, you are the embodiment of "that which does not kill you has made a tactical error".
- Resistance to curses, hexes, and various other malicious or unwanted magic effects. It's not full immunity, but like your other abilities, with time and exposure, this can grow to such a degree that whether or not you're actually immune may be called into question. Before that point, it makes breaking or undermining such enchantments (including prophecies) far easier.
- The power to slay even allegedly immortal/unkillable/deathless/amortal people/things/enemies with enough dedicated effort, including those under games that made them practically immune to damage outside of specific circumstances. No matter what it is, you can eventually kill it if you chop it into enough pieces and then walk away confident in the knowledge that once you've finished murdalizing the hell out of it, it won't be getting back up again, even if all other gods, powers and forces in existence agree that it should.
- A keen mind and sharp instincts honed for combat, complete with a great knowledge of how to fight both armed and unarmed, which is utterly immune to the ravages of age and times.
- Multitasking, which allows you to track the happenings of an entire battlefield at once while still being able to hold your own in a fight as though you were giving your enemies your full attention.
- A surprising talent for languages, which you can learn in a surprisingly short time on your own, usually in less than a month, and far faster with someone assisting you. Learning a language includes reading and writing as well as the spoken word, even if your only source is a stone slab with some lines carved into it or a random fool spouting utter gibberish in your direction with no context. After all, it's hard to work for, conquer, or extort people if you can't understand them.
- Great charisma to sway lesser men and women and inspire in them courage or fear, as you prefer.
- Immunity to psychological trauma from sources including, but not limited to, combat, bloodshed, death, gore and more.
- Willpower sufficient to withstand crushing defeat, decades of torture, untold suffering and many other horrible things, including That Which Man Was Not Meant to Know and still be able to carry on as you please.
- An immense capacity for alcohol, such that you could drink entire pantheons under the table and still be ready for more with a little practice.
- A stomach capable of digesting and deriving nutrition from virtually anything to little or no ill effect, including rocks if you get truly desperate (or if you feel like showing off by eating a bowl of nails for breakfast, without milk, of course)
- Near limitless sexual stamina and an innate knack for pleasing your lovers such that lesser lovers may not be able to satisfy them in the future, this can be quite handy in breaking people to your will if you so desire. Also comes with a talent for Wenching*.
-A one-time reshaping of your body, defaulting to a tall and powerfully muscled body of your gender that is guaranteed to look incredible even (or especially) if clad only in small scraps of fabric that barely preserve modesty. Your assets, by default, will be large and impressive, but they will never hinder you in any manner, either by getting in the way or by being incompatible with your lovers. Your appearance is completely customizable (yes, you can even become a scrawny, pale nerd capable of breaking stones with your bare hands and fighting like a savage, but the other barbarians will tease you mercilessly even if you slay them all), but all injuries will automatically be healed, and all physical and mental illnesses will be cured. After all, being a Barbarian is no fun if you're a sick, crippled, nervous wreck.
*Wenching in this context is a gender neutral term and applies to any person you find physically attractive (Wenches) no matter their gender, this talent makes getting them into bed with you far easier even if you're blatantly Wenching multiple Wenches at once and even if they don't usually swing that way.